Auroville in South India (population: 2000 ish), is a conscious experiment in building a model city of the future, in accordance with the ideals of the esteemed Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Work is going on here with energy, permaculture, transport, education, therapies, water treatment, art, development, (typically in the surrounding villages), spirituality and of course currencies.
There's a successful system which reduces the need for cash within Auroville Shops, as transactions are done through a centralised computer system. Built on that, Aurovillians receive a proportion of their wages with a proportion of in-kind rupees which cannot be cashed, only spent in shops. This currency is valued at the national currency and represents, in my view a small innovative step.
Once a year on festival day, the children play a game in which they are all given an equal amount of pretend money to spend just on that day. I hear that some children become very rich but as the day wears on the money devalues and the day ends in a frenzied auction with cakes and treats going under the hammer for thousands upon thousands of ephemeral rupees.
A serious mutual credit currency has long been contemplated, but varying interpretations of the founder's wishes have caused resistance to this idea, and nothing ever got off the ground. One thing that has been learned though is that until Auroville provides more of its own needs, there will be nothing to buy with a local currency. But I have a slightly different take on this.
Looking around it seems to me that Rupees come into Auroville, from donations, from governments, from newcomers and tourists; and that rupees leave Auroville in exchange for imported goods, building materials, labour costs, and project expenses; and that, crucially, very little happens in between. Instead of an economy with money going round, Auroville is more like a drainpipe!
So what to do?
The next attempt at introducing a currency will be done very differently.
- it will embrace the surrounding villages so as to provide more opportunity for the currency to circulate.
- Second there will be an emphasis on getting food producers involved, because food is grown more or less locally, and everyone spends money on it.
- a project has now started to map the economy in the whole bioregion in a business directory. the plan is to put a shop in each village selling only local produce, and to introduce a currency through those shops. This will take time
Students looking for excuses to do a dissertation in the tropics could do worse than get in touch
Comments