Razeto By Luis M. *
should reflect deeply on the objectives and the context in which they reside exchange practices and experiences of alternative currencies, which are spreading with remarkable speed and enthusiasm in various countries.
one hand, are a practical response against real and current needs. other hand, is a proposed change oriented social relations and economic systems, being motivated by certain values, ideas and solidarity projects and alternatives.
The question is, on the other hand, if a return to the remote past, or whether they are opening a different future and extremely original.
Naturally, as a practical response to felt needs of these experiences arise especially in the marginalization and poverty, conditioned by the lack of cash income capable of processing market official. As a response to specific needs, barter and reciprocity among neighbors is widely practiced among people who share what little they have, so spontaneous, it is a way to survive by those who have very low incomes, a system in which access to any property or service is the corresponding availability of cash.
But barter and reciprocity are also verified in other socio-economic levels, as a practical way of exchanging goods, services, labor, information, knowledge, etc., And avoid incurring unnecessary costs in cash (including including taxes). These practices involve intersubjective relationship exists mutual trust and mutual credibility, which often occur only within families, between friends, groups and communities made up of elective affinities and shared projects in neighborhoods and community tradition that existing social organizations created for other purposes.
I think the spontaneous practice of reciprocity and exchange, both as a response to shortcomings as motivated by relationships and electives, gives us the key to exploring the possibilities that they converge and contribute to projects for change in economic and social relations.
one hand, such projects can be part of a process aimed at overcoming poverty and inequality in income distribution. In this sense, the efficiency of the practice of bartering is shown in the fact that many people manage to survive through them, and social diffusion can only help to expand their potential. But, of course, find objective limits on the fact that those involved in these relationships what they do is basically share their poverty. However, it is conceivable that can transcend these limits, increasing its effects, to the extent that active processes are articulated with broader, and specifically deployed as an insert creative processes and production of the popular economy and solidarity.
On the other hand, the spread of barter, reciprocity and alternative currencies may be part of the social construction of new economic relations, new forms of production, distribution, consumption and development in a more general , involving not only the poor but also people and social groups of different social, motivated by a desire for participation and sharing, and values \u200b\u200band ideals rooted in longing for justice, solidarity, human and spiritual development.
This dimension also has limits, given naturally by the fact that its spread is about people and groups to join the process predispose these generous motives and desires. However, here too it is conceivable that these limits can be transcended to the extent that the practices are inserted into the dynamics of the economy of solidarity and work that through a proper demonstration of its efficiency can lead to the development and group behavior ties beyond the spontaneous and the family and community affinity.
However, in view of the widespread or amplitude which can reach development of these initiatives barter and alternative funds, should further reflect on the reason for the experiences that insert money barter and alternative projects for transformation. It is quite clear that they arise from a critical implicit or explicit market economy, and while not intending to replace the market sought to correct the trend seems to be inherent to it, to the uneven distribution. There can be some clarification in this regard.
The first is that the market as such is not itself essentially an unfair organization, to the extent that it is human relations of exchange process which if made between financial assets of equal value, would not create inequality and concentration of wealth. In itself, the market is an expression of man's social being, and highlights the fact solidarity that we need each other and we work for each other. perverse effects, which is "the problem" is capitalist organization of the market.
However, the roots of inequity in the market are not given either by the existence of money, which is essentially a means of measuring value and an instrument of exchange, and as such seems inseparable from the fact universal market. The origin of the problem seems to be rather on the transformation of money into capital, and this transformation is caused, in turn, on the fact that the money takes a "scarcity value" derived from the emission concentration of power in the hands State and financial institutions of capitalism.
Hence it has great significance and the possibility of issuing and circulation of money alternative that can escape the capitalist control, and eliminate the scarcity value of money. This clearly implies a process of currency that can be abolished rate. This certainly raises complex theoretical problems can not be considered in this brief presentation. But it is important to note that the idea is nothing exotic, having been raised by the most important currents of contemporary economic thought. For example, for Keynes, who formulated the need to eliminate the scarcity value of money by his ex nulla creation, like a flame. Or Milton Friedman, who explains and substantiates the thesis that a market model of perfect competition involves removing the monopoly of money issuance by the State, and there is also an economic factor on this complete freedom of initiative.
In a recently published study on "Development and further transformation of the economy in time", in which a long full theoretical research on the economics of solidarity and democratic market, raised the argument that equity distributive only be built in terms of a unified world market where there is a single currency in universal circulation, and an immense crowd of alternative currencies, no state or national but local and community dimension. is obvious that in the short space of this exhibition is impossible to justify and explain in some detail this thesis, but I wanted to at least mention it, it seems that in both directions, the global monetary unification and the emergence of alternative local currencies, which seem to aim, though still shy, the search for solutions to major problems of the global economic crisis that we are immersed.
Finally, I would only add that in view of the development of alternative funds, it is essential to have a new theory of money , which demonstrate social and intersubjective nature. Among the issues to further theoretically and on which I have made some contributions in the book mentioned, perhaps the most important is the fact that money is essentially not a material fact, or purely symbolic, not only an instrument of change, but a social relationship that involves mutual bonds of trust and credibility among economic actors and a trade takes place.
Issue money, money, alternative, is the simplest thing in the world, when there is trust and credibility . Evidenced by the fact that each of us actually gives money, real money in the most technical sense of the term, each time you sign a "voucher" each time making a commitment to pay, whether in contract, by simple writing or orally. If I tell someone, "You can expect that in 30 days you pay 500 thousand dollars, and that person believed me because he trusts my word, we have established a social relationship creates money from nothing (ex nulla) so that that person can develop productive activities, trade or consumption, you want because your business has actually been funded by my word.
The financing is credit, or trust, and the money supply , which may take the form of notes, bonds, vouchers, or simply put, is as good as the credibility which gives rise socially. Proof of this is that the State, through its Central Bank, can issue all the tickets you want and put in circulation, but "the market" (ie, operators) does not believe in the consistency of such issue, all of it is translated only in inflation, or in loss of value money because money is not created real .
is therefore clear that any initiative, experience or process to create alternative money may have validation and consistency only if based on social relations of trust, and is able to elicit the appropriate credibility social. In this sense, barter and money creating alternative social scale are possible in economic framework of solidarity, that is, the processes of production, distribution, consumption and accumulation that are based on, and build, social relations of cooperation, mutual aid, reciprocity, equality and trust.
* Paper presented at the Seminar on barter and alternative currencies, IEP, Santiago de Chile, 2000.
Posted May 31, 2004 Excerpted from the Solidarity Economy Virtual Campus
