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Originally Posted by Redchic12
They have their own own currency which they call Letz (I think that was the name) and if you live there then you can go to the local pub or shop and use that currency. In exchange the pub and shop owner use that same money to buy all their organic fruit and vegetables from Findhorn.
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This is actually
LETS (Local Exchange Trading System sometimes known as Local Energy Trading System). There are many such LETS systems all around the world, and each system gives its own name to their particular medium of exchange. So Findhorn now call theirs the Eko.
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Originally Posted by FairyCrystal
They have a similar thing in a community in Italy, can't remember what it's called now.
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You may be thinking of Damanhur (outside Turin), which I visited back in the 1990s - a very interesting community. They call their currency the
credito.
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Originally Posted by FairyCrystal
But what is the point? It means you are broke outside of the community and are thus forced to only buy within said community.
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The point is that this is all about community and allowing people to trade within the community. LETS by definition refers to
local.
But I agree with your comments that this is no different to "real" money which is just another medium of exchange. Only an idealist would ever imagine this could replace more widespread currencies.
In New Zealand these are known as
Green Dollar systems and I was involved with administering the local Green Dollar system for many years, which at its peak had several hundred active members. For example, one day a week the local organic shop would accept 10% payment in Green Dollars which it could then spend elsewhere.
What I learned was that such a system works very well for some people but not for others. In theory it does not matter whether your balance is positive or negative as long as you continue to trade, earning and spending. In practice, some people were very good at spending Green Dollars but not very good at earning. And those who struggled with earning "real" money had the same difficulty earning Green Dollars.
There is now a variation called
Time Banking. Rather than putting a value in Green Dollars for providing a service, the value is based on the time spent in doing so. So if you give one hour of time to do a service for someone you can then purchase an hour of someone else's time to do something for you.
As I said, it works very well for some but not for others.
Peace