Making Real Money: Local Currency and Social Economies in the United States

Making Real Money: Local Currency and Social Economies in the United States PDF Author: Alan Schussman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Local currencies have been founded in dozens of communities around the United States. By printing their own money that can only be used at participating local merchants or service providers, or in direct exchange with community members, advocates of local currencies try to reinvigorate local commerce, demonstrate community opposition to"big box" retailers and globalization, and support local employment. Although many local currencies have been founded, most of them have had only limited success, but even where local currencies fail to thrive, they raise important questions about the ways in which we organize institutions. This dissertation has two key concerns that emerge from those questions, the first of which is to explore the ways in which the meaning of money is reconfigured by the organizers and the users of local currencies. Second, this project seeks to explain the conditions under which local currencies operate, with the goal of building an understanding of how organizations successfully challenge the deeply embedded and institutionalized practices that surround the use of money. Local currencies are an innovative form of community economic organization that has previously gone under-studied by scholars. This project, the first to address local currencies with a large set of quantitative macro-level data as well as case-oriented archival and survey data, adds to knowledge of movement development and maintenance, and the social construction and use of money. Local currency reminds us that the systems of dollars and cents are socially constructed and that they therefore are changeable. But changing institutions that are part of our everyday life is difficult; because the use of money is so deeply embedded in routines and institutions, it's difficult to even ask questions about money: Where does money come from? Why do we trust it? And how might alternatives to money work? Local currency reminds usthat money is not necessarily as"real" as we tend to think and it invites us to think about the system of institutions in which we live.

Making Real Money: Local Currency and Social Economies in the United States

Making Real Money: Local Currency and Social Economies in the United States PDF Author: Alan Schussman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description
Local currencies have been founded in dozens of communities around the United States. By printing their own money that can only be used at participating local merchants or service providers, or in direct exchange with community members, advocates of local currencies try to reinvigorate local commerce, demonstrate community opposition to"big box" retailers and globalization, and support local employment. Although many local currencies have been founded, most of them have had only limited success, but even where local currencies fail to thrive, they raise important questions about the ways in which we organize institutions. This dissertation has two key concerns that emerge from those questions, the first of which is to explore the ways in which the meaning of money is reconfigured by the organizers and the users of local currencies. Second, this project seeks to explain the conditions under which local currencies operate, with the goal of building an understanding of how organizations successfully challenge the deeply embedded and institutionalized practices that surround the use of money. Local currencies are an innovative form of community economic organization that has previously gone under-studied by scholars. This project, the first to address local currencies with a large set of quantitative macro-level data as well as case-oriented archival and survey data, adds to knowledge of movement development and maintenance, and the social construction and use of money. Local currency reminds us that the systems of dollars and cents are socially constructed and that they therefore are changeable. But changing institutions that are part of our everyday life is difficult; because the use of money is so deeply embedded in routines and institutions, it's difficult to even ask questions about money: Where does money come from? Why do we trust it? And how might alternatives to money work? Local currency reminds usthat money is not necessarily as"real" as we tend to think and it invites us to think about the system of institutions in which we live.

The Rise of Public and Private Digital Money

The Rise of Public and Private Digital Money PDF Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513592033
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Following the companion paper on the new policy challenges related to the adoption of digital forms of money, this paper presents an operational strategy for the IMF to continue delivering on its mandate of ensuring domestic and international financial and economic stability. The paper begins by summarizing the forces driving the adoption of digital forms of money, and the new policy questions that emerge. It then focusses on how the IMF’s core activities and output will need to evolve, including surveillance, capacity development, and analytical foundations. It ends by discusses how the IMF intends to partner with other organization, and to grow and structure internal resources to fulfill this vision.

Equal Time, Equal Value

Equal Time, Equal Value PDF Author: Ed Collom
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317141873
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Equal Time, Equal Value is the first systematic investigation of Time Banking in the United States. Drawing upon detailed case studies and making use of a mix of qualitative and quantitative data this book explores the most popular type of what has been called 'community currencies', in which localized systems based on time or dollar equivalents act as the medium of exchange. As such, it offers rich insights into the challenge presented by Time Banking to both the traditional social service and economic models, through the creation of an environment of reciprocity in which everyone's work has equal value. Locating Time Banking within the context of community currencies more generally and investigating the particular characteristics that are central to the production of positive outcomes, Equal Time, Equal Value examines the organizational characteristics of Time Banks, as well as the motivations of members, types and patterns of exchanges, and the effects on members of Time Bank participation in the USA. A timely and detailed exploration of exchange systems at a time of rising unemployment and declining confidence in global economic structures, this book will appeal to sociologists, cultural geographers and anthropologists with interests in social movements, the sociology of work, health promotion and policy, inequality and questions of the creation of community and sustainability.

Hometown Money

Hometown Money PDF Author: Paul Glover
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description


The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions

The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions PDF Author: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780894991967
Category : Banks and Banking
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

Stamp Scrip

Stamp Scrip PDF Author: Irving Fisher
Publisher: New York : Adelphi
ISBN:
Category : Currency question
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description


The Social Meaning of Money

The Social Meaning of Money PDF Author: Viviana A. Zelizer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069123700X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
A dollar is a dollar—or so most of us believe. Indeed, it is part of the ideology of our time that money is a single, impersonal instrument that impoverishes social life by reducing relations to cold, hard cash. After all, it's just money. Or is it? Distinguished social scientist and prize-winning author Viviana Zelizer argues against this conventional wisdom. She shows how people have invented their own forms of currency, earmarking money in ways that baffle market theorists, incorporating funds into webs of friendship and family relations, and otherwise varying the process by which spending and saving takes place. Zelizer concentrates on domestic transactions, bestowals of gifts and charitable donations in order to show how individuals, families, governments, and businesses have all prescribed social meaning to money in ways previously unimagined.

Economic Lives

Economic Lives PDF Author: Viviana A. Zelizer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069115810X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
Revealing the human side of economic life Over the past three decades, economic sociology has been revealing how culture shapes economic life even while economic facts affect social relationships. This work has transformed the field into a flourishing and increasingly influential discipline. No one has played a greater role in this development than Viviana Zelizer, one of the world's leading sociologists. Economic Lives synthesizes and extends her most important work to date, demonstrating the full breadth and range of her field-defining contributions in a single volume for the first time. Economic Lives shows how shared cultural understandings and interpersonal relations shape everyday economic activities. Far from being simple responses to narrow individual incentives and preferences, economic actions emerge, persist, and are transformed by our relations to others. Distilling three decades of research, the book offers a distinctive vision of economic activity that brings out the hidden meanings and social actions behind the supposedly impersonal worlds of production, consumption, and asset transfer. Economic Lives ranges broadly from life insurance marketing, corporate ethics, household budgets, and migrant remittances to caring labor, workplace romance, baby markets, and payments for sex. These examples demonstrate an alternative approach to explaining how we manage economic activity—as well as a different way of understanding why conventional economic theory has proved incapable of predicting or responding to recent economic crises. Providing an important perspective on the recent past and possible futures of a growing field, Economic Lives promises to be widely read and discussed.

What We Owe Each Other

What We Owe Each Other PDF Author: Minouche Shafik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120764X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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Book Description