David Boyle at launch of Brixton Pound

Dear Friends,

David Boyle is one of the senior staff at the New Economics Foundation in London and well known for his writings on local currencies. He is part of the NEF team working with the E. F. Schumacher Society to form the New Economics Institute in North America.

David gave the following address last week at the launch of the Brixton Pound.

Best wishes,
Staff of the E. F. Schumacher Society
www.smallisbeautiful.org
www.berkshares.org

http://transitionculture.org/2009/09/18/david-boyles-speech-at-the-launch-of-the-brixton-pound/

David Boyle’s speech at the launch of the Brixton Pound

“One of my first experiences of currencies along the lines of the Brixton pound was in Ithaca in upstate New York, where they have had an amazing printed currency for the last 15 years. You can get loans in it. The biggest loan was for $36,000. Not bad for a local currency. Some of the notes are printed on paper made from Angora rabbit fur, which is an innovative solution to the problem of counterfeiting which has not yet struck the Bank of England. But I met a man there who had been mugged in Manhattan. The mugger searched through his wallet and said, hey what are these?. He brandished a pile of Ithaca notes.

My friend explained that they were a way to keep local economies moving, and the mugger was fascinated. Wow, he said. You’re right about the world: money doesn’t work for people like us, does it. And of course it doesn’t work very well. It works beautifully for a very few, for whom it is endlessly elastic and flexible and forgiving. When Robert Maxwell fell off his yacht, he owed twice as much as Zimbabwe. But he had a yacht.

For the rest of us, it is very concrete. We have to pay what little we borrow back according to the rules. Because otherwise, well its moral jeopardy, isn’t it. We might learn bad habits. We might get perverted somehow from the straight and narrow. Then there wouldn’t be enough to bail out Citibank again! But then Americans, it seems to me, understand these things better than we do. Their new kinds of money caused the War of Independence in the first place. Benjamin Franklin with his printing machine. They had 5,000 depression currencies in the 1930s which luterally kept people alive through the Great Depression. Some of them were made of wood, which is a bit bizarre.

We have Captain Mainwraing. Or we did. In fact, that whole tradition of dull, careful bank managers has been swept away in this country. When American investigators began looking into the subprime mortgages which cause the great bank crash of 2008, they looked down the list of borrowers and – on the very first page – they found one paid to someone called M. Mouse.
Other cartoon characters followed. When you start shelling out mortgages willy nilly to anyone, whether they can afford it or not, because they are considered risk free to the bankers – that’s what happens. That’s the opposite of the kind of money we need, and the opposite of the imaginative self-help money we are launching today.

Worse than that. It is a kind of lie. A kind of theft. There used to be 144 breweries in New York a hundred years ago. Now there are six. There used to be ten thousand local papers in this country then. Now there are about a few hundred. We are experiencing a money system that is driving out this diversity because it is monocultural. It makes everywhere the same. One kind of measuring stick. One kind of business. Monoculture money systems drive out other cultures, other species, other languages, other opinions, other forms of wealth. We can see this everywhere.

The great harbours and rivers that have bustled for a thousand years. Empty. The farming communities and fields of the world covered with weeds. Even the great corporations – whatever else we may think of them – shedding all the real work until they are just shells that just do financial services. There’s a great silence descending on the world. It’s a kind of death. The very opposite of life creating, and that’s why I am so excited about the Brixton pound.

There’s a kind of thrill about it, it seems to me. You hold those notes and you say, Can you do this? Can we just print it then? It seems too simple. Aren’t there laws against it? The answer is you have to make sure you’re not claiming it is a bank of England pound, a promise to pay the bearer on demand pound. In fact, the organiser of the Liberty Dollar in the States, who mints sterling silver coins he calls dollars, has just been arrested. Ten years, the Isle of Wight County Council were prosecuted for minting their own coins. But they would have been fine if they hadn’t called them euros.

So no, it IS legal to print your own. You can use what you like as money after all, if someone will accept it. We still have that freedom at least. But there’s still a moment of breathlessness when you hold these things in your hand. As if you were somehow touching the stuff of life. And in a way you are. Because money is like blood. It circulates around us, and when it disappears somewhere – because of some squall on Wall Street – our lives seize up a little.

And let’s stay with the idea of lifeblood for a moment. Before William Harvey announced his theory about how blood works in 1616, most people thought it was made in the liver and the heart and swallowed up by the other organs. Harvey showed that it was the circulation of the blood that really mattered. If nothing circulates, the patient dies. It’s the same with economics, and local economies. If the money goes round, or any medium of exchange, the place lives. If it doesn’t, it dies.
It doesn’t matter really how much money there is in total.

But economics hasn’t reached William Harvey yet. It still adds up the bottom line, and if doesn’t work, they get the scalpel out and bleed the patient. So money is life, and we can make our own. That’s why I say those Brixton pound notes are alive. It is a small liberation to use one. A bit like the moment Gandhi made salt for the first time. a symbolic moment of revolt, using the stuff of life. So every time we use one of these notes, it seems to me – and we are going to have to use them if this is going to work – it is a moment of liberation.

To run our own lives. To set us free just a little bit from dependence on the government or Tesco. Or are they the same thing these days? To make Brixton a place, knitted together, with its own money and its own life, not just a tube station with housing attached. I don’t pretend it’s going to be easy. I don’t pretend there are no great issues to face, and decisions to make. I don’t pretend we can possibly get there in one leap. There are going to be disappointments and frustrations along the way.

But every time we invest in this money and take it out of our pockets, to exchange it for something – looking the shopkeeper in the eye as we do so – we are shaping our futures. We are clawing back just a little control over that great global money system that swirls above us like the gods. It may be a bit of paper now. But it is a small lever with which we can move the world. Good luck to it.

Washington Post on BerkShares and Brixton Pound

Dear Friends,

Today's "Washington Post" credits BerkShares local currency with inspiring launch of the Brixton Pound as a citizen-driven economic development tool in London's poorest neighborhood.

E. F. Schumacher Society staff
www.smallisbeautiful.org
www.berkshares.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/26/AR2009092602427.html

When Going Gets Tough, Local Currency Gets Going

By Karla Adam
Special to the Washington Post
Sunday, September 27, 2009

LONDON -- Throughout Britain, people are hanging on to their hard-earned pounds, scrimping and saving as they ride out the recession.

But in a few communities, people are taking a different tack: printing their own money and spending it. No, the queen's image on the iconic British pound isn't being counterfeited. Instead, some communities are producing their own scrips -- some of the latest have painter Vincent van Gogh's face on them -- which can be used much like cash at participating businesses.

The latest community to do so is Brixton, the second area in Britain this month that introduced its own currency. With an initial run of 40,000 notes in various denominations, it is the most ambitious project here of its kind so far.

Sometimes called Britain's Harlem, the Brixton is a multiethnic area in south London with a large African Caribbean population and a vibrant atmosphere. The kind of mind-set seen in this bustling and close-knit community is crucial for any local currency plan to work, say economists, adding that like any other form of exchange, the success of the Brixton pound will hinge on the continued confidence and willingness among people to use it.

The first Brixton pound entered into circulation last week when Christopher Wellbelove, mayor of Lambeth, the borough that encompasses Brixton, waved a sepia-toned one-pound note in the air at a town hall meeting where it was unveiled and used it to buy a box of tomatoes. (He got a good deal, said many at the scene.)

"It's a modern-day IOU," said Bruce Weber, a London Business School professor who teaches a course on alternative currencies.

History offers many examples of people developing alternative currencies in tough times. After the financial meltdown in Argentina in 2001, for instance, bartering clubs sprung up nationwide. When Germany was hit by hyperinflation in the early 1920s, many towns issued special money that was not recognized as legal tender but was widely accepted by businesses.

People can buy Brixton pounds with standard British currency -- a pound for a pound -- at a half-dozen local outlets. The incentive for consumers, beyond an altruistic desire to support local businesses, is that many restaurants and stores will offer a 10 percent discount to people using the currency. Those businesses, in turn, hope to build customer loyalty. They will make change for purchases using the Brixton currency to continue its circulation, though customers can insist on standard British money if they wish.

"It can stimulate the local economy," Weber said. "It gets done in tightknit communities where people feel they have a shared stake in things. It's a response to recession conditions. . . . If we issue a certain kind of currency amongst ourselves, maybe it keeps someone to do grocery shopping within the community."

Brixton pounds were launched by Transition Network, an environmental group that promotes low-carbon living and believes that by promoting local businesses people will travel less and reduce impact on the environment. Inspired by the BerkShares currency launched in western Massachusetts three years ago, Transition Network also has helped launch currencies in the town of Stroud this month and in Totnes and Lewes earlier.

The British are usually embarrassed to discuss money. But in Brixton, cash is the talk of the town, with residents curious to know which businesses will accept the new currency (participants include a local grocer, a pharmacy and a belly-dance instructor) and which ones will not (a popular movie theater and cafe.)

Ossie Bash-Taqi, 44, who is accepting the notes at his catering company, said he has more faith in the Brixton pound than he does in its official counterpart.

"In a community like this, if you break the chain, you'd have a lot of angry people. We all know each other, and you can't hide behind an empty bank counter," he said.

There is no law against using alternative currencies, be they pieces of paper or beaver pelts or seashells, as long as they are not passed off as official money. Tax authorities also have no problem with the currencies as merchants continue to account for all of their trade.

"There is still some apprehension," said Tim Nichols, project manager for the Brixton pound. "But there's also a lot of buzz, and we're hopeful it will strengthen the local economy."

Nichols said it cost about $16,000 to have the Brixton pounds printed and to pay for the public information campaign. Most of that was donated by local businesses. The notes bear pictures of significant Brixton residents, including van Gogh, who is said to have lived there in his early 20s, as well as watermarks and security measures that the organizers hope will prevent counterfeiting.

Any effect on the greater economy will be "probably nil," said Nick Mayhew, an expert on the history of currencies at Oxford University. The upshot of alternative currencies, he said, is mostly increased community spirit.

"It's a constant reminder to shop in Brixton," said Leon Rothera, 28, owner of a local restaurant called Honest Foods, the first business to sign up for the new currency. "But let's see what happens when the novelty wears off."

The Most Important Number in the World

Dear Friends,

Concept2 Rowing and the Craftsbury Green Nordic Racing Program are organizing a worldwide rowing/skiing challenge that will cover 350 million meters all before October 24. Volunteers in Panama City’s Parque Nacional Soberania gathered to plant 350 native species trees and almost doubled their target. Community members are gathering in Vancouver for a 350-person salsa dancing extravaganza. Five thousand school children in the Netherlands created a giacantic installation using their bodies as the medium, highlighting Holland’s trademark windmills, and featuring one important number - 350.

Why 350? It is the number leading scientists have indicated as the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide (measured in "Parts Per Million") in our atmosphere. We have already exceeded that limit. But renowned environmentalist and author, Bill McKibben is urging a world-wide effort to reverse the current course of climate change. His campaign is named 350.org and will culminate on October 24th with citizen actions in communities around the world.

It is not too late to join the campaign, lead an initiative in your community, or support an action already in progress. To see what others are doing, find projects near you, or learn more about the implications of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, go to: http://www.350.org/mission

For two decades, Bill McKibben, has used his skills as a writer to enlighten readers about global warming and advocate for creative responses to the problem. His books include “Deep Economy” (2007), “Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community” (2007), and “The End of Nature” (1989). In 2007 he organized Step It Up -- the largest coordinated demonstration against global warming in American history.

Now he is organizing 350.org, an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that justice demand. Its mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. In order to bring together the
public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, McKibben and friends are harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate the October 24th planetary day of action, six weeks before the world's leaders meet in Copenhagen to formulate a new global treaty on carbon emissions.

Events are scheduled at hundreds of iconic places around the world - from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef – with local community efforts across 100 countries. The Day of Action will showcase the tremendous efforts of existing individuals, organizations and communities working to tackle climate change from the ground up, joining them together on a powerful platform borne of hard science and inspired activism.

Please join us on Saturday, October 17th in welcoming Bill McKibben at the 29th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures. He will be joined by speakers Benjamin Barber and Alisa Gravitz. The location is the First Congregational Church of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Tickets are 25 BerkShares/Dollars (15 for members of the E. F. Schumacher Society, seniors, and students). We recommend registering in advance.

For more information on the event or to pre-register please visit:
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org

Email: efssociety@smallisbeautiful.org

Or call (413) 528-1737.

Best Wishes,
Susan Witt, Sarah Hearn, Stefan Apse, Kate Poole, and Jasmine Stine
Staff of the E. F. Schumacher Society