Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
I’m beginning to hear more about the Asheville Currency Project, a local effort to create an alternative paper currency for Asheville and Western North Carolina. Why do that? It’s all about buying local, according to the project’s Web site:
The purpose of a local, alternative currency is to function on a local scale the same way that national currencies have functioned on a national scale—building the local economy by maximizing circulation of trade within a defined region. Widely used in the early 1900s, local currencies are again being recognized as a tool for sustainable economic development. The currency distinguishes the local businesses that accept the currency from those that do not, building stronger relationships and a greater affinity between the business community and the citizens of a particular place.
The people who choose to use the currency make a conscious commitment to buy local first. They are taking personal responsibility for the health and well-being of their community by laying the foundation of a truly vibrant, thriving local economy.
A local, alternative currency will not, and is not intended to, replace federal currency. Its use will help strengthen the regional economy, favoring locally owned enterprises, local manufacturing, and local jobs, and reducing the region’s dependence on an unpredictable global economy.
The project’s organizers go out of their way to note that the Asheville Currency Project is not associated with Kevin Innes and the Liberty Dollar project. Federal agents have arrested Innes and charged him with violating federal law regarding the issuance of coins.
Sounds like an interesting project. If anyone has any more details on how and when this might get off the ground, please let me know. You can follow the Asheville Currency Project on Facebook here.
I’m wondering where Asheville LETS fits into all of this. I agree that these systems don’t seem to appeal to mainstream business. I’m an artist and landscaper looking for food and car repairs, and what I’m finding is more of what I have to offer. Some of the more established intentional communities seem to do well…Damanhur, for instance. I’ll have to look into the idea of time-based currency. The ability to use anything we develop more broadly is appealing, and the idea that our current structures would then have some real competition also appeals to me.
Jct: Peg your local currency to the Time Standard of Money (how many dollars per unskilled hour child labor) so Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture.
See http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers on growth of the international time-trading network.
I would support this if any of the local businesses had what I need to survive and daily needs but Head Shops, Books Stores, bars, and coffe shops is not my bag.
It would be different if Asheville had some diversity in its stores instead of most of them being a rubber stamp of other ones.
Sweet jesus – do we never learn from history? Go read about Alexander Hamilton and his struggles to create a central bank and why. Get paid in currency only worth something in WNC — forget taking it to Knoxville or Charlotte or Atlanta or Chicago or …