the 1st comment to the previous posted article is just as interesting as the original post, so here it is:
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Comments
This amused me: abebooks.com
Posted by: Ben Hyde | Tuesday, 24 June 2008 at 07:23 PM
"Allow community members to use it to pay all or part of their tax liabilities to local governments. This instantly establishes a market for the currency. Also, pay local government employees a portion of their wages in scrip."
Thus transforming Scrip into "Money" or more properly, currency.
Throwback to the pre-Greenback, post-Second bank of the united States era when the Federal Government permitted private and state banks to issue their own banknotes
Posted by: zenpundit | Tuesday, 24 June 2008 at 11:03 PM
I have to admit, as the granddaughter of an Appalachian coal miner who was paid in company scrip, it's a bit disconcerting to hear the term used in a positive way. See en.wikipedia.org if you aren't familiar with the historic connotations. I have on my desk a set of scrip from my grandfather's employer, to remind me of why corporate control of economies is a bad idea.
That said, the (re?)surgence of non-corporate, community-managed local currencies is great, if for nothing more than it enables a certain transitional legitimation to the average "consumer" of what is at the core a traditional village-barter economy. At a minimum, it gets people to think about what is local, and where the "real" money they spend is actually going. Kind of the Swiss Army knife of economic tools.
However, at least in the US, it's not likely that local governments will be able to support such an effort, or that banks will be able to offer accounts, due to laws about what constitutes "legal tender." (*ahem*Liberty Dollar*ahem* en.wikipedia.org Unless, of course, the coming economic crisis is such that the government is disempowered from enforcing interstate commerce laws - i.e. we reach Dmitry Orlov's Collapse Stage 3 - at which point local currencies may very well become a primary tool in fending off Orlov's Stage 4. Hence, resilience. (http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/02/five-stages-of-collapse.html)
Posted by: katuah | Wednesday, 25 June 2008 at 04:09 PM
A scripless currency is time exchanges. Time Dollars is probably the most widely used of this concept. Barbara Brandt's _Whole Life Economics_ is a good source on both local currencies and time exchanges as well as other economic alternatives. She's just finished the first draft of another book on the Solidarity Economy.
Of course, all of these alternatives to the present, corporate economic system will have to survive the tremendous co-optation methods the present, corporate system can deploy. Remember that ESOT's (Employee Stock Ownership Trusts, were originally conceived of as a way to provide real ownership and second income opportunities for employees of large corporations. Didn't exactly work out that way.
Posted by: gmoke | Thursday, 26 June 2008 at 12:24 AM
I believe Douglas Rushkoff (http://rushkoff.com/) is writing a book which at least touches on the subject of local currencies. No idea when it's scheduled to come out though. |
