THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

spend the other two-thirds of their working hours in what I call the
'Competitive' economy, the only one we know in the West.
'Temple time' is part of a long tradition of a 'gift economy' in Bali. In
the Western world, during the current transition period from the
Post-Industrial Age, we may not be ready for a pure gift economy.
Nevertheless, it is possible for our future to include a 'Cooperative'
dimension in everyday life.
What if we needed only a transition tool, a process through which
we can rebuild community and our trust in a gift economy?
Communities around the world have already created and
implemented several types of complementary currencies that are
compatible with, even result in, a gift economy. Called 'mutual credit'
currencies, they can always be created in amounts that are sufficient,
rather than scarce. In contrast with competition-programmed
national currencies, they are not scarcity based. They are created by the
participants at the moment of their transaction. For instance, if you
perform a service of one hour for me, you get a credit of one hour
and I get a debit for the same amount. A simple barter would occur if
I did something in exchange for you that is also valued at one hour.
But using the mutual credit currency, you can purchase fresh eggs at
the market, and I can cancel my debit with someone else. That means
that we have created a true currency one that is not artificially scarce.
Whenever we agree on a transaction, we can always create the money.
One of the first scarcities to address is job scarcity. There are now
2,500 complementary currency systems operational in the world
today, most of which have sprung up to generate local work in high
unemployment areas. More than 400 communities in the UK have
started their own electronic complementary currency system called
the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS). Similarly, in Germany
they are called Tauschring, in France Grains de Sel, and several