This document contains information about complementary currencies (CCs) and shared currency systems (SCCs). It discusses the history and etymology of the word "economy" in various languages. It also provides examples of existing SCC systems like LETS, Banco Palmas, Chiemgauer, and WIRBank. The document advocates for developing community-based currencies that are interest-free and involve local stakeholders to stimulate local economies. It provides guidance on designing, marketing, and implementing SCC systems tailored to community needs. Key resources on the topic are also referenced.

1. Yasuyuki Hirota
(Univ. of Valencia, Spain)
mig@olccjp.net
Skype: migjp2003
Manado (Indonesia), 05 Oct 2012

2.  Economy: comes from the Greek word “οικονομία”
(“οἶκος” (house) + “νέμω” (management))
 Economy in East-Asian languages:
 “keizai” (“ 経済” ) in Japanese
 “Jīng jì” (“ 經濟 / 经济“ ) in Chinese (Mandarin)
 ”gyeongje” ( 경제“ ) in Korean
 All come from the Chinese phrase ”Jīng shì jì mín“
(” 經 世 濟 民 / 经 世 济 民 “ , “manage the world and
satisfy people“)
 None of these concepts say about maximising profits
but about the management of production,
distribution and consumption
 We should produce to satisfy our own needs, not to
make money at the cost of people / environment!!

3.  What is money?
 Answer: “An agreement within a community to
use something as a means of exchange”
(Bernard Lietaer)
 > So we can have our own means of
exchange!: SCC
 How is money created and given into the
economy?
 Answer: As bank credits. No debt, no money
 More info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys

4.  Ghana: People lived well with barter (direct
exchange): Little need to buy goods from
British colonisers
 The British gov’t introduced a Ghanan national
currency and started to charge tax only
payable in this national currency
 Consequences: End of self-sufficient economy,
dependency on British economy and
impoverishment

6.  What makes Bali so attractive to tourists?: Its
unique religious and cultural performances
done for local communities
 Banjar: democratically-managed community-
based planning and implementatiion unit for
such performances
 The coexistence of rupiah and banjar helps the
Balinese keep their tradition while prospering
as a tourist destination
 More info: Lietaer (2003) and Lietaer and
Belgin (2012), chapter 28

7.  A: Human being’s
growth
 C: Cancer’s growth
and what our
money system
demands us
 With compound
interest rate our
economy is destined
to eat up all natural
resources of our
planet
 Source: Kennedy
(1995)

8.  The interest
improverished most
people while
enriching the few
rich
 Source: “Inflation
and Interest-free
money” (Kennedy,
1995) available at:
http://kennedy-bibliot

10.  Each regional economy: tends to be export-
oriented > only produces exportable goods
(monoculture) while giving up self-sufficiency
(stops producing goods for local demands and
starts importing them)
 Dependency on exports: shows vulnerability
(weakness) in case of economic crisis as customers
stop buying your products
 Self-sufficiency: way to soften the crisis

11.  A mutual-credit account system since 1982 and
most popular SCC in the world
 Each member has a virtual account to clear
transactions
 Remarkable cases: TEM (Volos, Greece), CES
(started in Cape Town, South Africa and spread
into the world), Hanbat LETS (Daejeon, South
Korea)
 CES: http://www.ces.org.za/
 TEM: http://www.tem-magnisia.gr/ (in Greek)
 Hanbat LETS: http://www.tjlets.or.kr/ (in Korean)

12.  Founded in 1998 at Fortaleza, Ceará to struggle
against the financial exclusion: originally operated
only with real (Brazil’s official currency, R$) but now
provides loans in R$ and Palma (SCC, although
backed with R$) too
 Their slogan: “No community is poor, but there are
impoverished ones!”
 Website (in Portuguese):
http://www.bancopalmas.org.br/
 More info in English:
http://dowbor.org/ar/community_development_banks-
(also try Wikipedia on Banco Palmas)
 Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8YLFKr7lZs

13.  An NGO (“Our Footprints” in Spanish) working to
set up community banks, among others
 The NGO staff visits impoverished communities in
Greater Buenos Aires and gives training courses for
communities to finance itself
 Website (in Spanish, English etc.):
http://www.nuestrashuellas.org.ar/

14.  Founded in 2003 as an extracurricular project at a
Waldorf school in Prien am Chiemsee, Bavaria
 €-backed SCC, with 3% of face value donated to
the local project you want to support
 5% of commission is charged on reimbursing from
Chiemgauer to €
 Virtually interest-free microcredits in Chiemgauer
started: you need to pay interest, but it will be
returned to you if you repay all your loan without
delay
 Website (in German): http://www.chiemgauer.info/
 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=6_Bf85tX9YE

15.  Chiemgauer’s circulation

16.  Proposed by German
merchant and economist
Silvio Gesell (1862-1930) in
his masterpiece “Natural
Economic Order”
 Everything (food, cars,
houses) is devaluated over
time except money
 So let’s abolish the privilege
of money by charging fees!
> demurrage
 Natural Economic Order:
http://www.silvio-
gesell.de/neo_index1.htm

17.  The most successful experience of demurrage SCC
 The mayor Michael Unterguggenberger issued this
SCC in July 1932 to tackle the Great Depression
 1%/month of demurrage fee
 This SCC stimulated the local economy and people
even wanted to pay tax in advance
 The Central Bank of Austria forbade it in Sep 1933

18.  Michael Unterguggenberger’s monument
in front of the City Council

19.  A picture of that SCC in 1930s

22.  Operational since 1934 to stimulate B2B
transactions among Swiss small businesses: one
sixth of small businesses join
 The bank provides loans in WIR (SCC), only
accepted by other WIRBank-member businesses, at
lower interest rate
 1.55 billion CHF is traded annually in this currency.
More info (in German, French and Italian):
http://www.wir.ch/
 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=VMy8zmWSrFA

23.  An interest-free bank
 Savers don’t get interest but points which allow
them to take interest-free loans
 Democratically managed by its members
 Website (in Swedish, English etc.):
http://www.jak.se/
 Video (part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=aW2pj109Cr8,Video (part 2):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktzRsH9qLiw,
Video (part 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=iFx1V0_ysjo, Video (part 4):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rghb0KrKxxE

24. Comparison of SCC cases
LETS Banco Chiem- WIR
Palmas gauer
Food / No Yes Yes Yes
professional
service
Reimburse No Yes Yes No
into offical
tender
Loans Unnecessary Easy Easy Easy
Extension Neighbour- Neighbour- Regional Regional /
hood hood National

25.  Microeconomy: management of an enterprise, a
non-profit, a credit union etc.
 Macroeconomy: management of the whole
economy at the local / regional / national level
 SCC’s feature: involvement of different
stakeholders, such as: consumers, prosumers,
volunteers, non-profits, local businesses, public
sector, financial sector, tourists, public
transportation

26. Stakeholders’ involvement
LETS Banco Chiem- WIR
Palmas gauer
Consumers Yes Yes Yes Yes
Volunteers / non-profits Yes Yes Yes No
Local businesses Few Some Some Many
Public sector No No No No
Financial sector No Yes Yes Yes
Self-employed Yes Yes Yes Yes
Huge corporations No No No No
Tourists Yes / No No Yes No
Public transportation No Yes No Yes?

27.  Means of transportation: on foot, bicycle,
motorcycle, bus, funicular, taxi, private car,
tramway, subway, train, ferry, airplanes…: Each
means of transportation for its own purposes
 The same is true with CC: need to study different
typologies and to see their advantages /
disadvantages

28. 5
4
3
Official tender
WIR
CHIEMGAUER
2
LETS
1

29.  1: Set your SCC’s goals
 2: Set up the leadership team
 3: Set the value standard
 4: Determine with what the SCC is backed
 5: Determine how the SCC management cost is
recovered?
 6: Design how the SCC is issued, circulated and
redeemed (withdrawn from the circulation)
 Further info: http://www.global-
community.org/gc/newsfiles/25/Community
%20Currency%20Guide.pdf

30.  Key concept: replace imported goods / services
with locally-produced ones
 1: Local economy mapping
 2: (Re)discover your local resources
 3: Discussions in your community
 4: Design the CSS model that fits your needs
 5: Marketing for different stakeholders
 Further info:
http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/downloads/ptl_ha
ndbook.pdf

31.  Need for appropriately-arranged language for
different stakeholders: non-profits, local shops,
factories, consumers, city councils etc…
 What is marketing?: “activity, set of institutions,
and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering, and exchanging offerings that have
value for customers, clients, partners, and society
at large” (American Marketing Association, 2007)
 What value can SCC offer for non-profits, local
shops, factories, consumers, city councils etc.?

32.  Economy: Not to make profits but to satisfy
our needs
 Money: An agreement within a community
 SCC: Our own means of exchange!
 Current money: Issued by commercial banks
for them to make profits
 Compound interest: calls for exponential and
unsustainable development and redistributes
the wealth only for the rich
 Different experiences: LETS, Banco Palmas
(Brazil), Nuestras Huellas (Argentina),
Chiemgauer (Germany), WIRBank
(Switzerland), JAK Bank (Sweden etc.)

33.  Demurrage: to assure money’s circulation and
put an end to the privilege of money
 SCC as a macroeconomic tool: Need to involve
different stakeholders
 SCC: Our own means of exchange!
 Important: Appropriate design, leveraging
unused recourses and customised marketing
for different stakeholders

34.  “The Future of Money” (Bernard Lietaer, Century, 2001)
 “Inflation and Interest-free Money” (Margrit Kennedy,
http://kennedy-
bibliothek.info/data/bibo/media/GeldbuchEnglisch.pdf )
 “Creating Wealth” (Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith,
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island (Canada),2011)
 “People Money” (Margrit Kennedy, Triarchy Press, 2012)
 “New Money for a New World” (Bernard Lietaer and Steven
Belgin, Qitarra Press, Boulder (Colorado, US), 2012)
 “Sustaining Cultural Vitality in a Globalizing World: The
Balinese Example” (Bernard Lietaer, 2003) available at:
http://www.complementarycurrency.org/ccLibrary/materials/
sustaining_cultural_vitality.pdf

35. Yasuyuki Hirota
(Univ. of Valencia, Spain)
mig@olccjp.net
Skype: migjp2003
Manado (Indonesia), 05 Oct 2012