Community-based alternative currencies as drivers of new monetary arrangements

This chapter deals with the transformative power of community and/or complementary currencies (CCs) on money itself. CCs experienced in many countries the somehow rough contact of public authorities, finding here and there smart ways of existing and developing, sometimes deadly opposition, but more frequently a benign neglect under control. In some cases, law was adapted to grant them a place. They thus entered the monetary system. This provides relevance to the question of the possible contribution of community and participation-based monetary initiatives to changing money. The chapter first shows how CCs emerged and developed from a twin process of spreading and differentiation, to highlight their diversity and the general trend of innovation that leads to new categories of schemes. It then examines the diversity of relations they developed with regulatory authorities over time, ranging from threats to integration within appropriate legal frameworks. The text then turns to the three main objectives they pursue, namely territorialization of activities, stimulation of exchanges and transformation of practices, lifestyles, and social representations. They may thus be considered structuring tools for territorial development, leading to the proposal of kinds of monetary arrangements that give place to monetary subsidiarity and the possibility of monetary commons to emerge. structuring tools for territorial development, leading to the proposal of kinds of monetary arrangements that give place to monetary subsidiarity and the possibility of monetary commons to emerge.