Pathways - Spring 2012

In the beginning, Gelleri got complaints. Then people figured out how to make the model work for them. For instance, one cinema owner said that business went way up at the end of the quarter when people wanted to shed their currency. Increased cash flow at quarter’s end was helpful for accounting, he said. The 2 percent loss, he added, was insignificant compared to the advertising he’d have to buy to secure the same level of customer loyalty he has from accepting the Chiemgauer.

A consumer can exchange euros for Chiemgauers at 50 offices in the region. Three percent of the purchase price goes to a nonprofit the buyer chooses. So far, more than $100,000 euros have gone to charities such as school athletic programs and environmental groups. The “good cause” component reinforces people’s investment in the currency, and in their community.

Maybe we’re asking national currencies to do too many things. As Thomas H. Greco Jr. points out in his new book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, some functions are inherently contradictory: If money is for trading, you want to use it; if money is to store value, you want to save it. Greco and others such as David Boyle say that people could be better served by separating out the functions of money—and using different currencies, depending on whether you are, say, meeting friends at a local café or saving for college.

Back on Main Street in Great Barrington, Matthew Rubiner, of Rubiner’s Cheesemongers & Grocers, says the issue of local currency has shifted quickly from the theoretical to the here-and-now. “When BerkShares started, we talked about what would happen if the economy falls apart and we were really forced to look local.” The economic downturn, he says, has “brought the question into bolder relief.”

Judith D. Schwartz is a longtime freelance writer with wide-ranging experience with books, magazines and newspapers. She lives and works in southern Vermont, where, depending on the season, she might take
breaks to pick blackberries or top up the
woodstove. She has a B.A. from Brown
University, an M.S.J. from the Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism,
and an M.A. in counseling psychology
from Northwestern University. View article
resources and author information here:
pathwaystofamilywellness.org/references.html.