Alternative Currency research and resources

Some guy just posted the location of this Yahoo! group on Ellen Brown's Google group [Public Banking]. I feel much less lonely now! http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ijccr/message/8670

I'll just throw the contents up in further posts.

New Approach to a Typology of Complementary Currencies
IJCCR: International Journal of Community Currency Research

http://www.ijccr.net

A New Approach to a Typology of


Complementary Currencies

Jens Martignoni A1-17
http://www.ijccr.net/IJCCR/2012_(16)_files/IJCCR%202012%20Martignoni.pdf

Well over 5,000 complementary currency systems have been established worldwide to date. They range from very large systems, such as the WIR-Cooperation Ring, to small neighbour to neighbour exchange circles. Such a diverse range of currency types has developed that it is almost impossible to get an overview of the whole field. This article attempts to strip CC money down to its basic features and then develop a typology of the various complementary currencies. An important foundation for this is the work of the independent American scholar Edwin C. Riegel (1879-1953), who developed his own perspective on money that is still not accepted by mainstream scholarship. This work was revived and further developed by Thomas H. Greco, a contemporary monetary thinker. Another basis is the consideration of money as a purpose-driven means for the organization of human relations. The article presents an evaluation system that enables the characterization of the vast majority of complementary currencies. The typology derived from it allows for a clearer characterization of the individual systems than was possible with previous approaches. This article is an excerpt from a thesis on complementary currencies by the author in The Institute for Research on Management of Associations, Foundations and Cooperatives (VMI) at the Economic and Social Sciences Faculty University of Fribourg/Switzerlan d.

Here's a list of German local currencies, all with their information easily referenced from this directory page named "Regiogeld". There's so much going on in Germany, it's really exciting. It's cool to see which systems are growing and what is working in their newest round of local currency experiments. My first introduction with local currencies was actually in an antique store in Celle, Germany in 1992. The store's owner had several photo album type binders full of old local currencies from the depression and hyperinflation times. I found the "Notgeld" -"emergency money"- fascinating. But I had no clue as to how they might have functioned. The fact that they were in the antique shop and not in circulation hinted that they perhaps didn't function very well. One in particular I remember well- it had the rhyme printed on it:

"Hört ihr Schieber, ihr wisst,
das Schieben verboten ist.
Doch könnt ihr das Schieben nicht lassen sein,
so schiebt ihr in Zukunft nur diesen Schein!"

That rhyme hardly instilled confidence in the currency- it was meant to remind the bearer of the desperate circumstances that brought about it's existence. It says: Listen all you smugglers, you know that smuggling is forbidden. But you just won't leave smuggling alone, the only thing you'll have left to smuggle in the future is this piece of paper! During the inflation the Germans were cruelly reminded that money is not wealth, real stuff to support life is wealth. And all the real wealth fled across the borders to be replaced only with paper. This time the German people seem serious about floating currencies meant to last and not just as emergency measures. And unlike in the case of Schwanenkirchen, the Government has not yet shut them down because so far the systems have been sticklers at rendering unto Caeser that which is Caeser's. Google chrome is pretty cool- the translation feature is decent. It gives a pretty good idea what is meant in the text on the German web-pages.

http://www.regiogeld.de/initiativen.html?&no_cache=1&tx_regioinidb_pi1[sort]=name&tx_regioinidb_pi1[mode]=list&tx_regioinidb_pi1[pointer]=0

I keep going back to tribal forms to seek answers. What is it about us humans that makes us seek justice, that makes us seek relationships with each other, that enables us to co-operate? That causes us to use money? That makes us... human? I thought this article was fascinating and relevant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00rdps3