Creating Community
Economics
With Local Currency
Paul Glover
Here in Ithaca, New York, we've begun to gain control of the
social and environmental effects of commerce by issuing over $60,000
of our own local paper money, to over 1,200 participants, since 1991.
Thousands of purchases and many new friendships have been made with
this cash, and about $2,000,000 of local trading has been added to
the Grassroots National Product.
We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come
to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and
fight wars. Ithaca's HOURS, by contrast, stay in our region to help
us hire each other. While dollars make us increasingly dependent on
multinational corporations and bankers, HOURS reinforce community
trading and expand commerce which is more accountable to our concerns
for ecology and social justice.
Here's how it works: the Ithaca HOUR is Ithaca's $10.00 bill,
because ten dollars per hour is the average of wages/salaries in
Tompkins County. These HOUR notes, in five denominations, buy
plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, roofing, nursing, chiropractic,
child care, car and bike repair, food, eyeglasses, firewood, gifts,
and thousands of other goods and services. Our credit union accepts
them for mortgage and loan fees. People pay rent with HOURS. The best
restaurants in town take them, as do movie theaters, bowling alleys,
two large locally-owned grocery stores, many garage sales, forty
farmer's market vendors, the Chamber of Commerce, and 250 other
businesses. Hundreds more have earned and spent HOURS who are not on
the Ithaca Money list.
Ithaca's new HOURly minimum wage lifts the lowest paid up without
knocking down higher wages. For example, several of Ithaca's organic
farmers are paying the highest commmon farm labor wages in the world:
$10.00 of spending power per HOUR. These farmers benefit by the
HOUR's loyalty to local agriculture. On the other hand, dentists,
massage therapists and lawyers charging more than the $10.00 average
per hour are permitted to collect several HOURS hourly. But we hear
increasingly of professional services provided for our equitable
wage.
Everyone who agrees to accept HOURS is paid one HOUR ($10.00) or
two HOURS ($20.00) for being listed in our newsletter HOUR Town.
Every eight months they may apply to be paid an additional HOUR, as
reward for continuing participation. This is how we gradually and
carefully increase the per capita supply of our money. Once issued,
anyone may earn and spend HOURS, whether signed up or not, and
hundreds have done so.
Ithaca Money's 1,400 listings, rivalling the Yellow Pages, are a
portrait of our community's capability, bringing into the marketplace
time and skills not employed by the conventional market. Residents
are proud of income gained by doing work they enjoy. We encounter
each other as fellow Ithacans, rather than as winners and losers
scrambling for dollars.
The Success Stories of 300 participants published so far testify
to the acts of generosity and community that our system prompts.
We're making a community while making a living. As we do so, we
relieve the social desperation which has led to compulsive shopping
and wasted resources.
At the same time Ithaca's locally-owned stores, which keep more
wealth local, make sales and get spending power they otherwise would
not have. And over $5,500 of local currency has been donated to 25
community organizations so far, by the Barter Potluck, our wide-open
governing body.
As we discover new ways to provide for each other, we replace
dependence on imports. Yet our greater self-reliance, rather than
isolating Ithaca, gives us more potential to reach outward with
ecological export industry. We can capitalize new businesses with
loans of our own cash. HOUR loans are made without interest charges.
We regard Ithaca's HOURS as real money, backed by real people,
real time, real skills and tools. Dollars, by contrast, are funny
money, backed no longer by gold or silver but by less than nothing-
$5 trillion of national debt.
Ithaca's money honors local features we respect, like native
flowers, powerful waterfalls, crafts, farms and our children. Our
commemorative HOUR is the first paper money in the U.S. to honor an
African-American.
Multi-colored HOURS, some printed on locally-made watermarked
cattail (marsh reed) paper, or handmade hemp paper, some with
non-xeroxable thermal ink, all with serial numbers, are harder to
counterfeit than dollars.
Local currency is a lot of fun, and it's legal. HOURS are taxable
income when traded for professional goods or services.
Local currency is also lots of work and responsibility. To give
other communities a boost, we've been providing a Hometown Money
Starter Kit.
Paul Glover (607) 272-4330
http://www.publiccom.com/web/ithacahour/
Box 6578, Ithaca, NY 14851
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