The Bristol Pound was the golden child of a local currency movement that twinkled across western Europe in the 2010s. Few of those had much thought or rigour in their design and implementation. How hard can it be to print up some notes and sell them to the public? Not very hard, it turns out, but don't expect them to drive inward trade and benefit small businesses! With a solid team and at least a couple of years of planning, the Bristol pound managed to attract funding and publicity to last a decade.
The sheer weight of the project meant that it faced many challenges and learned many lessons that smaller projects never encountered, and it is for this reason that Diana Finch's book deserves attention. By the time Diana landed in the Director's chair, the writing was already on the wall, and the Bristol Pound needed totally redesigning and refinancing. Despite brave efforts she wasn't able to deliver BP2.0, but in writing this book she did the best perhaps that could have been done, in writing an insider history of the project for others to learn from. This should not be undervalued in a world where most neighbouring projects disappeared without a trace.
Reading her very basic introduction, I was initially concerned that there would be nothing new in the book, but then I realiased she was writing for the people of Bristol, as much as for the complementary currency nerds. The scope opened out beautifully, to cover the project's founding, based on her own interviews, some of the differences of opinion and stresses as the project evolved. She talked about the legal uncertainties they faced at the beginning and showed how the forced relationship with the Credit Union greatly prevented the team's from understanding how the currency was circulating - for the whole decade - because that data was legally private. She critiqued the ideological messaging and lack of a concrete value proposition; she covered (too briefly for my liking) the clear desire of most of the founders to do mutual credit, and their disappointment, when they finally introduced it and not one user took it up. She took us through her own exploration into alternative ideas, mostly around Art Brock's current-see framing, and her difficulties translating that into a workable scheme. Finally she details her design for Bristol Pay and the reasons it didn't get off the ground.
I was skeptical about the whole idea of voucher currencies from the start. I couldn't see what they were supposed to achieve. I felt vindicated by this paper but at the same time I acknowledge that Chiemgauer in Bavaria, is a force for good, more than 2 decades since its founding! Aside from that, it feels like that chapter in the histories of complementary currencies is now closed, and I for one am wondering what next. The current-sees approach has valuable insights, but it doesn't address the monetary malaise, in my opinion. Crypto currencies have mostly drifted away from aspiring to provide a medium of exchange, with notable exceptions. Strategically I would like to see more development of decentralised multilateral offset clearing systems such as Local Loop Merseyside which is being developed in partnership with local networks by Mutual Credit Services.
Diana found herself in a hospice role for the project and this she performed admirably, not only by writing this book, a legacy web site but with a goodbye way out economics conference and other media work.
Comments