Complementary currencies are meant to work in tandem with the main currency in an economy. The main idea of EconUnleashed is that companies could create their own complementary currencies to donate to charities, so the charities could then purchase products from the companies. This would mean that companies would profit from the transaction and could increase their production, to the benefit of themselves, their workers, and the charities.
The theory
The idea is based on how free economic systems work and what gives currencies value, and it solves the problem that is created when there is too little currency.
First, free economic systems work because the freedom to make your own economic choices means that people only buy or sell when they believe that a purchase/sale will be a positive for them. This ensures that the overwhelming majority of transactions in a free economy are good for the people making them, and that these many positive transactions add up and grow with people’s desire for ever more economic improvement.
Second, currencies ultimately have value if people believe they can use them to buy things. A complementary currency would be backed by a company saying it could be used to make purchases from the company.
Putting these two ideas together, complementary currencies could be used to create positive transactions when there is not enough of the main currency available to facilitate the transaction. This would benefit the company, the workers that produced the products, and of course, the recipients of the products.
The practice
The truth is that I don’t know how every company should be run, you’ll have to ask a congressperson for that. Really, companies would need to work with charities in order to find out what is needed. The interests of companies to produce in a manner that is economical to them, and the interest of charities to receive only the things they can use, will have to combine to create the many positives that are possible.
The main goal of this blog is to get some companies to experiment with this idea and see if it can grow into something big. Any suggestions from people with expertise in any area involved with this (mine is limited to finance and economics) are welcome, as is any help with spreading the idea. Thanks for reading and sharing!
Notes:
This post will be updated as more is learned about the idea and how people are reacting to it.
This is not a call for companies to pay their employees or suppliers with scrip.
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