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Alternatives to Money-As-Usual in Ecological Economics: a Study of Local Currencies and 100 Percent Reserve Banking

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Alternatives to Money-As-Usual in Ecological Economics: a Study of Local Currencies and 100 Percent Reserve Banking Doctoral dissertation Alternatives to Money-As-Usual in Ecological Economics: A Study of Local Currencies and 100 Percent Reserve Banking Kristofer Dittmer September 2014 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Ph.D. Programme in Environmental Science and Technology Ecological Economics and Environmental Management Supervisor: Dr. Louis Lemkow Professor ICTA and Department of Sociology UAB i ii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... v Resumen ............................................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. x Preface .................................................................................................................................................. xii 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Subject of research ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Ecological economics .................................................................................................................. 4 1.3. Frederick Soddy’s contribution to the ecological economics of money ..................................... 9 1.3.1. The debt relation and the second law of thermodynamics ................................................ 11 1.3.2. Money things and the first law of thermodynamics ........................................................... 15 1.3.3. Scales of measurement and the politics of money ............................................................. 21 1.4. A note on the chapters ............................................................................................................. 24 References ........................................................................................................................................ 25 2. Local currencies for purposive degrowth? A quality check of some proposals for changing money-as-usual ..................................................................................................................................... 32 Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. 32 2.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 34 2.2. Degrowth and monetary alternatives ....................................................................................... 36 2.3. LETS ........................................................................................................................................... 40 2.4. Time banks ................................................................................................................................ 46 2.5. HOUR currencies ....................................................................................................................... 50 2.6. Convertible local currencies ...................................................................................................... 53 2.7. Discussion .................................................................................................................................. 58 2.7.1 Local currencies: Problematizing the prospects .................................................................. 58 2.7.2 Local currencies as two varieties of utopian socialism, and a less utopian alternative ...... 61 2.8. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 66 References ........................................................................................................................................ 68 3. Case study: Motivation and methodological considerations .......................................................... 82 References ........................................................................................................................................ 86 4. Communal currencies in Venezuela: An introduction ................................................................... 89 Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. 89 4.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 90 iii 4.1.1 The Bolivarian Revolution .................................................................................................... 90 4.2. The emergence of barter systems in Venezuela ....................................................................... 92 4.3. Legislation of the trueke............................................................................................................ 96 4.4. Basic functioning of the barter systems .................................................................................... 97 4.5. Ideological features: indigenity, socialism, and agroecology ................................................... 99 4.6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 102 References ...................................................................................................................................... 104 5. Communal currencies: The Chavista experiment with non-capitalist money .............................. 108 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 108 5.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 109 5.2. The Chávez government’s experiment with communal currencies ....................................... 110 5.3. Strong cultural optimism......................................................................................................... 115 5.4. Understanding money and barter........................................................................................... 118 5.5. Has state support benefitted the communal currencies? ...................................................... 125 5.6. The difficult search for ecosocialism ....................................................................................... 128 5.7. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 131 References ...................................................................................................................................... 134 6. 100 percent reserve banking: A critical review of green perspectives ......................................... 141 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 141 6.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 142 6.1.1. Outline and history of proposals for 100 percent reserve banking .................................. 142 6.2. Controlling scale by limiting private investments to the availability of savings ..................... 147 6.3. The issuer of money determines what gets done in the economy ........................................ 153 6.4. Reducing debt levels to counter the growth imperative of interest ...................................... 159 6.5. Can money creation be monopolized in a market economy? ................................................ 164 6.6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 165 References ...................................................................................................................................... 166 7. Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 174 7.1. Contributions to local currency research, and some extensions of the argument ................ 174 7.2. Local currencies for involuntary rather than purposive degrowth ......................................... 178 7.3. C-PeRB and politics ................................................................................................................. 182 7.4. Future research ....................................................................................................................... 186 References ...................................................................................................................................... 188 iv Abstract This thesis aims to contribute to the debate in academia and beyond concerning the case for certain alternatives to the monetary systems of existing capitalist economies. Two families of alternative monetary organization are researched; local currencies (or synonymously, community
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