Category: 8 (2004)

The Social and Cultural Capital of Community Currency, An Ithaca HOURS Case Study Survey

IJCCR

In this article the authors report and analyze the data from an interview survey of 42 Ithaca HOURS community currency users. The theoretical context for the study is social capital, and the survey seeks to answer questions centering around the extent the interviewees participate in networks of reciprocity, trust and support. The survey results indicate that the respondents highly value their experiences buying and selling with HOURS, and that it does in fact function as a social capital resource for them. Nevertheless, on average, the respondents’ use of HOURS was modest at best, with $300 to $350, exchanged in the 12 months prior to the survey. Since the exchange in HOURS is dwarfed by the mainstream economy’s circulation of federal dollars, and since the respondents use of HOURS, on average, is only a very small part of their disposable income, the authors sought the significance of the HOURS economy in cultural and symbolic rather than material terms.

Jeffrey Jacob, Merlin Brinkerhoff, Emily Jovic and Gerald Wheatley Volume 8(2004) 4

IJCCR vol 8 (2004) 4 Jacob et al 2

To cite this article: Jacob, J.; Brinkerhoff, M.; Jovic, E.; Wheatley, G. (2004) ‘The Social and Cultural Capital of Community Currency, An Ithaca HOURS Case Study Survey’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 8 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN  1325-9547 http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2004.002

HOUR Town – Paul Glover and the Genesis and Evolution of Ithaca HOURS

IJCCR

Ithaca HOURS are, arguably, the most successful of the local currency experiments of the last two decades. At the height of their popularity in the mid-1990s, perhaps as many as 2,000 of Ithaca and region’s 100,000 residents were buying and selling with HOURS. The high profile of HOURS in the Ithaca community has prompted a series of articles, television news segments and documentaries, primarily for the popular media. Though constituting valuable documentation of an intrinsically interesting phenomenon, these reports has tended to be fragmentary and ahistorical, thus lacking in context in terms of the longitudinal evolution of the Ithaca region’s political economy. The present study attempts to remedy these lacunae in our understanding of the genesis and evolution of Ithaca HOURS by presenting a systematic account of Ithaca’s experiment with local currencies over the past decade and a half through the person of Paul Glover, the individual most closely associated with the founding and developing of HOURS. The article follows the activist career of Glover through the end of 2003, thus placing HOURS in the context of Ithaca’s activist community’s efforts to push the local polity and economy in the direction of ecological sustainability.

Jeffrey Jacob, Merlin Brinkerhoff, Emily Jovic and Gerald Wheatley Volume 8(2004) 3

IJCCR vol 8 (2004) 3 Jacob et al

To cite this article: Jacob, J.; Brinkerhoff, M.; Jovic, E.; Wheatley, G. (2004) ‘HOUR Town – Paul Glover and the Genesis and Evolution of Ithaca HOURS’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 8 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN  1325-9547 http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2004.003

Kaláka and Kör: Green money and mutual aid in Hungary

IJCCR

This article discusses progress in developing alternative currencies in a post-socialist environment, Hungary. It discusses alternative currency programmes developed by Hungarians inspired by Austrian Talentum schemes, and some developed through East-West co-operation between the UK and Hungary. The article reports a number of problems in introducing approaches to alternative currencies that might work well in one environment, but in another may flounder. Secondly, the article examines problems specific to Hungary, and perhaps other post-socialist countries in which civic engagement was discouraged.

Peter North Volume 8(2004) 2

IJCCR vol 8 (2004) 2 North

To cite this article: North, P. (2004) ‘Kaláka and Kör: Green money and mutual aid in Hungary’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 8 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN  1325-9547 http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2004.004

Complementary Currencies in Japan Today: History, Originality and Relevance

IJCCR

Since 1995 the number of experiments with complementary currencies in Japan has exploded. Not only is Japan the country in the world with the most systems in operation today, but also the nation with the greatest diversity of such experiments. The aim of this paper is to bring to light the strata of the heterogeneous Japanese schools of complementary currencies, and describe how they relate to each other. It provides a description of the different models used in each school, as well as their numbers and locations. Finally, the most original models are highlighted, and the relevance of these experiments for the rest of the world is evaluated.

Bernard Lietaer Volume 8(2004) 1

IJCCR vol 8 (2004) 1 Lietaer

To cite this article: Lietaer, B. (2004) ‘Complementary Currencies in Japan Today: History, Originality and Relevance’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 8 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN  1325-9547 http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2004.005