Mediation

I have been suffering a most unQuakerly frustration with the media recently. Taking a more constructive and co-operative approach, I have to acknowledge the extraordinarily difficult role they have in explaining a complex world in two-and-a-half minutes. We have had two recent visits to Stroud by a cameraman and journalist pairing to make what they can of the story of our local currency.

The first was Tim Muffet from the BBC Breakfast programme. His item was cool, involving camera tricks and that irritating background music that is wholly unnecessary and seems designed to avoid the risk that you might actually think about what the reporter is saying. The story was honest and Stroud looked great.

Then we had a visit from Hayley Platt from Reuters TV, who apparently sell their stories around the world. Her take was rather different, with a wider range of views and the narrative being developed by local people rather than by the journalist herself. Here I particularly liked the fact that three women talked about economics while the man was making the coffee.

Trying to communicate anything of interest in a soundbite is clearly challenging and it sometimes seem that the public debate is trapped by this unhelpful format. Who is imposing it? I think the journalists themselves. Most people are neither stupid nor have the attention span of a gnat. We are being trained to think and speak so briefly that any issue which requires systemic or deep thought becomes impossible. I would recommend the reading of German philosophy as a night-time antidote. Tweet

Old Lady Rampant in Stroud

We're nearly there. On Saturday I will be donning my father's old business suit and the bowler hat from my daughter's dressing-up box. I'll be heading down to Stroud's Threadneedle Street, with its very own Old Lady (Teashop) to launch the Stroud Pound.

Let's call it rivalry rather than competition, but the brief we gave our designers was to make our notes more stylish than the Lewes pounds, which we loved and secretly envied. They have certainly met this requirement and exceeded our wildest dreams. Four denominations will be available from Saturday morning with a mixture of local celebrities (animal and human) and scenes. This post will only be able to be adorned with one once the strict embargo is past.

Laurie Lee is our star character. There has been much interest in the local press, and we are delighted that his widow, Kathy, will be unveiling the note. She and her daughter Jessy were sure Laurie would have approved. His humanity and deep commitment to equality shine through his writing and must have been drawn from the Stroud valleys, which have been described as a red hand in the middle of Tory-blue Gloucestershire. Our local paper went so far as to say that the courage of the Stroud Pound Co-operative was akin to that shown by Laurie Lee when he went to fight for the Republicans in Spain. We blushed at the excessive compliment, but are delighted by the level of support that we have been given.

Starting a local currency is a deep learning experience. Clutching our own notes for the first time last night generated a mixture of hilarity and awe. As the past year has proved, money is right at the centre of our lives. It really does make the capitalist world go around. Just try to imagine what would have happened to your life if the high-street banks had seized up and your credit card had ceased to function last September. No cashpoints, no ability to pay in shops, very soon nothing in the shops. This is the vital role that money plays in a complex modern economy, and the money we are using has inequality designed into it. It is controlled by the very forces that are wreaking havoc on our planet. Making your own money gives you a chance to really change the economic system that is so all-pervasive as to be invisible and unquestioned.

I still have a wistful longing for Tom Paine, but, although he belongs to Lewes, his belief that 'We have it in the power to make the world anew' belongs to us all. Tweet

Banksters' Paradise

Alastair Darling's Mansion House Speech last night was intended to be the last word on the financial crisis and that word is: complacency. Apparently there is nothing wrong with the system of banking regulation. The intervention by the Mervyn King indicates that, for once, there is a split between the economists and the politicians: Darling dare not challenge the power of the banks, but King recognises the danger of their supreme power in the economy.

There is an important sense in which the Darling of the city is right: regulation is not the point. The banking system was designed to enable a small number of people to profit hugely from the economy while the rest of us labour for a shrinking share of resources. The system of regulation did nothing to prevent that; but then it was not intended to. The boom and bust that has been so spectacularly played out over the past year is not a temporary aberration; it is symptomatic of the economic system we live under.

It can't be a coincidence that Obama ,made his announcement about changes to the regulation of the US banking system on the same day. And here we see that, contrary to our preconceptions, there is a stronger sense of resistance to corporations (or 'trusts' as they were historically called in the US) on that side of the Atlantic. The attempt to begin to control the derivatives market is a small gesture in the direction of actually retaking political control over this most wayward section of economic life.

The cause of the financial crisis was the absence of any sort of democratic control, any representation of the views of the citizen, in the banking sector and this has remained unchallenged. Neither the FSA in the UK nor the Fed. in the US has any accountability to citizens. This is internal regulation within the financial elite. It is leaving power in the hands of exactly the same bodies that failed to prevent the crisis this time around. It is a refusal to question the nature of financial organisation under capitalism.

In a sustainable and just economy banking would be a peripheral rather than parasitical activity. Money would be created to faciliate exchanges. It would be impossible to use money to make more money, which is the source of our current woes. Nothing teaches this better than trying to create your own local currency, as we are here in Stroud. A real money system cannot work without a successful productive economy. Making money is easy, but in an economy that has lived parasitically off the rest of the world for centuries the next step, recreating living productive economies, is a seriously long haul. Tweet

Transitional Demand for a Town in Transition

We have reached the exciting stage of 'no turning back' with our local currency here in Stroud. As we go into shops and pubs making the case for the Stroud Pound many people ask 'What is the point of a local currency? Can't we just decide to spend more money in our local economy?'

Our currency is designed on the model of the German Chiemgau, which itself follows the model of the Worgl - the holy grail for currency enthusiasts, which allowed its small Austrian town to flourish like an economic oasis in the midst of the desert of inter-war Depression. The money, like most natural systems, deteriorates over time, which is intended to increase the speed with which it changes hands. This is the key feature that underpinned the success of the Worgl experiment.

But whether or not this works in Stroud, launching a local currency is an important political move, because it is a transitional demand. According to Len Arthur:

'Transitional demands are those which relate to current grievances and seem a legitimate solution but if won would create a direct challenge to power resources of those who dominate.'

Making your own money is a practical response to the failure of the capitalist economy and a commitment to your local community, but is is also a real and immediate challenge to the system itself and the monopoly on money creation by the banks. This is the reason why the Worgl system was shut down by the Austrian state. We are waiting with interest to see the reaction here if the currency is a success. Tweet