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The control of currency

L'équipe TAOA

 

Bartering as it has been developed in Argentina is a multi-reciprocal model, that is a currency based on a common unit of account

 

1. Avoiding falsification

 

Even if falsification was a major problem, the notes were protected by stamps, signatures, relief printing, some with water-marks or UV writing. However, some notes were only printed paper, easy to photocopy.

 

2. How to control issueing

 

How to manage to check the exact issueing of currency in my club ?

  • Oxidation

It consists in integrating time-value into money: like in nature, everything is submitted to time, gets old, gets worn out except money. Oxidizing currency entitles to decrease the value of money in time to avoid amassing. In the Argentinian experience, oxidation is principally the expiry date of currency (6 months, a year) to get back the credoitos that are no longer valid to circulate new creditos.

This mechanism makes it possible to control the quantity of circulating creditos, to avoid storing (replacement of new creditos up to a certain amount) and to incite members to consume (prosumer’s logic).

 

  • The ‘respaldo’ (standard and guarantee fund)

The standard means that I can issue an amount of currency according to an amount of exchange reserve. The issued currency is cashed back to true value. In some barter clubs, this pattern was reproduced. The club possessed funds in pesos, or material goods or services that guaranteed the quantity of issued creditos. Which made the system reliable and avoided over-issueing. But in the clubs, the standard was often based on members’ reliability to avoid creating a classical bank system ( physical  guarantee versus issueing currency)

 

3. Controlling distribution

Bernal (RGT) sold , without controlling, credito-kits (50 creditos for 2 pesos) to anyone who volunteered to buy. Then they set up their social franchise model that increased the sales of creditos.

In the clubs that were not RGT, the distribution of creditos ( each member needed some to start bartering) happened once only : when a new member applied and following some conditions ; the new applicant had to :

Attend an introductory presentation of the club (la charla dela primera vez)

  • Go to a training course about social and solidarity-based economy
  • Produce to get creditos (prosumer)
  • Attend several ferias (the entrance money is distributed on several times)
  • Enlist on the members’ database to avoid fraud (a member could enlist in several nodos to get the creditos given when joining several times)

Controlling distribution, like in the network Mar y Sierras in the city Mar Del Plata , can permit to de-regulate the amount of creditos circulating inside a nodo by giving more or fewer creditos on joining according to the quantity of creditos already on the market. The network has also imagined a “clearing house’ to regulate the circulation of creditos among nodos. This regulation was possible in the network Mar y Sierras only because of their structured organization:

Accounts consolidation in the club, then in the zone, then the region, then the network.

To conclude, controlling money has been the main vector of the boom of barter clubs: great development via Bernal model, sort of suicidal flooding of the market with creditos, implosion and decline due to a loss of trust in an over-issued and uncontrolled currency.

 

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