Alternative currencies: diverse experiments

This chapter explores how people wishing to develop creative alternatives to money-as-usual issued by states have experimented with a range of diverse alternative forms of currency such as LETS schemes, time banks, local paper currencies, electronic forms of payment, and more recently, cryptocurrencies. Sometimes these are small, local schemes. Sometimes, such as in Argentina after December 2001, millions use them to survive an economic crisis. These different models of grassroots currency suggest, support and enable very different futures: libertarian, communitarian, hyper capitalist, ecological, inclusive. For diverse economies advocates, they enable people to live ethically, sustainably, prosperously, and with dignity and justice in the Anthropocene. The chapter discusses the implications of different ways of valuating alternative currencies (aligned with money-as-usual, with time, or with something else) and if they should be convertible. It discusses the extent to which an alternative currency should be issued and its use managed, and different geographies of circulation.