Back to the present, we have had two decades of experiments worldwide with community currencies (CCs) on every continent in many different social and economic settings. They work. They keep wealth flowing locally, they help people make new friends, rebuild community spirit and stay sane. Many have failed due to poor design.

I am currently writing a community currency design manual which suggests that there are five areas that currency designers need to pay attention to in designing sustainable CCs: Operating Environment, Governance, Management, Functions & Services provided and Participants. When we design for all of these then we will have more successes than failures and begin to see more CCs really flying.

For more resources and to stay in touch with my work go to: http://www.valueforpeople.co.uk

Best wishes

John Rogers

Dan, let me know how I can help - one of the things I’m good at is finding other people who can help too by finding people who are excited about certain ideas and values…

Let’s figure it out. What do we need to make it happen?

I’ll check out what’s possible.

In the United States, the Free Banking Era lasted between 1837 and 1866, when almost anyone could issue paper money. States, municipalities, private banks, railroad and construction companies, stores, restaurants, churches and individuals printed an estimated 8,000 different monies by 1860. If an issuer went bankrupt, closed, left town, or otherwise went out of business the note would be worthless. Such organizations earned the nickname of “wildcat banks” for a reputation of unreliability; they were often situated in remote, unpopulated locales said to be inhabited more by wildcats than by people. Yet according to Lawrence H. White’s article in The Freeman “it turns out that ‘wildcat’ banking is largely a myth. Although stories about crooked banking practices are entertaining—and for that reason have been repeated endlessly by textbooks—modern economic historians have found that there were in fact very few banks that fit any reasonable definition of wildcat bank.” The National Bank Act of 1863 ended the “wildcat bank” period.

An infusion of local scrip into a community’s economy can ameliorate, as could no other instrument, crippling cash shortages due to unemployment, under-employment, personal financial distress and bankruptcies, once again establishing liquidity and equity in our local financial transactions.

But is local scrip a legal tender, you ask? According to the experts, local currency provides a completely legal, debt free and people friendly means of exchange, serving only the needs of the local community.

In “Rethinking Our Centralized Monetary System,” law professor Lewis Soloman states, “There is no legal prohibition to local scrip, community currencies or private exchange systems in the United States. The fact that there have been no challenges to the systems already in operation support that finding. Taxation operates under the same fundamental rules of trading with the national currency.”

“They’re like Disney Dollars,” says Betsy Holahan, a spokesperson for the Treasury Department. “There is no requirement that businesses must accept U.S. currency.”

What’s to stop local firms issuing gift certificates, redeemable in the community? Presumably there’s something that makes this illegal to prevent local currencies arising.

I’m not sure there is anything illegal about this… It is the essence of what Ithaca Hours is all about

http://www.ithacahours.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_hours

I wonder if there is a way to scrape the $1.50’s or 43 cents or what have u off of these gift cards and pool the money into something that can be useful.

Let’s figure it out. What do we need to make it happen?

In the cashless society you’ll only be able to spend money in approved stores. You won’t be able to give it to your mates.

See:

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007/10/15/cash-in-a-cashless-society/

Ever noticed how when you pay chip and pin it’s made very clear that the transaction isn’t between you and the shopkeeper, but between both of you and the machine?

What is chip and pin?

In the cashless society you’ll only be able to spend money in approved stores. You won’t be able to give it to your mates.

Ever noticed how when you pay chip and pin it’s made very clear that the transaction isn’t between you and the shopkeeper, but between both of you and the machine?

http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/cashl...-cash_cx_em_money06_0214cashless.html
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/2/17/01751/6504