Keith,
Bill: Good morning. Thanks for some good commentary on local
economies.
I
don’t have the impression that the BALLE people are promoting LETS schemes as
part of their fundamental mission.
Neither are they anti global or anti multinational corporations as much
as they are pro local businesses becoming more connected to each other,
learning best business practices from each other and supporting each other’s
businesses. One of the best
features, in my review of their literature and program, is promoting building
blocks to train and sustain newer entrepreneurs, much as apprenticeships and
trade unions used to function in earlier economies. They are also working on a national
marketplace database.
Some
of the best stories I can share involve single item producers who team up with
others to package the end product creatively, using raw materials available
locally, each group remaining a stand alone business, not incorporated. For example, a local town became nearly
extinct when it’s two sources of jobs and revenue were closed down.
Consultants were brought in, thanks to the initiative taken by a local “spark
plug”, just to help them
coordinate the natal ideas they had themselves for surviving that then became
thriving. The trawlers supplied
the previously tourist season only salmon smoker with a year round supply, an
old cannery was reopened, wood that was previously exported became available
for a local craftsman who made wood tops for the tins, artisans carved native
designs into the wood tops and they are sold at gourmet prices in the nearby
big city airport and elsewhere. The offal from the smoke house and wood
chips are trucked upstream to refurbish the watershed stripped by years of
logging. They had the talent and
means but just didn’t know what each other had to work together. Each had a
piece of the puzzle that became a whole picture.
Individual
members may of course be more anti Big Box, and this is certainly a current of
electricity that charges many people not just local businesses trying to
compete.
But
this isn’t just about competition and the marketplace. It is also about entrepreneurs who
still want to do and produce for themselves in their local communities. They
will always be there, we can only hope, and if your energy projections are
correct, we will care very much about them in the future. I have seen a few things about the
cost of transporting all this global food and what it is doing to roads, not
just energy needs and ozone layers. No one is yet seriously advocating
bringing food to market by horse and buggy again, but buying local first makes
a lot of sense to many people, regardless of Wal-Mart, OPEC or collapse of the
world economy.
I am
interested in sustainability over several core concepts, not just local
economies. Since I am not a
business person myself, I am interested in the human spirit and
entrepreneurial success equations.
My philosophy is to recognize, accept and seek a better balance of yin
and yang in my life and the world around me. I try to promote a moderate
perspective and moderation reaction.
Some of my best friends are multinationalist corporate wheeler
dealers.
I did
hear about a few cities/towns where LETS were managing to survive, although I
do not know much more than that, the paper ones actually doing better than
others. Again, I am not trying to sell BALLE itself on FW, (there are at least
five other groups I can provide urls to regarding local living economies)
besides the selection of websites I provided in the original LLE post. If
anyone is interested in other websites or references, please contact me
offline.
-
KWC
Bill and
Karen,
At 13:10 07/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Harry,
What is your feeling about the
efficacy of LETS as a balance to the Walmarts of the
world?
http://www.gmlets.u-net.com/
Bill
Over here,
100% of LETS (and similar) schemes fail within 18 months. They are constantly
springing up and constantly dying. The reason why -- beyond an initial flush
of enthusiasm -- local currencies are not in any way credible is because
you can't do normal currency-things with them. In practice, what happens is
that most of those who join LETS schemes offer unimportant or crazy services
like weeding the garden, reflexology, reading Tarot cards, aromatherapy and
such like, so that you have very little to spend your credits on. (And you
can't save them because no-one wants to borrow them, never mind pay you
interest.) People with useful skills like plumbers, electricians, carpenters
avoid LETS schemes like the plague because they can't use the currency -
certainly not in the five or so LETS schemes I've seen come and go in Bath.
There's none at the moment, but there'll be another soon, I expect. And this
will fail once again.)
What will be a real boon to local economies will
be smartcards. Yes, even Walmart smartcards!
If Walmart were to start
their own smartcard scheme (which they are seriously studying, so I
understand, stimulated by Ebay's current experiment), then that would be a
real currency because it would be redeemable at any time against a wide
variety of goods of value. In fact, Walter Wriston, who probably understands
money as few others do in modern times, having been chairman and CEO of
Citicorp/Citibank for 17 years, thinks that privately issued smartcards will
be inevitable and, because they will be backed-up by real value, have a very
good chance of overtaking national currencies in due course. Another supporter
who writes on the subject of alternative smartcard- and electronic-type
currencies is Jon Matonis, ex-Foreign Exchange Manager for Deak
International's World Bank office and Director of Futures Trading for Sumitomo
Bank Ltd. And then, right now, Barclays Bank over here are issuing a fully
protected credit card -- a sort of halfway-house to a smartcard -- and if the
initial trial is successful it is inevitable that this will gradually become a
fully-fledged new currency in due course.(You can be certain that many other
banks and businesses with large cashflows are looking carefully at the
Barclays trial.)
Despite the fact that smartcards are likely to be
instituted by major transnational corporations, they will be a major boon to
local economies because they will allow, even encourage, a great deal of new
transactions and work outside the official economy because individuals will be
able to transfer money between themselves without anybody else (particularly
the government) being any the wiser. At present LETS schemes typically involve
unemployed people on welfare and middle-class drop-outs. Once such individuals
-- presently attracted to LETS schemes -- have possession of smartcards then
they will be able to interact with relevant skills in the real world and not
the trivial services that are the only ones presently on offer in LETS
schemes.
It's to be remembered, too, that all developed countries have
considerable 'grey' or underground economies, which (though, by their nature,
are not directly measurable) are officially estimated to amount to about
10-15% of GDP of some economies (UK and US) and up to 40 or even 60% in others
(Italy and Russia respectively). When these grey economies start using
smartcards then they will expand steadily from then onwards as a proportion of
the taxable economy.
I am having the roof of my office replaced shortly
and have had four estimates from builders. One of them has offered to reduce
his quote considerably if I pay in cash because he can evade tax. In the
future, when smartcards are available and fully keyed into a fully encrypted
database which will keep an individual's money and transactions away from
government eyes, then this type of tax evasion will not only increase but
gradually become the norm for large parts of the economy, whatever governments
may try to do.
I am afraid that nothing much can be done for local
economies at present until (a) freight transport and personal commuting become
a great deal more expensive, and (b) we have at least one, and hopefully,
several fully functioning smartcard schemes -- followed up in due course, one
hopes, with local solar-powered production systems and electrification. The
last is several decades away but the first two are probably fairly imminent,
so I wouldn't be too pessimistic -- so long as you don't exhaust yourself with
trying to run a LETS scheme! (Much, much better, local businesses should start
a local credit bank of their own like using real money like the Grameen
bank.)
Small businesses should not be anti-global or against the large
transnational corporation. The latter are mainly a product of absurdly cheap
energy -- which won't last for more than a decade or two longer. As energy
becomes more expensive, then the advantages of local economies will gradually
reassert themselves.
I had a long argument with the founder of LETS
schemes (whose name I've forgotten) on his website several years ago. I don't
know what's happened to him but I doubt very much that he's still starting
schemes himself.
Keith Hudson
On Sat, 7 Jun 2003 08:29:05 -0700 "Karen
Watters Cole" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Last weekend I
attended the first national gathering of a group formed to promote local
living economies, partly as a personal growth exercise and for writing
research. The groups name, BALLE, stands for Business Alliances for
Local Living Economies (http://www.ballenetwork.org/BALLE/) and includes mostly small local entrepreneurs trying to
remain vital in their communities, centered around sustainability themes and a
strong desire to promote local business first. Some of these good people
are unabashedly anti-global, anti-multinationals but most of them simply want
to succeed in the places where they live, raise their children and pay their
taxes. These are not provincial people insisting everyone be of the same
color, creed or cloth, otherwise I would not be interested in what they are
trying to promote.
