Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: barter systems

[BARANSKI (BARANSKI]

Anyone have an address or phone number for SHARE, the people involved: Susan
Witt, Bob Swann, Joe Savage?  Even what town they are based in would be
helpfull...

Jim Baranski

  Deli Dollars were the brainchild of SHARE, a nonprofit organization promoting
  economic self-help activities in the Berkshire region. As administrator Susan
  Witt explained, group members share a belief that ecological and social
  values should shape investment decisions and that innovative methods must be
  developed  to encourage local and regional self-sufficiency.

  "And we need to develop economic tools for building rootedness," she
  continued. "SHARE is trying to support small, productive businesses that
  create  bonds between people, the kind of businesses that often are unable to
  get conventional financing when they need it."

  According to _  Bob Swann, _ a prime mover behind SHARE, a centralized
  banking system promotes concentration of wealth in urban areas. So a key to
  rural revitalization is "a decentralized system that gets more people
  involved in managing and issuing money," he said.
                                                                              
  According to Joe Savage, SHARE president, Deli Dollars are a way "to test the
  waters" for a scheme to issue a more broadly based local currency.

  Ever since 1932, when Roosevelt's administration declared it illegal for
  citizens to redeem US dollars in gold, "our money has not been based on       
  
  anything - except the word of the government," Swann said.  So SHARE has been
  struggling to create a monetary system that would increase local trade by
  circulating currencies locally and that also could be redeemed in something
  real, something a person could use.

  A plan to create BERK-SHARES, a currency backed by cords of firewood and
  using Berkshire forests as collateral, fell through when the oil and gas
  crisis  abated, decreasing demand for wood to burn. But SHARE is still
  searching for the perfect commodity to represent the Berkshire region and
  back its BERK-SHARES.