Ten Square Miles Surrounded By Reality? Materialising Alternative Economies Using Local Currencies

Abstract

This article examines the success of paper-based alternative currencies in facilitating convivial, sustainable localised economies. Based on fieldwork in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, it discusses the capacity of activists to create alternative forms of currency that communicate the organisers' visions of a localised economy, before examining material practices: for whom do the currencies work, and who struggles to use them? Using insights from a diverse economies perspective, the article argues that we cannot read off the likelihood of an economic actor using the currency from the extent of their local economic embeddedness: economic actors in similar positions respond to the same stimuli in different ways, and local business owners and activists can form productive alliances to develop their shared project. The article concludes by arguing that local currencies should be used more proactively to stimulate new forms of concrete local production to meet locally identified needs.Resumen: Este artículo examina el éxito de las monedas alternativas de papel en facilitar economías localizadas conviviales y sostenibles. Basado en trabajos de campo en los Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido y Alemania, se analiza la capacidad de los activistas para crear formas alternativas de moneda que comuniquen las visiones de una economía localizada de los organizadores, antes de examinar las prácticas materiales: ¿para quién funcionan las monedas y para quién supone dificultades? Usando percepciones desde una perspectiva de "economías diversas", el artículo argumenta que no se puede deducir la probabilidad de que un actor económico utilice la moneda en base a su grado de arraigo en la economía local: los actores económicos en posiciones similares responden a los mismos estímulos de diferentes maneras, y empresarios y activistas locales pueden formar alianzas productivas para desarrollar su proyecto compartido. El artículo concluye argumentando que las monedas locales deben utilizarse de manera más proactiva para estimular nuevas formas de producción local concreta para satisfacer las necesidades identificadas a nivel local.

Robert Owen, utopian socialism and social transformation

“…For instance, Claeys (, p. 5) laments Owen’s failure “to see that the more formal mechanisms of democracy […] were crucial means of avoiding tyranny in a less than perfect and less than wholly equal world”; Tsuzuki (, p. 43) has described Owen’s ideas about the formation of human character as “a mistake”; and Nagai (, p. 68) has argued that “the mixture or co‐existence of the formative principles of society and the managerial principles of commercial societies” represents a “Fatal theoretical error.” In assessments of the deficiencies of Owen’s socialism in this regard, there is the clear suggestion that flaws were inherent, and the project destined to fail as a result of these inherent flaws. By contrast, recognizing parallels with other similar and significant contributions to the theorization of social transformation makes it possible to develop a reading of Owen that emphasizes the conditions, rather than the limits, of possibility (North, , p. 248; cf. p. 3 above) for cooperative projects and which may contribute to contemporary struggles to realize them.…”

Competition of Currencies: An Alternative to Legal Tender

“…Switching costs consist of transaction costs, time costs from prolonged negotiation with sellers to make them accept the currency, exchange rate costs due to coexistence of multiple circulating currencies and other costs pertaining to discomfort connected with an attempt to use a currency just partially used as a medium of exchange within an economy. The evidence for an existence of these costs exists in the study of North (2014). According to North (2014, p. 256), when businesses carry multiple transactions in a currency every day, the handling, accounting and banking costs of the alternative currency could be so high, that it could outreach its potential benefits.…”

Rethinking the Factors of Production for a World of Common Ownership and Sustainability

“…The downsides of cheap commodities produced in the Global South through exploitative labor practices, unequal terms of trade and resource extraction, and environmental degradation are occluded by distance. Consequently, these currencies have yet to move from a tool for facilitating exchange between subaltern groups who feel themselves to be part of a commons to a method for generating new, ethical forms of production and a deeper commons-based economy (North 2014b).…”