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could. He described them as ‘a rapidly evolving, sometimes growing, sometimes
declining movement’. 6 Paul Ketko, a geography student researching New Zealand’s
green dollars in 1997, said at the time that he knew of 45 LETS systems, 7 but by December
2000 this number had reduced to 33. Extensive descriptions of green dollar systems are
found in the writings of Thomas Greco, Richard Douthwaite and Bernard Lietaer, where
New Zealand is often portrayed as having strong LETS schemes. However, these authors
have been reliant on Mark Jackson’s research, carried out at the height of LETS activity.
Since then the overall experience has fallen short of early expectations, and many visitors
to the country have been disappointed to see our declining LETS at first hand.
So what makes a successful exchange? For starters, LETS should be kept small
because they operate best when members know and trust each other. Richard
Douthwaite and Dan Wagman comment, ‘Very few LETS systems have been able to
recruit and retain over 200 active members.’ 8 There can, however, be a relatively large
membership – in Golden Bay in 2001, for example, it was estimated that more than 4 per
cent of the population of 4000 were members of the local green dollar system.
In a 1999 article in G$ Quarterly, Maureen Mallinson, organiser of the longsurviving
Thames green dollar system, summed up the reasons for their success. She
said that they
operate a balanced system without a management account deficit and use intertrading
(trading between exchanges). Communication between members is fostered by regular
monthly newsletters and accounts, by monthly markets and triannual auctions, by the
use of brokers to facilitate trade, by having a buddy system and by holding banquets.
Their coordinator is paid in green dollars. 9 In November 1997,
Maureen also told Richard Douthwaite and the author that when members join their
credit is limited until they become established traders, and is lifted only when they
become regular traders, crossing the zero line regularly.
It is quite a challenge to run a balanced system. Many systems put a debit
restriction on their members but do not impose the same corresponding credit limit, with
the inevitable result that some members accumulate high credit balances while others for
whose services there is limited demand may have continual debit balances. Here, it is the
member holding the credit balance that is posing the problem, not those with debit
balances.
Issues for Green Dollar Exchanges
•
Members who accumulate too much credit need to find ways of spending it.
• Those who leave the system with a debit account cause the system to be in debit.
• Too much pressure is put on committee members, who end up resigning through
burnout or internal disagreements.