Monetary Plurality Prittwitz Gomez Wilko 2018.docx (original) (raw)

Connecting the dots: the search for an ideology of complementary currency systems

2018

Designations like ‘alternative’, ‘complementary’ and ‘community’ are often loosely associated with reform movements that seek to alter the use and production of money in modern economic systems. These movements emanate from experiments conducted during the Great Depression and a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s. Early experiments were responding to instances of monetary and economic crisis, while modern versions were reactive, emanating from public mistrust of the governing institutions responsible for monetary regulation. Resultantly, a great deal of literature has been devoted to studying the many disparate ‘alternative’ or ‘complementary’ currency systems globally, focusing on their systematic architecture, implementation, costs, benefits, production, regulation and socio-economic impacts. But little scholarly attention has focused on the ideology behind these monetary paradigms, other than passing references to the founding reformers. This article seeks to trace the ideology underlying these monetary alternatives to governmental fiat, by uncovering the features that unite the majority of ‘alternative’ currencies and speak to their shared, implicit, ideological standing. A literature review on often-overlooked complementary monetary systems attempts to display their significance as viable monetary systems for future economic organisation. In doing so, the article will place the reforms firmly within the pursuit of an ideological “third way” that can better interpret and analyse the global financial structures. Such reform attempts and the theories that underlie them could provide a far more secure, equitable and sustainable architecture for global economic governance in the face of large scale financial, economic, social and political threats to ordered, civilized human agency.

'MONETARY PLURALITY' AND 'CURRENCIES FOR AN ALTERNATIVE ECONOMY': TWO PARADIGMS OF COM-PLEMENTARY CURRENCY RESEARCH

International Journal of Community Currency Research, 2020

Many practitioners and researchers in this field consider money to be the centrepiece of complementary currencies. This paper identifies a second line of thinking, through which the discourse on an 'alternative economy' had a significant influence on the development of these social innovations during the 1980s and 1990s. This article discusses two questions: The first one concerns the influence of, and the relationship between these two lines of thought. A monetary focus gradually superseded earlier interpretations of these systems and eventually occupied a dominant position. Is there sufficient common ground between researchers of cryptocurrencies and traditional complementary currencies to share a single discourse network? The second question concerns the potential of local currencies with strictly limited convertibility. Against the background of an impending recession this article offers a perspective of how newly designed complementary currencies can become viable elements of an alternative economic structure beside the capitalism economy.

The pervasiveness of monetary plurality in economic crisis and wars

2018

textabstractResearch shows a pervasive emergence of monetary plurality during episodes of social, economic and political demise. We draw on the concept of deep monetisation introduced by Lucassen and Zuijderduijn (2014) to follow how the established use of currencies enables economic actions to complete their daily transactions. Based on numismatic evidence, we briefly revise several episodes of deep economic demise to establish a links between socio-economic crisis and monetary plurality. In these periods the stronger and more established currencies disappeared and cash became scarce at the local level, particularly for transactions of smaller denomination. We subsequently focused on the emergency currencies of the two postwar periods in Europe, the hyperinflation, the Great Depression and the Spanish Civil war. We observed that in these periods of distress, the absence of means of payment of small denomination prevented the completion of daily transactions, hence improvised and un...

The complementary currency systems: a tricky issue for economists

2014

By complementary currency systems (CCS) we mean a specific unit of account that complements the official currency and has been developed on a group of agents that have formed a network or operate in a defined territory, with a view to accounting for and regulating exchanges of goods and services. Despite the topicality and the number of CCS, economists seem apparently pays only marginal attention to them. This article suggests that economics is based on a particular methodological and epistemological approach and on theoretical and normative conceptions of money that prevent it from taking into account the CCS's practices, their logics and their impacts. Their diversity and their relative new emergence confront economics to a methodological problem of impact studies. Because of their limited validity, the CCS tend to be considered as peripheral and transitional. Last, we show the obstacles that prevent monetary theories to recognize and legitimate them.

Dual Monetary System

Journal of Islamic Economic Literatures

Islamic economy grows in Muslim-majority countries within the monetary system, although the monetary system dominates with central banks and paper money. As a result, the Islamic monetary system developed its regulations and transmission mechanisms. The central bank must implement policies of both conventional and Islamic banking systems. From an Islamic point of view, the monetary policy effectively extends overall macroeconomic conditions in countries with multiple financial systems. Bibliometric studies in research related to the development of Dual Monetary System trends published by leading journals from 1974 to 2021, indexed by Scopus. Analysis of keyword trends, authors, and institutions. The data analyzed were 77 research publications using descriptive statistical methods and bibliometric analysis. The results show that the number of articles discussing the theme of the Dual Monetary System has an increasing trend from year to year, in line with the development of the Islami...