Grassroots Economics
The people of Ithaca, NY, are printing their own currency and building community and autonomy
Many communities are giving up waiting on large corporations or government to invest or provide jobs, and are instead building on their own strengths and resources.
The people of Ithaca have done so by issuing their own paper currency, called Ithaca HOURS. Residents list the goods or services they have to offer in a large catalog - and then use the HOURS they earn to purchase goods and services from others. For some, this barter system provides a crucial margin of financial support. For others, it's a great way to meet people and build a sense of community. All find their spending habits redirected locally.
Here in Ithaca, New York, we've begun to gain control of the social and environmental effects of commerce by issuing over $50,000 of our own local paper money, to over 950 participants, since 1991. Thousands of purchases and many new friendships have been made with this cash, and about $500,000 of local trade has been added to the Grassroots National Product.
We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and to fight wars. Ithaca HOURS, by contrast, stay in our region to help us hire each other. While dollars make us increasingly dependent on multinational corporations and bankers, HOURS reinforce community trade and expand commerce that is more responsive to our concern for ecology and social justice.
Here's how it works. The Ithaca HOUR is Ithaca's $10 bill, because $10 per hour is the average of wages/salaries in Tompkins County. These HOUR notes, in four denominations, buy plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, roofing, nursing, chiropractic care, child care, car and bike repair, food, eyeglasses, firewood, gifts, and thousands of other goods and services. Our credit union accepts them for mortgage and loan fees. People pay rent with HOURS. The best restaurants in town take them, as do movie theaters, bowling alleys, health clubs, two large locally-owned grocery stores, and 30 farmers' market vendors. Anyone may use HOURS, and hundreds have done so.
Ithaca's new HOURly minimum wage, enforced by general consent, lifts the lowest pay up without knocking down higher wages. For example, several of Ithaca's organic farmers are paying the highest farm labor wages in the Western Hemisphere: $10 of spending power per hour. These farmers benefit by the HOUR's loyalty to local agriculture. On the other hand, dentists, massage therapists and lawyers charging more than the $10 average per hour are permitted to collect several HOURS hourly, although we hear increasingly of professional services provided for our equitable wage.
Everyone who agrees to accept HOURS is paid two HOURS (worth $20) for being listed in our newsletter Ithaca Money. Every eight months they may apply to be paid an additional two HOURS, as reward for continuing participation. This is how we gradually and carefully increase the per capita supply of our money.
Ithaca's printed currency honors local features we respect, like native flowers, powerful waterfalls, crafts, farms, and our children. The multi-colored HOURS - some printed on locally-made watermarked cattail (marsh reed) paper, all with serial numbers - are harder to counterfeit than US dollars.
We regard Ithaca HOURS as real money, backed by real people, real time, real skills and tools. Dollars, by contrast, are funny money, backed no longer by gold or silver but by less than nothing: $4.8 trillion of national debt.
Ithaca Money's 1,200 listings, rivaling the Yellow Pages, are a portrait of our community's capability, bringing into the marketplace time and skills not employed by the conventional market. Residents are proud of income earned by doing work they enjoy.
At the same time Ithaca's locally-owned stores, which help keep wealth local, make sales and get spending power they otherwise would not have. And over $4,000 of local currency has been donated to 22 community organizations so far by our wide-open governing body.
As we discover new ways to provide for each other, we replace dependence on imports. Yet our greater self-reliance, rather than isolating Ithaca, gives us more potential to reach outward with ecological export industry. We can provide the capital for new businesses with loans of our own cash. HOUR loans are made without interest charges.
Alternative or Community Currencies
The dollar is not just in decline - it’s a mess!
As the Poor Man has reported, several states are now accepting or in the process of accepting gold and silver rather than Federal Reserve Notes due to their inflation-prone status.
According to the US Treasury, the Coinage Act of 1965, there is no statute mandating a private business must accept currency or coins for payment of goods and service.
Currently, there are more than 150 alternative currencies being accepted around the country. In some states, retailers now have signs in place announcing they accept the Euro, the Loon or even the Peso.
In some foreign countries such as China, place a limit on the amount of US currency which can be exchanged. India has announced they will no longer accept US dollars and Amsterdam severely limits where one can exchange US dollars. Even the Chicago Mercantile Exchange now accepts gold to settle futures contracts.
The United Nations is warning that the U.S. dollar could collapse. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent news report put out by Reuters....
The United Nations warned on Wednesday of a possible crisis of confidence in, and even a “collapse” of, the U.S. dollar if its value against other currencies continued to decline.
In a mid-year review of the world economy, the UN economic division said such a development, stemming from the falling value of foreign dollar holdings, would imperil the global financial system.
Learn more about a very successful community organization at:
www.berkshares.org
Complementary Currency Magazine
April Issue out now!
The CC Magazine is a monthly magazine about the activities of the complementary / community currency movement worldwide. This month's issue features stories from New Zealand, America, Hungary, Australia and the UK.
Click on the image above, or go to http://www.ccmag.net
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/local_currencies.html
http://www.berkshares.org/about/index.htm
The End of State Controlled (funny) Money?
Reason.tv: Bitcoin & the End of State-Controlled Money
Bitcoin is the world's first fully decentralized, peer-to-peer (p2p) virtual currency. It allows users to make anonymous and untraceable cash transactions anywhere in the world without any sort of real-world intermediary. So unlike PayPal and other online services, it can't be squeezed in the same way by governments or other control agents. Just how revolutionary is Bitcoin? Reason.tv sat down with Mercatus Senior Research Fellow Jerry Brito to learn how Bitcoin operates and what the implications are for traditional state-based fiat currencies. "Whether Bitcoin succeeds or fails is neither here nor there," says Brito, who predicts that currencies in the future will almost certainly be deregulated and decentralized - with or without governments' consent.
More about Bitcoin...
The demand for a totally free market currency arose, naturally, out of the dismal state of the current monetary environment, in which governments around the world systematically debase the value of their printed monies in order to pay for the various welfare-warfare states they promised but can't possibly afford. The resulting inflation is sometimes referred to as a "sneaky tax," one that silently, insidiously infiltrates the marketplace, with each freshly-inked dollar compromising the value and integrity of each and every currency unit already in circulation.
"Advocates of a small but fast-growing digital currency network called bitcoin think they've found the answer (or, at the very least, an answer). If it is successful, claim its adherents, this totally- decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) currency could supplant the world's central bank-issued money, potentially providing savvy speculators with an opportunity to cash in on the greatest politically motivated market distortion of our time."
The currency also makes redundant the concept of a central bank, Federal Reserve or any other such easily corruptible nonsense institutions. For starters, bitcoins are not generated, but rather awarded to miners - individual computers participating in the network - as a reward for processing transactions and securing the bitcoin currency network, thus providing an entirely decentralized, highly competitive marketplace, much like the Internet itself. What's more, the amount of bitcoins is strictly (mathematically) limited to 21 million coins. There are currently about 6.5 million coins in circulation and anywhere up to half a million dollars worth (at today's exchange rate) changes hands daily. As more and more coins are mined, the difficulty (amount of CPU required to mine each coin) increases exponentially, ensuring a steady (though ultimately finite) supply.
As more and more vendors begin accepting bitcoins as form of payment for goods and services, the universe expands against the number of available coins in circulation, thereby driving the value of the currency ever higher. (bitcoin was trading for about B$1 = US$8. Today it hit B$1 = US$14.25.)
Grassroots Economics Resources
Here are some resources to get you started on local currency and other aspects of community economics.
Hometown Money Starter Kit
Ithaca Money
Explains step-by-step start up and maintenance of a local currency barter system. Includes forms, laws, articles, procedures, and samples of Ithaca's HOURS. They've sent the Kit to over 300 communities in 45 states.
LANDSMAN Community Services
1660 Embleton Cres.
Courtenay, BC V9N 6N8, Canada
(lcs@mars.ark.com)
Start-up information for LETS (Local Economic Trading System), a computer barter system trading Green Dollars, invented by Michael Linton.
New Money for Healthy Communities
Tom Greco
Box 42663, Tucson, AZ. 85733 (000569074@mcimail.com)
$15.95 plus $2.00 shipping
The first book about the main benefits and types of local currency.
Time Dollar Network
Box 42160, Washington, DC. 20015
National clearinghouse for information about service credit/time dollar programs invented by Edgar Cahn, including a directory and organizing assistance.
Economic Renewal Program
Rocky Mountain Institute
1739 Snowmass Creek Rd
Snowmass, CO 81654-9199
tel: 970/927-3807
fax 970/927-4510