Introduction

Money holds many mysteries. Where does it come from? How did it evolve? Who creates it and controls it? Why do we never seem to have enough? This book will help to unravel some of the mysteries of money and to explain how communities can create their own money.

This might seem outlandish to those with no experience of the community currency movement, but the depth of historical experience and breadth of present-day practice testify to the power and potential of currency innovations to make the world a better place.

The abundance of concepts and terminology that has emerged from the world of currency design can be intimidating for those new to the subject. One way of cutting through this is to think of money – in the broadest sense of the word – as a social technology.

As with any technology, money is designed and implemented to achieve certain objectives. With mainstream money, such as the national or transnational currencies we use every day, these objectives are obscured – precisely because, paradoxically, the medium and usage is so familiar and unremarkable.

However, rather than merely the oil that eases transactions, money – as social technology – can never be ‘neutral’. Indeed, this conception has been increasingly challenged by critical economists, who identify negative economic, environmental and societal consequences from how conventional monetary systems are designed and managed.

From their earliest incarnations to most contemporary systems, currencies can be thought of as records of transactions. Whereas previously these records were stored on tablets and then books, today most are kept electronically, in a purely digital form. In fact, new communication technologies are widely predicted to herald the ‘end of cash’. In place of handing over a piece of paper or a coin as a record of exchange, computers can now tally transactions much more efficiently.

As distant as an entirely paperless economy might still seem in many parts of the world, it will become increasingly widespread due to the advancing digital revolution. Indeed, many aspects of money today already seem in a state of transformation not dissimilar to the overhaul of transportation and production when steam power sparked the industrial revolution. These profound changes bring both great risks and exciting opportunities to reconsider and redesign money to better serve human society and our natural environment.