Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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currencies are bus tickets, record vouchers and Fly Buys points. Private firms have
also been known to pay workers with a currency redeemable in the goods and
services that firm produces or provides – as with the owner of a disused coal mine
in Wära, Germany, in 1932, who paid his workers with vouchers that then
circulated in the township as money (see page 000). After being accepted by local
merchants, the notes were eventually redeemed for coal by the original issuer.
To remain trusted, money must continue to be widely acceptable to a range of
people and agencies. The most widely acceptable currencies are those that are
good for paying taxes, whether national or local. The currency then has what is
called a tax base. Examples of complementary currencies with a tax base are
Austria’s Wörgl, the Guernsey pound, the tallysticks of England’s Henry I, and the
bracteates that were used in medieval Europe.
Loss of trust in a currency can happen suddenly and for a variety of reasons.
The notes may not have been properly signed or professionally designed, and so
be open to counterfeiting. Or the currency may not have been promoted by its
issuers when it was introduced. People can also easily lose faith in a currency
when too much is issued and prices rise. At such times there can be a run on
banks, leading to recession – as happened with the Wall Street Crash in 1929.
Sometimes a currency fails because people have had a bad experience with it and
this stays fresh in their memory. When there is little faith in a currency it tends to
depreciate and become known as rags or shinplaster. An example of a currency
that failed in this way was the FitzRoy’s debentures that were issued without
permission by Governor Robert FitzRoy in New Zealand in 1844 (see page 000).
Convertibility