ECONOMICS : LETS / LOCAL CURRENCIES

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General Resources, Complementary Currencies, LETS, Timebanks Other Trading Systems, Events, Economics in General, Banking, Books, Articles and Stories, Activism & Politics, Newsletters and Mailing Lists, IT and Software, Links Pages

General Resources

  • Margrit Kennedy's personal site
    Margrit Kennedy, on the subject of money.
  • MonNetA - Money Network Alliance
    MonNetA is a non-profit organisation of Lebensgarten Steyerberg e.V. - for the development of Regional Payment Systems. MonNetA brings together teams of recognised authorities in the area of Monetic Incentive Systems and complementary currencies to support the development and implementation of both paper and electronic Regional Payment Systems. In addition MonNetA assists in the creation of inter-regional networking and transaction facilitation, dissemination of knowledge - and training for implementation.
  • Access Foundation
    Alliance of Complementary Currencies Enabling Sustainable Societies. The ACCESS Foundation is an international, educational, non-profit organization dedicated to the betterment of humankind through the understanding and use of complementary monetary innovations.
  • Transaction Net
    A comprehensive site that explains how money works.
  • Reinventing Money.Com
    The mission of this site is to demystify money by presenting the best leading-edge ideas on monetary and non-monetary exchange. It is a resource devoted to the advancement of economic democracy, self-determination, and global harmony.
  • Local Exchange Systems in the Global South
    For researchers, academics and economic development practitioners we provide the most complete Library of Materials on "appropriate economics" on the internet, including a wide range of documents and materials on history, money, religion, global economics, and how to implement appropriate local economic systems.
  • Stable Money Network
    This is the website of the New Zealand registered charity aiming to support the development of complementary money systems that are interest and inflation free.
  • Strohalm
    Strohalm is a research and development institute that supports the creation of new monetary and economic systems to provide new opportunities and advantages to businesses and individuals to move towards a sustainable economy.
  • Monetary Reform Magazine
    Monetary Reform ON-Line is the digital companion to the popular magazine. (Canada)
 

Local Community Currencies Around The World

  • Eko Community Currency, Findhorn, Scotland
    It began with a �trial period� during which various community organisations including the Phoenix Shop, Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, the Green Room Caf�, and the Findhorn Foundation all agreed to accept the Eko notes in exchange for any good or service rendered. There is nothing preventing anyone else accepting them, and indeed since the launch, a number of additional community traders have enrolled as well...
  • Ithaca HOURs, Ithaca, NY, USA
    Making a Community While Making a Living!
  • Toronto Dollar, Canada
    The work of the Toronto Dollar is to encourage more caring social and economic relationships among people from the community, business and government sectors -- and particularly with those in the community sector in greatest economic need..
  • Salt Spring Island Dollars, Canada
    The concept of Salt Spring Island Dollars was the result of roundtable discussions of the Sustainable Salt Spring Island Coalition.
  • Chiemgauer, Germany
    Article in English
    Nestled away in Germany�s high-tech and entrepreneurial region of Bavaria, in the bustling and prosperous area of Chiemgau, an experiment is underway that not only supports the local Waldorf school system, but also encourages patronage of local business. Six young women, all in their late teens and students at the Steiner school, have started an enterprise using a new kind of money.
  • Openmoney
    Open money is a means of exchange freely available to all. Any community, any association - indeed, any body - can have their own money.

 

LETS

 

Timebanks

  • Time Dollar USA
    Time Dollar USA seeks to build local economies and communities that reward decency, caring, and a passion for justice by developing, testing, and assisting experiments with a new medium of exchange called Time Dollars (also known as service credits or time banking.) One hour helping others equals one Time Dollar.
  • TimeKeeper, US
    A new, tax-exempt currency that empowers people to convert their personal time into purchasing power by helping others and by rebuilding family, neighborhood and community.
  • Time Banks UK
    Time Banks UK links together and supports time banks across the UK.
  • London Time Bank
    The network of time banks for London.
  • Fair Shares, UK
    A new kind of money that rewards the care and trust that hold us together and make communities work. It's about TIME!
  • Time Bucks, USA
    We're a Community Skills Exchange that helps turn the activities that people enjoy into services that meet practical needs or enrich people's lives in ways they hadn't imagined.
    Members use TimeBucks to meet people and find outlets for their creativity. We're an eclectic group of people (not businesses!) who support one another through a wide variety interpersonal trades.
 

Other Trading Systems

  • Barter Card New Zealand
    Take advantage of down time, idle capacity and surplus stock. Convert these lost opportunities to a real currency you can spend as needed.
  • The TERRA
    The Trade Reference Currency (TRC)� is a new currency privately issued by the TRC Alliance, with a built-in circulation incentive that could play a significant role in getting the world out of recession. Its unit of account is the Terra.
  • Art Money Denmark
    Welcome to BIAM, Bank of International Art Money. This is a bank for a very concrete currency: "Art Money". Collectively the bank represents one of the largest portals for visual art and one of the largest human network systems connecting people from the whole world.
  • ARK - APPLIED RESOURCE KNOWLEDGE
    This Website is dedicated to finding 12 individuals who have the desire to work together to help complete the beginning stages of a new, more balanced and more benevolent economic system.
 

Events

  • Local Currencies in the 21st century
    25 - 27 Jun 2004, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, US
    The conference brought 300 people, representing 14 different countries, to Bard College during the weekend of June 25-27th. The conference was truly a seminal event, a landmark in the effort to bring local currencies to the main stream.
  • Future of Money Summit 2005
    Spring 2005, New York City, U.S.
    The mission of the Summit is to explore the evolving forms of money and the complex and broad-ranging effect it is having on technology, business, society, and public policy.
 

Economics In General

  • The New Economics Foundation UK
    nef is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being.
    We aim to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues. We work in partnership and put people and the planet first.
  • Open-Economy
    Open-Economy is an open space to discuss and practice radical social change, through economics.
  • Workgroup on a Solidarity Socio-Economy (WSSE)
    The Workgroup on a Solidarity Socio-Economy (WSSE) is a global network of debate among grassroots actors, researchers and committed people who collectively generate and promote proposals and strategies for socio-economic transformation.
  • COMER The Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform
    COMER monitors and evaluates economic and monetary policy through education, information, and suggestions of monetary and economic alternatives.
  • SANE - South African New Economics Network
    An independent network for the creation of a humane, just, sustainable and culturally appropriate economic system in South Africa.
  • TheTransitioner
    Collective Intelligence in the Economy, Economy in Collective Intelligence
  • Green Economics
    Why should economics have become of so much interest to people in the Green movement? Green are characterised by their concern for the planet, for people and animals. So the field of economics, with its abstract mathematical models and it concentration on concepts such as 'growth' and 'money' might seem alien territory; and so it has proved.
  • Medium "money"
    What is wrong with our money?
  • The New Approach To Freedom
    "Not money, but a false money system is the root of all evil." This new concept is a challenge to the academic economist and a bid to the layman to enter into the practical mastery of a subject that has heretofore been enshrouded in mystery. E.C. Riegel
  • Creating Community Currency
    The difference between money and real wealth.
  • The Global Ideas Bank
    The ideas bank contains thousands of ideas from every corner of the globe. Search the bank for 'money'!
  • The Mondragon Cooperative System
    One of the best current models for how capital might be localized is the Mondragon system of cooperatives in Mondragon, Spain. The Mondragon system is noted for its democratic worker-owner structure and the economic success that it has enjoyed over the many decades of existence.
  • Proutist Universal
    Home of the Progressive Utilisation Theory (PROUT). PROUT is an alternative to the outmoded capitalist and communist socio-economic paradigms. Neither of these approaches have adequately met the physical, mental and spiritual needs of humanity. PROUT seeks a harmonious balance between economic growth, social development, environmental sustainability, and between individual and collective interests.
  • Universal Income Trust of Aotearoa NZ (New Zealand)
    Note, this site contains a diverse array of opinions, ideas, information, and perspectives. The Universal Income Trust does not necessarily agree to all that is written or presented here. The information provided is for its potential to help illumine the visitor to the vastness, and the underlying currents of unity, to the fields of economic rights and Universal Income Systems. This Universal Income Website has been developed and is now managed by Patrick Danahey, who has researched and written the core articles here.
  • Altruists International
    We are an optimistic, positive community with members from both the under- and the over-developed world. We are united by our commitment that a money-centred struggle for personal gain is no way to make the world a better place. We try to ignore money but put people at the heart of what we do, concentrating on what will be of real benefit to others.
  • Gaian Economics
    Gaian Economics is an internet showcase for a group of researchers who agree that the major problems facing humanity have their root in our economic system and recognise the need to develop a new kind of economics. We can think especially of the environmental crisis and the seemingly endless conflict caused by the injustice of the globalised market.
  • Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics, a movie
    With irony and intelligence Marilyn Waring demystifies the language of economics by defining it as a value system in which all goods and activities are related only to their monetary value and monetary exchange with the result that unpaid work, usually done by women, is unrecognized and activities that may be environmentally and socially hazardous are regarded as productive. She maps out an alternative economic vision based on the idea of time as the one thing we all have to exchange. Shot in Canada, New Zealand, New York City, the Persian Gulf and the Philippines this film is an entertaining primer for anyone who suffers from what Waring calls "economics anxiety."
  • The Corporation, Canada - a Movie
    One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today�s dominant institution. Based on Bakan�s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the 4corporation�s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures.
 

Banking

  • JAK Bank, Sweden
    The JAK MEMBERS BANK is the first interest-free bank in Sweden.
  • An Assessment of Sweden's JAK Bank, by Mark Anielski
    This is one of the first English assessments of Sweden's remarkable JAK Members� Bank - a cooperative, no-interest members-owned-bank.
  • International JAK Forum
    This is a First Class Conference System. You can join the conference about our interest free savings and loan system. The conference is administered by JAKs International Network, which is a group of members of JAK. The conference is open for all and we hope that interested parties from both Sweden and other countries will exchange ideas and experiences about interest free economy.
  • WIR, Switzerland
    "Wirtschafts Ring", Switzerland. Website in German, French and Italian only.
  • WIR Bank in Switzerland, by Declan Kennedy
    The WIR Bank in Switzerland is a type of co-operative bank, based on a membership and with its own Complementary Currency. The system may well be transferable to Regional Complementary Currency Systems (RCCS) elsewhere, with its Credit/Debit Card system and its electronic payment methods.
  • Monetary Reform Magazine Archives
    Articles and information has been selected from back issues of Monetary Reform Magazine and placed in Archives. We hope the information provided will be of benefit to you. The selected articles are mainly around banking.
  • The Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance
    The Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance is one of the world's leading independent academic and research organisation solely dedicated to the promotion and implementation of Islamic finance.
  • Islamic Banking Infobase
    Islamic banking law, at present, has been classified into the seven titles shown below. The classification may be expanded and altered as material is collected and placed on this site.
 

Books, Articles and Stories

  • "Interest and Inflation Free Money" (Book) by Margarit Kennedy
    Money is one of humankind's most ingenious inventions - and also one its most dangerous. Interest and Inflation Free Money offers a clear, simple explanation of how financial policies shape the global markets - and how interest wrecks cultures, ecosystems, and economic systems.
  • "The Future of Money" by Bernard Lietaer
    ex-Belgium Central Banker and one time currency trader now advocating global interest free currency.
  • "The Natural Economic Order" by Silvio Gesell
    full text, translated into English by Phillip Pye
  • "New Money for Healthy Communities" (Book)
    by Thomas H. Greco, Jr. The pinnacle of power in today's world is the power to issue money. If that power can be democratized and focused in a direction which gives social and ecological concerns top priority, then there may yet be hope for saving the world. (full text online!)
  • "PRIVATE ENTERPRISE MONEY, A Non-Political Money System" (Book)
    By E. C. Riegel, 1944. (full text online)
    THERE is a fundamental evil of which the convulsion of war is but the dramatic manifestation and of which the nations must be purged before reconstruction can begin. THIS EVIL IS THE ECONOMIC SIN OF ISSUING MONEY WITHOUT BACKING IT.
  • "The Money Syndrome ; Paths to an Economic Order Free from Crises", an online book by Helmut Creutz
    Translated by Hans Eisenkolb, B.C., Ca. and Robert Mittelstaedt. This book is a good source of information on money, how it is made and used.
  • "Funny Money by David Boyle
    This is a site about money: not the usual kind of pounds or dollars, but new kinds conjured maybe out of the imagination of the people who need to use it, but which are concrete enough to change the our disastrous dependence on a wildly fluctuating global economic system.
  • "The Grip Of Death" by Michael Rowbotham
    A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics This lucid and original account of where our money comes from explains why most people, businesses and countries are so heavily in debt. It's all about subjects very close to home: mortgages, building societies and banks, food and farming, transport, worldwide poverty, and what's on the supermarket shelf.
  • New Money for healty communities, article by Thomas H. Greco
    The pinnacle of power in today's world is the power to issue money. If that power can be democratized and focused in a direction which gives social and ecological concerns top priority, then there may yet be hope for saving the world.
  • A Market Economy without Capitalism, an essay by Werner Onken
    An overview of the basic concept, its historical origins and present state of development; Information about organisations promoting "Free Economy" and suggestions for further reading on the topic.
  • International Journal of Community Currency Research
    The aim of this journal is to provide a forum for the dissemination of knowledge and understanding about the emerging array of community currencies being used throughout the world both at present and in the past.
  • Materialien zu Silvio Gesell
    Deutschsprachige Materialien ~ Links and sources in English
  • Depreciating community-owned currencies, article
    An article by David Weston on the Woergl experiment of 1932-33
  • The Law of Supply and Demand , by Hans Eisenkolb
    Everybody, who thinks at all about economics takes it for granted and hardly gives it a second thought. Yet hardly anybody understands how deeply it controls all aspects of the base of human survival- our economy.
  • LETS Engineering Mathematics, article by John C. Turmel, B. Eng.
    As Galbraith remarks, higher interest rates, it is hoped, "will curb inflation." These comments of Galbraith illustrate why, although the raising of interest rates is the weapon against inflation chosen by those who profit by it, it is also clear that as a method it cannot finally work. John Turmel, a Canadian civil engineer and campaigner against usury, has in two long articles brought algebra, plumbing and poetry to bear on the task."
  • GOVERNMENTS AND MONEY, by Jerry L. Jordan
    at the Cato Journal by the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.
  • Robinsonade, by S. Gesell
    as a Manga (Comic Strip from Japan). Text by Eiichi Morino, Drawings by kokiriko, English translation by Robert Mittelstaedt
  • A Story Of Robinson Crusoe, by S. Gesell
    To introduce the theory of interest here expounded, and to facilitate the removal of old prejudices, which are nowhere stronger than in connection with the subject of interest, I shall begin with a story of Robinson Crusoe. *
 

Activism & Politics

  • ATTAC International
    nternational movement for democratic control of financial markets and their institutions
  • Jubilee Aotearoa
    Debt Action Network. We are a network of agencies and individuals in New Zealand working together for the cancellation of the unjust and unpayable debts of poor countries. Jubilee Aotearoa is a local network but is linked to other Jubilee and debt campaigns in countries all around the world, poor and rich, south and north.
  • NZ Democrates, New Zealand
    The NZ Democratic Party's aims are the furthering of social, environmental and economic justice for this country. In order to achieve these aims we advocate the use of practical, commonsense fiscal and monetary instruments which do not burden society with compounding debt - debt which eventually undermines efforts to build a better world.
 

Newsletters And Mailing Lists

  • Electronz
    The NZ monetary reform weekly e-zine ( edited by Don Bethune, QSM )
  • Int'l Jrnl o Community Currency Research - Yahoo Group
    To provide a forum for the dissemination of knowledge and understanding about the emerging array of community currencies (including 'money-based' systems such as LETS, 'time-based' systems such as time dollars, other scrip-based community exchanges, as well as business trade exchanges) being used throughout the world both at present and in the past.
  • Archives of [email protected]
    A mailing list on LETS and community currency issues.
  • Prosperity - Freedom From Debt Slavery
    A monthly journal on Money Reform, based in Glasgow, Scotland which campaigns for publicly-created debt-free money.
  • Mailing list on Social Credit
    Discussion group relating to the historical and theoretical aspects of the Social Credit movement. Seems also to be discussing interest-free banking issues.
 

IT & Software

  • World Wide Complementary Currency IT Department,
    Pick one of the tiki features (Articles, Forums, RSS, Banners, etc.) that you'd like to see in action and set up a best practice that we can all enjoy, learn from, and use on our next websites!
  • Payment mechanisms designed for the Internet
    This is a collection of links and pointers to existing payment schemes that were designed for, or are in use on, the Internet.
  • Timekeeper for Time Dollar
    Timekeeper for Time Dollar is a program for keeping member accounts for Time Dollar members and for matching Providers to Recipients. The program is free of charge.
  • Contact Rob Spijkerman, in New Zealand
    who has created a version of Lets software written in MS Access that provides functional management of any LETS exchange/ green dollar exchange.- it is fully functional and supports all aspects of community trading.
 

Links Pages

 

Updated: 18-Sep-04

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