[p2p-research] Local Currencies

[Kevin Carson]

> Here is a good article on local currencies.
>
> http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/10/locabucks-are-local-currencies-way-to.html

My hope is that things like the present financial crisis and Peak Oil
will give steam to the alt currency movement, and that the latter will
help to bridge the gap and cushion the transition resulting from the
crises.

The various government bailout packages seem to be just a shifting of
liabilities from the financial system to the state, thus exacerbating
the "fiscal crisis of the state" and making the present model of
subsidizing the inputs of state capitalism even less sustainable.
When fuel prices rise to $5 or $6/gal in the U.S. next spring and
summer, and the increases continue year after year, we can expect the
trucking and airline industries to keep eliminating capacity in
similar proportions.  Increasing numbers of truckers will decide it's
just not worth it.  Meanwhile, the government will be tempted to
inflate its way out of the debt crisis, with the official currency
becoming rapidly depreciated.  That means that local currencies will
be useful for directly facilitating exchange on a local level when
money and credit dry up in the national economy, and that local
currencies will also serve as a more reliable store of value.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Anarchist Organization Theory Project
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html