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Ithaca
If you come across the story of Ithaca hours, you might think you have stumbled upon an enchanted island… a place where many people have ‘almost’ managed to do without money for 15 years!
Ithaca does exist however, but we are not talking about the island that according to Homer was the birthplace of Ulysses. This Ithaca is a small community in New York State, with a strong liberal tradition, which, for many years, has been a model of one of the longest running and best working Local or Complementary Currencies in the world. So much so that similar systems have spread to over 80 communities in the United States, as well as to Japan, Canada and Australia (the Chinese government too is studying it).
Paul Glover, the creator, claims from the pages of his website that since 1991, the equivalent of over 105,000 dollars has been issued in local money… The Ithacans have decided that this money is worth more or less the same as the average hourly rate in Tompkins county: 10 dollars.
1 HOURs (as the currency is called) gives the possibility to acquire goods or services that would cost ten real dollars and, if wished, can be exchanged for real money, but they continue to circulate because the equal exchange within the group members makes it worth it. There are exceptions, for example complex professional skills (Ithaca’s two dentists can certainly earn more than 1 HOURs). Or, as Paul Glover has repeated in various interviews, people can use the HOURs simply to find an agreement. And this is the great benefit of Ithaca HOURs: the community money works above all as a means of interaction, as well as exchange. Social connections are strengthened, and, obviously, local production is preferred.
Glover gives a lot of importance to the banknotes that are printed at Ithaca to explain the relative value of the HOURs. On notes of different denominations the values of the community are depicted: children, natural beauty and resources, respect for minorities (for example Afro-Americans). As the money is allowed to circulate only within a closed group of associate members, Glover adds, it helps the sense of belonging to grow. What’s more it’s creative and fun, too, and it helps to stimulate the imagination, as the cartoons that describe the life of the HOURs of Ithaca can testify.
And there are not only social advantages. There are economic advantages too, and as testimony, there are over 300 commercial activities that have decided to adopt the HOURs system to buy or sell goods and over 1500 names on the association database. Basically they are extra money with real advantages.
So, in Ithaca, with HOURs one can go to the restaurant, buy local organic produce, get your car, the roof of your house or your garden pipes repaired, have a session at the massage parlor, find a baby sitter or even rent a house. To underline the perspective of social justice behind the project, by law the association redistributes 10% of the HOURs issued to the community members involved in social activity.
Finally, at Ithaca it seems that there’s room for everyone to gain something: small businesses, which see support for local products and services in this type of transaction, the farmers who can never hope otherwise to be paid 10 dollars an hour for their work on the “normal” market, small enterprises that are able to start up thanks to interest-free loans of HOURs.
(16/06/2006)
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