We also chose to use an electronic mutual credit platform, not only because paper money is more expensive to produce and to secure, but because mutual credit literally creates money, and therefore opportunity, by virtue of its very structure. We decided to begin with a membership comprised only of locally owned businesses to create a robust economic base for our currency. Our neighbors in Massachusetts, founders of Berkshares, provided very valuable advice. We reached out to other local currency projects, from those in neighboring counties and states to those across the globe. Gradually, we discovered like-minded folks and formed a more formal group with a board of directors, a fiscal sponsor, and a small office and staff that consisted of a part-time executive director and an intern.
Keep it local free#
The local Transition movement, which consisted of a several efforts like a tool library and free health care clinic, as well as an enthusiastic core group of more than 100, helped us coalesce and spread the word among interested community members. We tabled at festivals and conferences and were able to introduce the concept to hundreds of people, sign them up to our email list, and welcome many as members. We sponsored events, showing films about money followed by Q+A panels. We read and discussed the opinions of thought leaders like Thomas Greco and David Korten. We held regular study and work group meetings for several years to learn about all these aspects of currency, economics, and more. Local currency also builds awareness and a sense of economic community - qualities that are sorely lacking in the impersonal national and international levels of the economy. Local currency encourages and enhances that behavior, simply because the currency must be used in that area. Studies show that buying locally has a strong multiplier effect in terms of the circulation and retention of money within a community or region. This is a significant fact in light of the oppressive role that interest-bearing debt, and money issued on that basis, plays in the conventional economy.Īll local currencies have the intent and effect of encouraging people to trade within a specific region. The mutual credit that backs the Hudson Valley Current is interest free. When one member pays another member, the money is created as a credit and a debit on the members accounts. Each member begins with an account that includes a “line of trust” (also known as a “line of credit”). The issuance (creation) of Currents takes place through the exchange of goods and services. The Hudson Valley Current is a digital, mutual credit based system. Photo taken at the Schumacher Center in May 2014. President of the Board of Directors of BerkShares, Inc (Center,) Maria Reidelbach HVC (2nd from R) David McCarthy HVC (far R). Dollars.Ĭhris Hewitt, ED Hudson Valley Current (HVC) (far L), Susan Witt, ED of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (2nd from L), Adrian Alcalá. For example, perhaps the most well-known Local currency in the United States, Berkshares, are issued as paper money and available at local banks in exchange for U.S. There are various types of local currencies which can differ quite fundamentally, and there are also many nuances in the details of design and implementation. The local type of alternative or complementary currency is created to strengthen local economies and it strengthens Transition efforts to create more resilient communities. The term “complementary currency” highlights the quality of functioning alongside the existing monetary system, rather than attempting to replace it. “Alternative currency” simply means money other than the official government-issued currency. There was a libertarian who didn’t like central control of the monetary system, a Buddhist economic theorist yearning for a more equitable system of exchange, a second-generation newspaper publisher striving to create a better environment for his kids, an activist artist with a social practice working among struggling local farmers, a veteran of Occupy Wall Street committed to creating a sustainable economic system and an accountant with an abiding interest and experience in time banking and other alternative money systems. It began with just a few of us each coming to the idea from very different places. Our local alternative currency, the Hudson Valley Current, has members in several counties straddling the Hudson River, just above New York City. alternative and complementary currencies are a growing worldwide trend, and many states in the US have created their own local curriencies.
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