[P2P-F] "Currency Wars" ?

[Kevin Carson]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 7:29 PM, Natalie Golovin <10natalie at cox.net> wrote:
> It's my understanding that only "legal tender" is legal. Of course, the govt
> won't attempt to get involved in local community barter arrangements if they
> stay low on Fed radar. But it won't let those grow....just like med
> marijuana

I don't think community currencies as such violate the legal tender
laws.  But when they cross the line into stuff that could be plausibly
interpreted as the activity of an unlicensed bank (e.g. the way
Greco's system arguably issues credit by allowing people to run
negative balances), they're open to state sanction.  Of course by that
standard a grocer or shoe repair shop that lets customers run a tab is
also an unlicensed bank, so as you said re legal tender laws, a lot of
it has to do with visibility.  The more people turn to such
alternatives, and the more hostile conventional banks become, the more
the state will crack down (much like the brick-and-mortar retailers
instigating govt crackdowns on foodbuying clubs, etc.)

I imagine that letting a hundred flowers bloom, as the state-corporate
economy dries up, will result in an entire ecosystem with different
currencies filling different niches.  The more trust-based the system,
as in opt-in platforms where there are ongoing relationships rather
than one-offs and people's livelihoods will depend on their
reputations, the more the money will function as a unit of account
rather than a store of value, and take on the character of
interest-free credit.  The weaker the trust relationships, as in
one-off dealings between people who don't know each other, the more
likely it is that currency will be backed by something.


-- 
Kevin Carson
Research Associate, Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
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