[CLUE-Talk] [OT] A Call to Action

[Matt Gushee]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2002 at 10:24:53PM -0600, Jeffery Cann wrote:
> >
> >     LETS stands for either Local Exchange Trading System or the word
> > "let's," or something else, depending who you ask. It is a kind of virtual
> > currency system, operated by and for people and businesses in a given
> > community. In essence, LETS and other local currency systems increase
> > people's buying power by increasing the local money supply. Beginning in
> > the mid-70s, successful LETS systems and local currencies have been
> > established in dozens of communities throughout the industrialized world.
> 
> What would an advantage be of such a system?  One reason (of many) currency 
> systems work and the reason US dollars hold value is that they are easily 
> exchanged.  A LETS would seem to run counter to the success of currency 
> systems.

And why would LETS credits be hard to exchange? If you're referring to
the pool of buyers and sellers being limited in size, that's perfectly
true, but for you as an individual buyer/seller, how much of a handicap
is that? There's a hell of a lot of people in this metro area, offering
a huge variety of goods and services--and with a huge variety of needs
and wants. So if you chose to, you could very likely meet most of your
needs and many of your wants in the local market. 

Now, buying local is fine ... and if everybody in Metro Denver made a
commitment to buy locally to the greatest extent possible, that would
likely be very good for the local economy. But first of all, that's not
going to happen, and second, I think it's somewhat of a red herring. 
To my mind the point of LETS or local currency (which I will lump 
together as "local exchange systems") being local is that *they can be 
made to work on a local basis*. What's more important and interesting is
that they are new resources available to local people *in addition* to
US dollars.

What are the implications of that? Well, there are a number of different
ways to think about our current economic situation--and those different
ways of framing the issue suggest different solutions. One common
statement of the problem is "There aren't enough jobs in Denver." There
are two problems with that idea. One is that it posits a patron-client
relationship: if there aren't enough jobs, then someone has to provide
them for us. The other is that even if you put it in terms of creating
jobs by building local businesses, well, how are these new businesses
going to pay their new workers? Ummmm ....

But suppose we say instead, "There isn't enough money in Denver." Well,
what's money? Economics 101. A store of value, a medium of exchange, ...
Money is lots of things, but most importantly for this discussion, it is
an abstract, arbitrary, socially constructed entity. Which means that it
doesn't have to come from "out there"--or more realistically, it doesn't 
*all* have to come from "out there." If we establish a local exchange
system, with a critical mass of businesses and individuals invested in
making it work, guess what: we just increased the local money supply. 
All the US dollars that were here yesterday are still here today, but 
everyone in the local exchange system now has an additional 10 or 20
percent.

I could keep this up all night, but I'm not yet an expert on this stuff
myself. If you're seriously interested in learning more, why not check 
out some of the links I've assembled at 

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frea/links

You don't have to join the group to browse.

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee at havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/