Government and regulators have not always supported currency innovation – from the Austrian Central Bank’s infamous closure of the highly successful local currency in Wörgl in the 1930s to today’s lack of clarity, in many jurisdictions, on the tax and social benefit implications of LETS and timebank income (covered in Chapter 6). Such uncertainty can impede projects’ collaboration with regulators or the public sector.
Conversely, however, some local authorities, city councils, regional governments and – most recently – the European Union have started to engage with and explore community currencies. This growing interest is largely thanks to the determined efforts of NGOs (non- governmental organisations) running currency schemes, who have presented strong cases to public funders to support such schemes.
The backing of currency projects by public bodies offers not only a potential remedy for the many funding cuts that have ravaged countries since the 2008 financial crisis, but also an improvement to public services and policies beyond what money can buy.
CCIA launched in 2011 to demonstrate the potential of currency schemes to a transnational audience of policymakers, governmental agents and the communities they serve across the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. Several projects have since arisen with backing from local authorities.
The council of Lambeth in London, a CCIA partner, co- operated with the Brixton Pound to enable participating businesses to pay taxes in the local currency. Bristol City Council followed suit when the Bristol Pound launched in 2012, giving SMEs a broad chain of spending opportunities right from the start.
In 2011, the City of Ghent in Belgium rented out gardening spaces for a newly created social currency, the Torekes, which can be earned through many activities aimed at improving the built environment and community spirit of one of the country’s most disadvantaged areas.
The city of St. Gallen, Switzerland, launched a time-credit scheme – the Zeitvorsoge initiative – to complement its ever- stretched pension and healthcare systems. The scheme allows people to earn and save credits by providing care services to elderly citizens.
These credits can then be redeemed for care services in the future, when earners might themselves require assistance.
Guaranteed by the city authority, this convincingly demonstrates how social-security systems can be bolstered without significant funding increases or reducing public services elsewhere.
The city of Nantes in France has mandated its public lending institution, the Crédit Municipal, to develop a currency for the city and its metropolitan region. Together with CCIA , the SoNantes was launched in 2015 as a ground-breaking regional currency model, providing interest-free liquidity for SMEs.
- SoNantes
These examples are a new milestone for currency projects and, increasingly, specially designed currencies are being discussed as financial solutions for larger constituencies, with government bodies taking note of their benefits.
There is an emerging demand for democratically determined economics that make the most of what money, as a tool, can offer – demonstrated by the dozens of proposals drawn up in recent years for a countrywide second Greek currency to allow it to stay within the Eurozone.
Complementary systems have been proposed to bolster, in a variety of ways, Greece’s domestic market, which has all but collapsed under austerity measures. With the victory of Syriza in the general elections and new finance minister Yanis Varoufakis in post, ideas for a complementary currency have seen a renaissance in early 2015.
Nation-states are, however, not the only big players to have opened their eyes to complementary currency models. Linden dollars (the currency of virtual world Second Life) and Bitcoin have been integrated into banking systems; large corporations too have initiated currency systems – for profit-driven purposes – such as Amazon Points, Google Wallet and Apple Pay. The rapid development of digital payment systems further demonstrates that money is a tool to be shaped and used.
In reality, money is simply a social technology and the ways in which it is designed, produced and controlled – far from being neutral or predetermined factors – all influence the effects it has upon society at large. Recognising this is the first step towards creating currencies as instruments for the benefit of particular communities.
# See also - Contents - People Powered Money