Scrip money, or ‘stamp scrip’, refers to a number of paper-based complementary currencies that rose to prominence during the Great Depression, particularly in the United States, Austria and Germany.
Aiming to match unused productive capacity with unmet needs as the conventional money supply contracted, scrip money incorporated some form of demurrage, or negative interest.
This required stamps to be purchased at regular intervals in order for the money to remain valid at face value, effectively decreasing the value of stamp scrip over time and thereby incentivising spending and discouraging hoarding.
The history of complementary currencies is complex and deeply connected to developments in society, social sciences and technology: indeed, in both forms and objectives, currencies tend to evolve alongside other social changes. As with much else, the history of this evolution is characterised by ebbs and flows, with recurring elements, rediscoveries and forgotten cases.
The broad category of complementary currencies – in other words, currencies that complement a dominant form – naturally requires the dominance of one, central, official currency to which all others appear as complementary.
However, we should also shed the common assumption that contemporary economies revolve around only one kind of money. Dominant currencies have always and everywhere been supplemented by others.