What is that which you count? Money as a Relation of economic agreement

In comparison with orthodox monetary economics, there are pragmatist, semiotic, linguistic and social considerations that offer a broader and richer inter-disciplinary scope of analysis for a sound unfolding of money’s ontology, which in turn brings about a new working definition of money: from an object in the ninetieth century to a tool in the twentieth one, money is now ontologically... Read More

Knowing what you count: Money as an Object

ONTOLOGY OF MONEY – MONEY IS NEITHER AN OBJECT NOR A TOOL: IT IS A RELATION – Objectified Nature of Money: philosophical assumptions of orthodox monetary economics The commodity-exchange theory is perhaps the most representative account of the origin and nature of money in terms of an economistic model based on “real analysis”, which centers on the relationship... Read More

Natural Savings

Natural Savings are the complementary answer to the narrowed functionality of modern bank money with regards to the micro-financial sector. By virtue of the latter, borrowers automatically face the hurdles of monetary inflation and currency devaluation, whereas micro-finance institutions operate under the constraints of banking regulation and central banking practices, which often... Read More

Cultural Credit Circuit – Cultos

C3 concept for the cultural sector In the cultural industry, a Cultural Institution behaves like a business company in the commercial sector: both belong tothe respectve industrial sectors. The difference between the two is that the former may not be designed to pursue profit whilst the latter is explicitly designed to compete for profit. In the cultural sector, a Cultural Institution... Read More

NU Spaarpas – The Netherlands

Another exemplification of the possible complementarity between conventional money (i.e. the Euro) and other types of currencies comes from the domain of ‘green currencies‘. For instance, according to Peter North, in Rotterdam the NU Spaarpas was a ‘green loyalty point’ currency that was piloted from May 2002 to September 2003. ‘Green points’ were earned when... Read More

SCEC – Italy

In general complementary currencies are designed to create new wealth, both financial and social. In a nutshell, they are thought of as financial resources to increase social capital while maintaining in the best conditions the natural capital. Therefore, they foster co-operation, because they resemble some of the features a gift economy presents: horizontal and a-centered connection... Read More

C3 – Uruguay

The primary driving mechanism for the functioning of the conventional monetary system is fiat-money central banking. The booms and busts impelled by such systemic configuration drive economies toward full employment in booming periods, but then, during busts, they create significant unemployment. During contractive stages of the business cycle such as that one initiated with the... Read More

WIR – Switzerland

The best documented modern example to show the effectiveness of implementing a dual-currency system by means of the adoption of a complementary currency to use in mixed payments in parallel with the national one comes form Switzerland. Back in 1934, a group of Swiss entrepreneurs agreed to use a means of payment issued by a Basel-based Economic Circle in parallel to the Swiss Franc... Read More