Alternative Currency Systems
Local and Interest-Free Currencies, Social Credit,
Social Lending and Microcredit etc.
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- Virtually all civilizations, except the Incas,
developed some form of money. Today our currencies and banking systems increasingly extend beyond national boundaries.
However, co-existing with that movement there has been a revival of interest in alternative financial systems.
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- This page of links to resources on microcredit systems, local and interest-free
currencies is one of a number of pages on Money - Past,
Present and Future maintained by Roy Davies.
For business-to-business mutual credit organisations see the web page on
barter.
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Microcredit and Credit Unions
- Consultative Group to Assist the
Poorest
- Nearly three billion poor people lack access to the basic financial services essential for them to manage their precarious lives. CGAP is a consortium of 33 public and private development agencies working together to expand access to financial services for the poor in developing countries.
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Principles of Microfinance
- A very detailed information and news resource about microfinance.
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The Microfinance Gateway
- A source of information about not only microcredit but also other services such as loans, savings, insurance, and money transfer for low-income clients.
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The seizure of Grameen Bank
- A copy of an article by Richard Branson about the threat from Bangladeshi politicians to Grameen Bank. It was originally published under the title "Britain must defend this poverty-busting bank" in the Times, August 24 2012.
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The Nobel Peace Prize 2006
- Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the prize for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.
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- Muhammad Yunus
1994 World Food Prize Laureate
- A biography of the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank.
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- Grameen-Banking for the Poor
- Information about the Grameen Bank and other Grameen organisations.
The Grameen Bank has even pioneered the use of
mobile phones
in transforming the economic prospects of the poor.
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- Banker to the Poor
: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
- by Muhammad Yunus and Alan Jolis. The autobiography of the founder of Grameen
Bank and an account of the history of the bank and of the microcredit
movement.
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- Expanding Dr. Yunus’ Sphere of Influence
- A blog covering developments in the world of microcredit.
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- Microfinance: ethics are essential
- Microfinance is a valuable and powerful tool in the fight against poverty. But if not undertaken carefully and with a strong ethical commitment, it can become as exploitative as the loan sharks it is designed to replace. Miles Litvinoff, 20 July 2012.
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You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World's Poor to the Global Economy
- Nicholas P. Sullivan has written a book about how the use of mobile phones in conjunction with microloans can help the world's poor to prosper.
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- KIVA
- Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. It is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.
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- MyC4
- MyC4 was founded in Denmark in May 2006 to create and support new enterprise and commercial innovation in Africa. MyC4 is not only a financial platform. As a hybrid between Grameen Bank, Wikipedia, MySpace and eBay, MyC4 offers an opportunity to invest money and knowledge in Africa’s future by providing a forum for exchange of advice and knowledge with the purpose of growing and supporting entrepreneurism in Africa.
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- MicroPlace
- MicroPlace’s mission is to help alleviate global poverty by enabling everyday people to make investments in the world’s working poor by connecting investors with microfinance institutions looking for funds.
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- Opportunity International UK
- Opportunity International UK offers poor entrepreneurs in developing countries training, support, and "micro" business loans, as well as other financial services such as savings and life insurance.
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- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Financial Services for the Poor Initiative
- This initiative has the goal of making formal financial services, such as loans, insurance, wire transfers, and savings accounts, far more available so families in developing countries can survive economic setbacks, build savings, and improve the health and education of their children.
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- International Year of
Microcredit
- 2005 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Microcredit.
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- The Virtual Library on Microcredit
- An excellent source of information on the subject of credit for low-income
households. It is international in its coverage.
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- OIKOS - A Bank Promoting Solidarity
- A bank set up by a small ecumenical group in Denmark to provide assistance to
the Third World in cooperation with several church-related development
organisations.
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- World Council of Credit Unions
- WOCCU is the world's leading advocate, platform for knowledge exchange and development agency for credit unions.
Social Lending
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Assetz Capital
- a peer-to-peer lending community and provider of non-bank loans to SME businesses and property developers for the benefit of both lenders and borrowers.
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Folk2Folk
- Folk2Folk is based in Cornwall and covers the whole of South West England. It is a peer to peer lending company specialised in providing secured lending and borrowing for local businesses and individuals.
a peer-to-peer lending community and provider of non-bank loans to SME businesses and property developers for the benefit of both lenders and borrowers.
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- Lendwithcare.org
- Lendwithcare.org is an initiative from CARE International UK - part of the CARE International confederation, which is one of the world’s leading aid and development organisations. Most of the world’s poorest people still have no access to basic financial services but suporters of Lendwithcare provide loans of anything from £15 upwards to enable families to find their own route out of poverty.
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- Social lending sites try to "uncrunch" the credit crunch
- Several social lending websites are joining together in an effort to unthaw the frozen credit markets and get credit flowing again to consumers and small business owners. A new initiative dubbed "Uncrunch America" brings together non-traditional lenders VirginMoney, Lending Club, and On Deck Capital. March 6, 2009.
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Guide to Peer to Peer Lending,P2P,Social lending
- In its simplest form this is the lending and borrowing between individuals without the need for a traditional financial institution like a bank, building society or credit union. In the UK Zopa is the market leader.
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Peer-to-peer lending; good or bad idea?
- A look at the idea of social lending from the viewpoints of the borrower and the lender. 26 February 2009.
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- Internet Based Social Lending
- A 115 page report by Professor Michael K Hulme and Collette Wright. It examines the antecedents of Social Lending through drawing parallels with friendly societies and then outlines the emergence of online Social Lending schemes within the context of various contemporary social trends. It then focuses on a case study of Zopa.
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Big-bank confidence dented by social banking: Spare some cash guvnor?
- An article by Gemma Simpson based on the survey by the Social Futures Observatory.
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Zopa
- Zopa is a UK company, started by a small cluster of very experienced money people including several members of the original Egg plc management team. It aims to be an alternative to "the faceless institutions that have made personal finance so utterly impersonal over the years."
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General Resources on Local and Interest-Free Currencies and other Alternative
Money Systems
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Money and Liberation: the Micropolitics of Alternative Currency Movements
- Details of a book by Peter North, lecturer in geography at the University of Liverpool, with in-depth profiles of schemes from various countries.
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- Reinventing Money
- A website which is the culmination of more than a quarter century of
research, study, and experimentation by Thomas H. Greco, Jr., a leading
researcher on the subject of alternative monetary systems.
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- Campaign for Interest Free Money
- The Campaign for Interest-Free Money was launched on 28 January 1998,
by a group of people, mostly from London, UK, with the expressed intention
of being a highly non-hierarchical, non-ageist, non-party political,
inter-cultural, inter-faith, ecumenical and very all-inclusive activity.
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- Local Currencies in the 21st
Century
- A website about a conference hosted by Bard College Annondale-on-Hudson, New
York State, June 25-27, 2004.
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Local Currencies Aren't Small Change
- News from the Local Currencies in the 21st Century conference, June
2004.
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- Social Trade Organisation
- The Social Trade Organization (STRO) targets local communities with its innovative solutions that increase the purchasing power through new forms of money and credit and by making existing purchasing power circulate longer within a given community or region. A directory of links to websites devoted to alternative currencies, barter, co-operatives, and related ideas is included.
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- New Money Systems and
Financial Innovations
- A series of articles from the Global Ideas Bank maintained by the
Institute for Social Inventions.
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- Alternative Money
Systems
- The New Civilization Network Alternative Money System team was created to
collect information on what schemes already exist, to discuss the prospects of
doing away with money systems and using a resource-based system instead, and ways
of financing new civilization projects, implementing experimental schemes.
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- New Money for Healthy Communities by
Thomas H. Greco, Jr.
- The pinnacle of power in today's world is the power to issue money. Can that
power can be democratized and focused in a direction which gives social and
ecological concerns top priority?
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- Complementary
Community Currency Systems and Local Exchange Networks.
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A good source of information on various complementary currencies.
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- Currency Solutions for a Wiser World
- The website of Bernard Lietaer, the author of a number of books and other publications on alternative forms of currency..
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- The Dysfunctional Operation of Money
- A paper by Gábor Sárdi and Katalin Szendro on the drawbacks of conventional currencies and a proposal for a new kind.
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- Sacred Economics
- The website of Charles Eisenstein whose book Sacred Economics traces the evolution and problems of the present monetary system and suggests an alternative.
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- Free Money and other Complementary Currencies as the Ideal Unity of Autonomy
- A thesis for an MA from the University of Bradford by Hironori Nagamatsu.
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- The Ecology of Money by Richard Douthwaite
- This book is no. 4 in the Schumacher Briefing series. Richard Douthwaite
argues that the effects of money on human society differ according to its origins
and purposes.
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- Funny
Money
- The website of David Boyle, author of Funny Money, a book about
unconventional currencies published by HarperCollins.
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- Global Resource Bank
- A plan for converting toxic fiat money to vital ecocredit.
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The Raam development currency
- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation
programme, has proposed a new international currency and a pilot project
has started in the Netherlands.
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The Open Money Home Page
- "Open money is simply a medium of payment, a memory that something of
value has been passed to another. One person's balance goes up, the other
down ... there is no requirement that that money exists beforehand." The
Open Money pages are part of the
Transitioner, a website devoted to collective intelligence in the economy, and
economy in collective intelligence.
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- Openmoney.org
- The purpose of this open money project is to bring together and organize the people
and resources necessary for the development and propagation of open money (i.e. LETS)
everywhere.
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Community Forge
- A nonprofit organisation offering free community websites including a trading system comprising the only community currency trading software build on a social networking platform.
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Drupal
- Open source software for community money projects. It can be used as a digital back end for paper money projects, or to run an entire LETS or Timebank.
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Community Exchange System
- A global community of mutual credit exchange systems with free membership and trading across the network.
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- OPTIMAES
- Open Project To Investigate Money And Economic Systems An experimental project
using computer simulation to study various alternative economic systems, e.g. to
see if there's any value in altruism and to compare money and barter with gift
giving.
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- Debt Money, Ancient Meme
- Argues that governments should use their power to create money instead of
borrowing it. Also contains an extensive set of links to related sites, and to
historical sources.
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- The Difference Between Money and
Real Wealth : Creating Community Currencies
- by Carol Brouillet, a Co-Founder of the International Media Project
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- The Potential of
Local Currency by Susan Meeker-Lowry
- An article from ZMagazine July/August 1995.
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- "Newmoney"
- a mailing list for the discussion of unconventional monetary systems. German is
the language of the majority of the messages but there are some in English
too.
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- Materialien zur
Zinsproblematik
- Articles on monetary theory, mainly in German but there is a long one in
English: The
How and Why of a New Monetary System by Dr. Erhard Glötzl
- This article discusses the meaning of money and why interest is an important
cause of increasing economic, ecological and social problems in our society.
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- The E. F. Schumacher
Society: Local Currencies
- The Schumacher Society has sponsored several experiments making use of local
scrip or currency.
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- Complementary Currency Systems in Asia, Africa and Latin America
- This is a site on community-based networks which encourage mutual aid, cooperation
and reciprocation, self-reliance, local production for local needs, socio-economic
solidarity and economic justice. The
full-text of a number of significant books on local currencies, e.g. Stamp
Scrip by Professor Irving Fisher, originally published in 1933, is available
online at the site.
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Complementary Currency Innovation: Self-guarantee in peer-to-peer currencies
- The Wat system is a peer-to-peer complementary currency system initially designed by Eiichi Moreno. It is used in Japan typically to allow for small businesses to issue IOUs (called WAT-ticket) to their suppliers. These suppliers in turn circulate them within an undefined community, until they are eventually redeemed with the issuing business.
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Peer-to-Peer Money: Free Currency over the Internet
- A proposal for an alternative monetary system on the Internet called i-WAT,an electronic version of the WAT System which uses a form of promissory note as the medium of exchanging goods and services.
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- Cymru currency could boost local economies
- The Welsh economy would receive a huge boost if Wales had its own currency running in parallel with sterling, it has been claimed. Screenwriter Martin Davies has outlined his proposal to the Commission investigating the way the Welsh Assembly Government is funded by the Treasury. The currency model proposed is of the "negative interest" type developed by the Belgian businessman and economist Silvio Gesell.
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- Hans-Joachim Werner's Home Page
- This site has a lot of information in German about the "Free Economy Movement" from Silvio Gesell onwards.
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- The Internet and the
Future of Money
- An article by Howard Rheingold who believes that the global
communications network has a role to play in the development of local
currencies.
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- International Journal of Community
Currency Research
- The IJCCR aims to fill the gap between those involved in community currencies
and those who do research on them. Community currencies are broadly defined to
include LETS, (Ithaca) Hours, Business Trade Exchanges (BTEs or Business Barter),
time dollars and other similar currencies which seek to serve specific, often
localised, communities. The full text of the articles is available in addition to
abstracts.
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- CERISE : Consultancy and Research in the
Social Sciences
- Part of Gill Seyfang's website. She has undertaken research on local
currencies, microcredit and ethical trade and now works at the University of East
Anglia.
LETS (Local Employment Trading Systems)
- LETSystems Home Page
- LETS are a type of informal credit market based on local currencies. This
homepage is a source of information on LETS in Manchester and around the world.
Particularly worth noting is the document Frequently Asked Questions about
LETSystems.
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- LETSLink UK
- The website of the UK LETS and Complementary Currencies Development
Agency.
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- Local
Exchange software
- A free web-based open source package for local currency systems
includes the ability to: create, update and delete listings online; record
exchanges online; leave feedback online; view history of exchanges and
current balances; and more. It is also configurable in a number of ways so
that it can be customized by each community.
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- LETS.net
- An archive of legacy LETSystem materials.
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- LETS-Linkup
- An international LETS Groups directory and guide to over 1,500 LETS groups from
39 countries.
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- Sidonie
Seron's Thesis on LETS
- A good introduction to the subject.
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Online Database of Complementary Currencies Worldwide
- This database collects statistical information on complementary
currency systems and generates detailed reports on the state of these
systems.
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- John "The Engineer" Turmel
- The home page of the Guinness World Record holding politician whose campaigns
for LETS have attracted attention in many countries, not just his native Canada. In
addition to some of Turmel's own articles and details of his campaigns the site
also has information about local currencies in various countries. Among the
material at this site is LETS Engineering Mathematics,
a theoretical analysis of money creation by the conventional banking system
and by LETS.
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- LETS
Connect
- An online magazine for the UK LETS community.
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- Sel'idaire
- Among the features of this site is a geographically arranged list of the
Systèmes d'Echange Local (LETS) in France.
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- Talent
- Home page of the Swiss experiment inspired by the theories of Silvio Gesell.
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- Systemfehler.de
- A German website devoted to promoting the ideas of Silvio Gesell and similar thinkers.
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- LETS in Australia
- A page of links.
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- Econ-lets
- archives and other files of a mailing list on LETS.
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Evaluating LETS as a means of tackling social exclusion and cohesion
- A report by a team of British researchers.
Other Local Currencies
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'Bristol Pound' currency to boost independent traders
- A group of independent traders in Bristol are launching their own currency, with the backing of the council and a credit union. The "Bristol Pound" will be printed in notes, and also traded electronically. It will be the first local currency which can be used to pay local business taxes. BBC, 6 February 2012.
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David Boyle’s speech at the launch of the Brixton Pound
- Arguments for local currencies from an expert in the field. David Boyle has recently written a novel, The Wizard described as "a new Wizard of Oz for the age of derivatives and Goldman Sachs."
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Town that gave itself a licence to print money
- Lewes in East Sussex hopes to safeguard its traditions by issuing a local currency. The Observer, August 17 2008.
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Money Without Government and Banks by Michael E. Marotta
- Private money has a long history which actually preceded coins from
kings. Call them tokens, good-fors, wooden nickels, chits, scrip, they
have carried trade and commerce time and again. And they are working now.
Originally published in Practical Anarchy, November 1993. Revised version
published in Numismatica, 21 June 1994.
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Regiogeld e.V.
- The website of the the Regiogeld Verband (Regional Money Federation), the organisation behind the Regio complementary currency initiative. The pages are in German.
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- WIR Economic Circle
Cooperative - Origins and Ideology of the Wirtschaftsring
- The history of a system of exchange based on interest-free credits founded in
Switzerland during the Depression of the 1930s.
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- Reciprocal Exchange Networks:
Implications for Macroeconomic Stability
- "Barter rings" in the US and Switzerland do billions of dollars of trade each
year Faster and cheaper information on the internet is thought to mean greater
macroeconomic stability. However the pre-internet experience of barter rings in the
US and Switzerland suggests that, for networks independent of direct monetary
exchange, expanded credit availability may be even more stabilizing. By James Stodder
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- The Complementary Currency of Christiania
- The "free state" of Christiania in Copenhagen has issued the first local currency in Denmark in the form of a coin called the Løn, which is the Danish word for "wage". One Løn has the same value as 50 Danish kroner.
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- Time Banking
- Time Banks grew out of the Time Dollar, a currency designed as a tool for rebuilding community - in use in the United States. One hour helping another
earns one Time Dollar. With Time Dollars, the recipients of help can become the
producers of help. Social networks become rebuilt, social capital regenerated.
The movement has spread to 22 countries and six continents.
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- Timebanking UK
- Time Banking UK is the national umbrella charity linking and supporting time banks across the country by providing inspiration, guidance and mutual help. Edgar Cahn, the man who devised the time banking system said "you have achieved more in the past five years in the UK than we managed in the USA in twenty."
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- Gellideg Foundation Group: Timebanking
- The website of a typical timebank, the one based in Gellideg in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.
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- Edgar Cahn interview in the Guardian
- The legendary founder of the time bank movement tells Annie Kelly why our communities' long-term health depends on the strengths of their social networks, family structures and economic self-sufficiency. The Guardian, 10 October 2007.
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- Ithaca Money Home
Page
- Ithaca, a town in New York State, has its own printed banknotes. The people
behind the plan for the local currency say "while dollars make us increasingly
dependent on multinational corporations and bankers, HOURS reinforce community
trading and expand commerce which is more accountable to our concern for ecology
and social justice."
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- The Hour Money Institute for Global
Harmony
- The institute, based on work by Robert Blain, is dedicated to establishing an
Hour of Work as the base money unit worldwide.
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- Salt Spring Island
Dollars
- Salt Spring Island Issued Dollars, symbolized by $$, are the very first
alternative, local currency in the world that is backed 100% by a national currency
- the Canadian Dollar.
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- Fair Shares
- A pilot project in the UK modelled on work of the Time Dollar Institute in the
USA.
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- Depreciating
community-owned currencies by David Weston
- . In the early 1930s the small town of Worgl in the Austrian Tyrol, suffering
like every other town in Europe and America from the Great Depression, took the
unlikely step of issuing its own currency.
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- An Indictment of Unbalanced Capitalism and a Viable Solution - Worgl, Austria 1932-33
- An essay on the Worgl experiment by Kumar Paturi.
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- Toronto Dollar
- Community minded citizens can exchange their Canadian dollars for an equal
amount of Toronto Dollars which can be spent at participating businesses. If these
businesses choose to cash in their Toronto Dollars, they will donate 10% for
community projects such as employment creation and care for those most in
need.
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- History of Wooden Money in the
U.S.
- An account of how various localities, starting with Tenino in the state of
Washington in 1932 following the failure of the Citizens Bank of Tenino the
previous year, issued wooden money during the Great Depression.
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- Pensioner's
Currency Rivals Euro
- A report from the Guardian, September 5, 2000, on the activities of the retired
law professor, Giacinto Auriti, who has issued his own currency, the simec.
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- Essays by Professor
Giacinto Auriti
- The man behind the simec explains his ideas in a series of essays, some in
English and some in Italian.
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Social Credit
- Social Credit
by Major Clifford Hugh Douglas
- The full text of the revised version of the book published in 1933.
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- Social Credit School of
Studies
- . Information about the political, economic, and philosophical principles
enunciated by C.H. Douglas on Social Credit.
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- Thirst for Justice: the
Money Myth Exploded
- A fable to expound the ideas of social credit.
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- The Alberta Social Credit Party
- In addition to information about the policies of the Albertan party the website
contains information about the origins and philosophy of the movement.
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Other Alternative Currency Proposals
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MONEY 2.0
- MONEY 2.0 is a detailed plan for an alternative currency concept specifically designed to replace the current money system.. In MONEY 2.0, anyone can issue money who is willing to exchange products or services.
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IMF's epic plan to conjure away debt and dethrone bankers
- So there is a magic wand after all. A revolutionary paper by the International Monetary Fund claims that one could eliminate the net public debt of the US at a stroke, and by implication do the same for Britain, Germany, Italy, or Japan. Telegraph, 21 October 2012.
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Submission of Professor Mark Joób in support of Lilja Mosesdottir's Icelandic parliamentary resolution
- The text of the paper by Dr. Mark Joób Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of West Hungary, in support of the resolution by Lilja Mósesdóttir calling for a separation of the money creation and lending functions of the banking system.
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The Financial Party of Canada
- The aim of the party is to offer Canada an interest-free alternative to the current debt-based financial system.
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- The
Abolitionist Party of Canada
- The party stands for the abolition of interest and the replacement of the
existing monetary system by one based on the use of LETS at the national and
international levels as well as the local level.
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The Perfect Currency
- A website dedicated to the creation of a currency standard which will provide both a stable base for commercial transactions and a monetary system which will fully illuminate the process of human and environmental real wealth creation. The proposed system would not be a fiat currency nor would it be based on precious metals. Instead it would be based on a unit of energy, e.g. a kilowatt hour or some other energy unit.
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People for Mathematically Perfected Economy
- Mathematically Perfected Economy™ is every prospective debtor's right to issue their promise to pay, free of extrinsic manipulation, adulteration, or exploitation of that promise, or the natural opportunity to make good on it.
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‘Green Credit’ for Green Purposes: Changing the Cash / Credit Ratio of the Money Supply to Ameliorate Climate Change
- A Response to the Inquiry of the Treasury Select Committee into Climate Change and the Stern Review, submitted by Sabine K McNeill, organiser of the Forum for Stable Currencies.
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Green Credit for Green Growth
- A website with more information on the relationships between the environment and the financial system.
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Forum for Stable Currencies
- The Forum is a voluntary Initiative of Parliamentarians and Concerned Citizens across the full political spectrum and from all religious persuasions.
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In the Spirit of the Forum for Stable Currencies
- A blog covering developments relevant to the theme of the Forum.
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Stop the Cash Crumble to Equalize the Credit Crunch
- An online petition to the (UK) Treasury Select Committee urging that the role of cash or narrow money be increased relative to that of credit.
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Creating New Money: a monetary reform for the information age
- A 92 page publication by Joseph Huber and James Robertson urging that
money creation should once more become something for which the state, not
the banking system, takes complete responsibility.
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- Plain
Money : A Proposal for Supplying the Nations with the Necessary Means in a Modern
Monetary System
- An older article by Professor Joseph Huber
on restoring government responsiblty for the
creation of money.
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- The Natural Economic Order
- The full text of the English translation of Silvio Gesell's most famous work. He wanted the state to issue money that, like capital assets, depreciated. The idea was to ensure that
money was kept in circulation, rather than being saved.
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- John
Maynard Keynes on Silvio Gesell
- In his greatest work, the General Theory of Employment, Money and
Interest, Keynes devoted several paragraphs to the ideas of Gesell whom he
described as a "strange, unduly neglected prophet".
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- Margrit Kennedy's Website on
Money
- Information, mostly in German but some pages are in English, on relevant
publications and seminars etc.
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- Interest and inflation
free money by Margrit Kennedy
- Kennedy, like Silvio Gesell, proposed that instead of earning interest people
would pay a small fee if they kept money out of circulation. More of her work is
also available in
German
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- HOLIS.ORG
- Philosophical writings on money and other subjects (in German)
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- Prosperity: Freedom from Debt
Slavery
- Prosperity is a monthly Money Reform journal dedicated to spreading
understanding about the nature of our debt-based money system, and
campaigning for publicly-created debt-free money.
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- The New Approach to
Freedom
- This site includes the text of three books by E.C. Riegel and
other material based on his teachings.
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- Complementary Money
System
- The Economic Means to Freedom -- Part V by Frederick Mann. A plan roughly based
on the ideas of E.C. Riegel.
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- Jubilee 2000
- A campaign to cancel the debts of the world's poorest nations inspired by the
Old Testament concept of a of a jubilee year whereby each fifty years saw all
debts, especially those related to land occupancy and slavery, released.
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- Global Resource Bank
- What is the value of the world's ecosystem? The Global Resource Bank has the
ambition of solving global environmental and monetary problems.
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- Nordiska Sparlån
- An interest-free financial institution based in Sweden. The pages are all in
Swedish.
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- Samlade Pengar
- A collection of articles in English from the Swedish journal for
monetary reform Pengar. (Samlade pengar means "collected money").
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- JAK Medlemsbank
- JAK Members Bank (the name JAK is an acronym - Jord, Arbete och Kapital -
Swedish for Land, Labour and Capital, the factors of production in traditional
political economy) is an organisation for economic development without exploiting
mankind or nature. Information about it is available in several languages. It is possible to obtain loans without any prior savings in the bank.
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- JAK (Denmark)
- Information about the activities of JAK institutions in Denmark. The website
also features an online magazine or newsletter with brief items on economic, social
or environmental topics. All the web pages are in Danish.
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- CAJA
- CAJA is a non-profit, non-political and non-religious democratic organization, promoting the introduction of interest free micro credits. It is based in Sweden.
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- Regnbuekassen
- Offers cheap loans for ecological projects. The pages are all in Danish.
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- High Interest Rates and
the Failure of Banking
- A chapter from a book on Elegant Technology at a web site devoted to
Thorstein Weblen. The author of the chapter argues that compound interest
can never, ever be justified and that rates of simple interest should be
slightly less than the growth in GNP plus inflation.
Articles on Usury
- Against Those Who Practice Usury by Gregory of Nyssa
- (c.335-c.394)
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- Defence of Usury by
Jeremy Bentham 1787
-
- Of Usury by Francis
Bacon
- The full text of Bacon's famous essay.
-
- On
Usury and Dishonest Profit: Vix Pervenit
- Encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV promulgated on November 1, 1745.
-
- From
Leviticus To Political Economy
- Chapter XIX of The Warfare Of Science With Theology by Andrew Dickson
White (1832-1918), published 1896. "Among questions on which the supporters of
right reason in political and social science have only conquered theological
opposition after centuries of war, is the taking of interest on loans. In hardly
any struggle has rigid adherence to the letter of our sacred books been more
prolonged and injurious."
-
- A Brief History of
Interest
- by Stephen Zarlenga.
-
- A
brief inquiry into the nature of the interest mechanism & 10 steps to
solve it
- An article by Steve Consilvio outlining arguments against compound
interest.
-
- Interest
(Riba`)
- by A Student of Darul-Uloom, Bury, U.K.
-
- Riba (Usury and Interest) According to
Quran and Sunnah
-
- IBF NET : The Islamic Banking and Finance
Network
- A global network of students, researchers, bankers and finance professionals
interested in the Islamic approach to finance.
Other Relevant Links
- Ethex
- Ethex is a non-profit company. It aims make to ethical investment easier to understand and to do by providing investors with the information and the services they need.
-
- Make Poverty History
- An umbrella group of organisations that have come together to campaign
for debt relief for poor countries, fairer trade and increased aid.
-
- Global Justice
- Economic democracy and currency reform are among the goals advocated by this
movement.
-
- New Economics Foundation
- The New Economics Foundation is the radical think tank. It is unique in
bringing together the ideas, people, resources and influence to challenge
business-as-usual. Its aim is to create practical and enterprising solutions to the
social, environmental and economic challenges facing the local, regional, national
and global economies.
-
- E. F. Schumacher Society
- The society, named after the author of Small Is Beautiful: Economics
As If People Mattered, is an educational non-profit organization founded
in 1980. It aims to demonstrate that both social and environmental
sustainability can be achieved by applying the values of human-scale
communities and respect for the natural environment to economic issues.
-
- Christian Council for Monetary
Justice
- The aims of the Council are to present a Christian witness on the true
function of a monetary system in society, to examine the working of the
existing laws and international arrangements which relate to financial
institutions especially in regard to their wider economic, social and
moral implications, to press for the revision of these laws and
international arrangements where they are found to be working against the
public interest, and to press for other monetary measures that will
contribute to economic and social justice within the community and
throughout the world.
-
-
Money and Business - Christianity Today Magazine
- An archive of articles from earlier issues of the magazine.
-
- INAISE
- The International Association of Investors in the Social Economy is
a global network of socially and environmentally oriented financial
institutions. Among INAISE's concerns are sustainable development,
renewable energy, nature conservation, and the promotion of co-operatives,
community enterprises, employee participation, employee buy-outs, micro
and small enterprise creation and development, especially among
unemployed, migrants and women.
-
- Triodos Bank
- Triodos Bank is a social bank lending only to organisations and
businesses with social and environmental objectives. It was founded in 1980 in the Netherlands and now also has offices in Belgium, the United
Kingdom and Spain.
-
- Merkur Bank
- Merkur Bank is a Danish bank which specialises in lending for environmental, social, cultural and educational purposes.
-
-
Predatory Lending and Toxic Credit
- Matthew Lee, a campaigning lawyer in the South Bronx of New York City,
has written a unique book. Predatory Bender is a novel on the subject of
predatory lending, but it has a 90 page factual afterward entitled
Predatory Lending: Toxic Credit in the Inner City.
-
- Center for a New American Dream
- Information about resources for sustainable living and links to related
sites.
-
- Community Enterprise
Ltd.
- Although this Scottish organisation set up by Lothian Regional Council &
Edinburgh City Council, is not directly involved with local currencies, it has
similar objectives to the promoters of such systems, namely to foster economic and
social inclusion by promoting enterprise and enterprise skills as widely as
possible, reaching the parts of the economy that other agencies do not reach.
-
- Hunting and Gathering in the
Information Age
- The full text of a book by Danny Quintana, a legal activist working for North
American Indians or Native Americans, full of reflections on modern life, including
the role of money.
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Last updated - 11 January 2015.
Roy Davies