Page 10 RAIN March/April 1984 Avoiding the GRUCO: Creating a Community Currency “^GRoss Universal Cash Collapse (with apologies to Bucky Fuller) Believing that the world's economy is somewhat unstable these days is no far-fetched notion; it's becoming household gab. A few economists, though—who see a new set of assumptions cropping up-are citing startling signs of larger, more dismantling waves, not just ripples, in money flow. Bucky Fuller, in his last book. The CRUNCH* of Giants (*Gross Universal Cash Heist) [see RAIN 1X:5], warns that "the financial market world is now assuming that the U.S. government will soon reach a crisis point beyond which it will no longer be able to pay off either its short- or long-term obligations.. .. [When] they see the moment offormally acknowledged bankruptcy of the nation to be less than a year away, someone is going to announce the emperor has no clothes [and] they'll try 'Title 13' to terminate all risks of private enterprise." The chairman of the Intermediate Technology Development Group ofNorth America (ITDGINA),Ward Morehouse,writes in the introduction to The Handbook of Tools for Community Economic Change that "so serious has the situation become that it has been argued that the Third World should wipe the slate clean by collectively repudiating its external debt and starting all over again." And Shann Turnball, a Handbook contributor and Harvard Business School alumnus consulting in Australia, observes, "There is no longer any commitment by the banking system to convert paper money into any unit of production, be it a commodity or service.. . . While this innovation [central banking with paper money] has increased the stability of individual banks, it has done so at the cost of decreasing the stability of the currency and indeed the whole financial system. . .. Most bankers can observe the lumps in their system but do not wish to believe it is cancer. Those who do see it as a cancer believe that their government has remedy ready to hand out if the patient shows signs of dying. But here is the sting. They do not. In fact, it is governments [that] have created the cancer by mutating the concept of money and credit to suit their own self-interest." Whether the economic cancer spreads throughout every nation's monetary system or subsides into remission, we can't expect government to institute systematic changes, preventative or otherwise, for a more democratic, decentralized economy. But we can experiment with opportunities rising out of the crises. Quietly and slowly, new models are appearing in discrete communities. Eight successful experiments appear in the Handbook, which is based on three E. F. Schumacher Society seminars on community economic transformation (see RAINX:2). Belowisa Handbook excerpt from "Buildinga Community Banking System" by Robert Swann, a former cohort of E. F. Schumacher and president of the Schumacher Society (Box 76A, RD3, Great Barrington, MA 01230). The Handbook's conceptual tools include the community land trust, the cooperative land bank, community self-management, and community currency and banking. It's availablefor $20 (plus $1.50 postage and handling) from ITDG, Publications Office, PO Box 337, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520. -KN The so-called energy crisis has made it clear to almost everyone that energy is the key factor in all forms of production and in meeting the needs of society as a whole. In this respect, gold, as the traditional form of reserve currency, is being replaced by commodities or sources [that] provide essential energy. Thus, oil is referred to as "black gold." . .. Almost every community has renewable resources for producing energy. Such resources could be wood, wind, hydro, or waste material [that] can be burned in a modern furnace such as a pyrolytic burner, which converts wood waste or other wastes into gas, oil, or charcoal. [For other alternatives, see Future Water, page 7.] All such energy sources can be converted into electricity or measured in kilowatt-hours. [The first step] would be the creation of a community- based organization, possibly set up as a cooperative, as a worker-owned business, or owned by a community development corporation, to produce energy from any or all of the locally available sources. This organization would offer for sale notes, called energy notes, at the going rate of electricity. For example, if local utility rates are presently 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, then $1 would buy 10 kilowatt-hours for future delivery. Owners of the notes sold in lots of 10, 50, and 100 units (comparable to current values of $1, $5, and $10) would hold these notes for future redemption in kilowatts—no matter what the future dollar rate of kilowatts. In effect, these owners would have a guarantee against future inflation of electric rates. This would be the attraction for purchase of notes. The community organization or corpora-
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