Although interesting, I should probably note that as a general rule, they have never seen high adoption, aren't very clear about what problems they're trying to solve, and seem to have minimal advantages over, well, any other solution. Even in places where a local currency system is nominally operating, you generally have to look very, very hard to find anyone participating (or indeed, who has even heard of it).
Also, the Kootenay currency has been defunct for something like 15-20 years.
The idea of giving people your new currency in exchange for posting an ad willing to barter for that currency seems clever. Reminds me of how PayPal would give you five or ten bucks just for making an account when they started.
> When you list your offers in the bi-monthly Kootenay Barter Bulletin, you are given four HOURS worth $40. This is the way we slowly get our money into circulation. It is not money backed by gold or debt. It is backed by our own production.
But isn't that exactly debt? They give out currency which may or may not be backed by any available work at the time of redeeming.
I think an MMT framing works well here. They give you $40. You're not explicitly required to list in the bulletin, but presumably for practical purposes you do need to be in the bulletin to participate in this economy. So you're effectively taxed $6 per six months to continue participating in this economy.
So it is a kind of debt obligation but one that's voluntary, like a tax you can choose to forgo.
It reminds me a lot of Warren Mosler's Buckaroo experiment; they give you the money, then tax you, and your need to pay the tax causes you to sell labor denominated in that currency. (I'm having trouble finding a text source for this, but they described it in an interview here https://youtube.com/watch?v=LCUPBpSiISU)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours (one of the larger systems, and the one Kootenay's was copied from, now defunct)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency (a general name for such currencies, with a list of a bunch of different ones)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency (not all local currencies are based on time but Kootenay Barter and Ithaca Hours were)
Although interesting, I should probably note that as a general rule, they have never seen high adoption, aren't very clear about what problems they're trying to solve, and seem to have minimal advantages over, well, any other solution. Even in places where a local currency system is nominally operating, you generally have to look very, very hard to find anyone participating (or indeed, who has even heard of it).
Also, the Kootenay currency has been defunct for something like 15-20 years.