By John Vibes
One of the best ways for the general public to take back their power is to develop alternative currencies — both local and global — that allow people to trade outside of the corporate-government banking systems and central bank notes.
Many people in different areas of the world have been moderately successful at implementing local currencies, such as Mountain Hours or Ithaca Hours, which have gained traction in the U.S.
In London, an interesting alternative currency bearing the face of pop singer David Bowie has recently come into circulation. According to Market Watch, the local currency is specialized for the Brixton community in southwest London. It is officially called the “Brixton Pound.”
Tom Shakhli, manager of the Brixton Pound effort, said,
They are using it because they want to feel connected to the local area. Every time you use it, you’re like a financial activist. You’re taking part in this act which is subverting the norm, which is to hand over your £10 note very passively.
Shakhli pointed out that the project is intended to make a statement about the foundation of money, as well as provide an alternative to the current monopoly.
Shakhli said that his main goal with the project is to ask, “What is money? Does it have to be either printed by the state or created by the banks? Why can’t money be localized? Why can’t money feature a pop star or a black historian? Does it have to feature establishment figures?”
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So far, there are currently 200 local businesses that have signed up to participate in the Brixton Pound program.
The increasingly popular Brixton Pound is making central banks nervous — and rightly so. Following the success of the Brixton Pound, new alternative local currencies are now popping up all over the U.K. The Oxford Pound, Kingston Pound, and Palace Pound are just a few of the currencies that have been recently introduced. The Bank of England has been forced to respond to these local currencies because of their popularity, deeming them “voucher schemes” and warning the public that they are unprotected when using them.
A document released by the Bank of England claims that “Local currency schemes lead to significant and unanticipated impacts on aggregate economic activity.” According to the document, the Bank of England will also attempt to delegitimize local currencies by “Design[ing] features and marketing material [to] help users recognise that local currency paper instruments are like vouchers and not banknotes.”
For the economy to really be in the hands of the people, it is necessary to decentralize the currency and to have an open-source network of competing currencies that are community based and easily exchangeable. While it is impossible to predict how we will trade a century or even five years from now, we can still observe how people are innovating within their own areas and take those lessons into account for when state and bank issued currencies finally diminish in value to the point where they are unusable.
John Vibes writes for theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: BrixtonPound.org. If you spot a typo, email [email protected].
John Vibes joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in October of 2014. His topics of interest include agorism, anarchism, consciousness, the Drug War, and spirituality. Born in Philadelphia, he currently resides in Maryland. Learn more about Vibes here!
And when this fails as well, there will be no options left. Understand, that the possibility of evil flourishes with money. No, this isn’t the fix you are seeking. It isn’t what currency you use or how many of them exist to be used. No the problem or lack thereof has always been within the person.
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GIFT & SHARE as much as you can!
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Everything must be a gift on this planet : FREE WATER, FREE FOOD, FREE SHELTER… are possible if we want it
Precisely.
The best thing about these alternatives is that the biggest welfare queen of all, that being the Queen of England, can’t use these to support her expensive tastes nor prop up the welfare state of said nation.
Yet another idiot who doesnt understand the Queen makes more money for the UK than she could possibly spend herself (because she’s the queen, and doesnt waste her money on jetski holidays).
Listen up. All money the Crown estate makes is fed directly back into the government. The government then gives the Queen back any money she needs to maintain the palace, or fly to places to do diplomatic missions or whathave you. The Crown estates make a lot of money by owning land, having a countless art collections and generally being smart with money over hundreds of years.
The single largest cost the Queen must address is maintenance. Palaces, castles and literal tons of art hundreds of years old fall apart if they are not cared for. Indeed the palaces are totally falling apart because even maintenance only stems the tide sometime. They desperately need renovation. But shockingly enough, that would not disappear if the Queen evaporated. We’d still have to actually maintain all of that stuff.
Once you minus the cost of all the things we have to do anyway you might realise how really stupid calling the queen a freeloader is. Stupid.
Have you heard of the “WEN” it means NEW backwards or World Economy Neutral. Pictures of leader of humanity are proposed like Ghandi or Princess Diana. Back by precious metals
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kewl!!