Alternative Currencies as utopian practice

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Alternative Currencies as utopian practice?

• Peter North, University of Liverpool

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OK so what would YOU do different?????
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The politics of alternative money

• The money we use is simply a social
  construction, a collective agreement to accept a
  certain form of measurement, store of value, and
  unit of exchange.
• Once we accept that money is not a thing out
  there, external to us, but a social
  construction, it follows that we can change it
• We can make collective agreements to use other
  forms of money that will operate (at least) as
  effectively as the money issued by states which
  have in the past claimed a monopoly on the right
  to issue money.

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Better Money?

• Values people and work before profitability
• Stresses liquidity to ensure that needs get met
  before artificial scarcity to ensure labour
  discipline and exchange rate or price stability
• Locally owned and controlled.
• Variety to avoid vulnerability to crisis in money
  monocultures.
• Localised by having a limited geographical
  coverage, encouraging the development of
  sustainable, localised economies.

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A humane economy

• I see it as a balanced economy - a balance
  between men and women, between the masculine and
  feminine in each of us... An economy that calls
  on each of us to practice in that kind of way is
  more likely to soften people than this horrendous
  situation that frightens so many people - men as
  much as women
• The LETS community does look at a
  transaction as a relationship whereas the
  commercial world looks upon a transaction as a
  transaction. You need some respect for the person
  you are dealing with as you know they don't have
  to do it. It's got to be mutually beneficial,
  whereas a transaction in the real world does not
  have to be...there's an imbalance of power.

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A demonstrator of liberation

• To me LETS is mainly about the.....educative
  thing. I mean, the kind of capitalist cynicism
  that goes around, about market forces and about
  the laws of supply and demand and about people
  being basically greedy gits that rip people off
  all the time, I think LETS is a good way of
  demonstrating, 'No - that's not actually true'.
  People are capable of being like that but they
  are also capable of being different. LETS is a
  good way of demonstrating to people even if they
  are not actually involved in it. They can see,
  well there's a community, a community that's
  scattered around Manchester."

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From Owen to Hayek

• "such demands have been raised over and over
  again by a long series of cranks with strong
  inflationist inclinations.......they all agitated
  for free issue because they wanted more money.
  Often a suspicion that the government monopoly
  was inconsistent with the general principle of
  the freedom of enterprise underlay their
  argument, but without exception they all believed
  that monopoly had led to an undue restriction
  rather than an excessive supply of money."
• Hayek (199012).

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Short cut to social change?

• "In part (the proletariat) throws itself into
  doctrinaire experiments, exchange banks and
  workers associations, hence into a movement in
  which it renounces the revolutionising of the old
  world by means of the latter's own great,
  combined resources, and seeks, rather, to achieve
  its salvation behind society's back, in private
  fashion, within its limited conditions of
  existence, and hence necessarily suffers
  shipwreck."
• (Marx 1852).

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Inadequate?

• Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms to
  which the individual wage slaves can elaborate it
  by their private efforts, the co-operative system
  will never transform society. To convert social
  production into one large and harmonious system
  of free and co-operative labour, general social
  changes are wanted, changes in the general
  conditions of society, never to be realised save
  by the transfer of the organised forces of
  society, viz. the state power, from capitalists
  and landlords to the producers themselves.

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The politics of money.

• Utopian socialism and time money.
• Populism and co-operation.
• Social Credit and the Green Shirts.
• Social Credit and anti-semitism.
• Depression era stamp scrip and swaps
• Silvio Gesell and rusting money.

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National Equitable Labour Exchange 1832-4Uses
money based on TIME.
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Problems of Owenism 1832-4.

• Set up quickly and undercapitalised could not
  afford the rent evicted.
• The poorest need help to set up their
  co-operatives, no cash to do that.
• People allowed to set own estimate of time How
  to pay for slower workers prices rise.
• How to differentiate between levels of efficiency.

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Problems with Owenism

• Inability to buy basics for labour notes.
• Could not live on labour notes alone heavily
  discounted by middlemen.
• Women object to shopping under the male gaze.
• False exchanges that ripped the poor off.
• Attacked as atheistic, communistic.
• Poor regulation led to disputes between traders,
  no enforcement by courts.

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Mass usage in Argentina
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The rise (and fall) of Trueque.

• Begun 1995, Quilmes by PAR. 20 traders.
• By 2001, claims of 4,500 markets used by half a
  million people spending 600 million credits
  (Norman 2002). Probably more..
• December 2001 financial crisis comes to a head,
  coralito imposed.
• 2002 Unquantifiable mass usage.
• November 2002 Trueque attacked on TV, newspapers.
  Confidence drops overnight.
• 2003 10-30 (varies) of nodos remain.

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La Economia Solidaria.

• Dont buy credits. All this does is fatten the
  pockets of the unscrupulous people who are
  selling them.
• Produce with solidarity. Take what you can
  produce and what you know others will need to the
  market.
• Distribute with solidarity. Dont trade all of
  your products with one prosumer. Let many people
  have the chance to obtain your products.
• Consume with solidarity. Only consume what is
  necessary, and give other prosumers the
  opportunity to consume the same as you.

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They dont last very long Lessons from New
Zealand
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Explaining longevity

• Rural, not urban. Especially top of South Island.
  
• UK networks within cites as well as rural.
• Post-materialist hippies.
• A well rooted, committed activist at its heart
  with support network.
• Efficient and timely admin of accounts and
  directories.
• Small number of active local members, but strong
  bonds of affection/political/religious view and
  support.
• Members educated so they understand relationship
  trading and how to work the system.
• Attracted natural wheeler-deelers and young
  families offered and wanted what the network
  could provide.
• Commitment building mechanisms either formal or
  through a shared ethos. Defection penalised.
  Commitment building events markets, parties
  etc.

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Alternative currencies as social change mechanisms

• As utopian politics - demonstration of
  possibilities, but limited by economic stress.
• Learning about money, society, and work - and
  learning to live better.
• Money - some reformulation of codes and
  creativity - hindered by lack of resources, time,
  distance, and opportunities to trade.
• Livelihood - considerable reformulation of codes.
  Money makes alternative livelihoods possible.
• Heterospace is possible now within resource
  constraints (if that is an attractive lifestyle).

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Post industrial utopians.

• Ordinary people in the c21st are able to rise
  above dwarfish co-operation
• They individually and collectively possess more
  material goods.
• They are able to form networks using modern IT.
• The political environment is more benign.
• The environment for forming small businesses is
  much more benign, and opportunities for forming
  livelihoods based on services much greater.
• The looming environmental and resource crisis
  might mean we have no options.
• We now understand economic pluralism. Not
  everyone wants paid work for an employer (in the
  North, at least.)
• BUT what are the possibilities for alternative
  production given small scale resources?