The national press is giving some coverage to the subject of local currency again, and it’s got some Ypsilantians buzzing. I’ve heard from three people about it in the last two hours. One of the notes came from a reader named David, who had an interesting spin on it. If I understood him correctly, he was saying that having one’s own currency was the first step toward throwing off the shackles of serfdom. Or at least that was my interpretation… Actually, why don’t I just print what he said and you can decide? Here’s the pertinent part of his note:

…Considering that Colonial Scrip pissed off the Brits and was historically significant in terms of an impetus for the American Revolution, maybe introducing such would lead to the Huron River Scrip Revolt. Local money to buy local goods from local merchants – what a concept. McCoy, Tucker, and Iggy on the bills!

I don’t know that I’d go so far as to suggest that we do it as a first step toward secession, but I do think it’s worth considering for other reasons. Here are a few clips from the Reuters article on Massachusetts BerkShares that I think get at some of those reasons:

A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.

So it is fitting that the artist’s face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

“I just love the feel of using a local currency,” said Trice Atchison, 43, a teacher who used BerkShares to buy a snack at a cafe in Great Barrington, a town of about 7,400 people. “It keeps the profit within the community.”

…There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.

…In their 10 months of circulation, they’ve become a regular feature of the local economy. Businesses that accept BerkShares treat them interchangeably with dollars: a $1 cup of coffee sells for 1 BerkShare, a 10 percent discount for people paying in BerkShares.

…U.S. law prevents states from issuing their own currency but allows private groups to print paper scrip, though not coins, said Lewis Solomon, a professor of law at George Washington University, who studies local currencies.

“As long as you don’t turn out quarters and you don’t turn out something that looks like the U.S. dollar, it’s legal,” Solomon said.

…Meanwhile, Berkshire Hills Bancorp Inc., a western Massachusetts bank that exchanges BerkShares for dollars, is considering BerkShares-denominated checks and debit cards…

As far as I know, the Ithaca Hours program, which started in 1991, was the first modern experiment with non-federal currency that really seemed to take root and thrive. Since then, there have been several others, the most recent of which is this BerkShares initiative. All of the programs are a bit different, but they all, from what I can tell, have the same goal in mind — to keep their dollars circulating in the local community, instead of being sucked out, into the corporate bank accounts of national chains. The thought being that locally spent dollars spread prosperity more broadly.

Here’s an example. If I buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, some small percentage goes to the employees working there, who live in my community, but, by far, the larger percentage goes back to the company’s corporate headquarters. If, however, I spent that same dollar at a local coffee shop, it might in turn be given to a local dairy in exchange for milk, and the owner of that dairy might then use it to pay an employee, who might then turn around and use it at the local brewery. You get the picture. Everyone does better, and the community grows more stable. The main point, at least as I see it, is that locally minted currency, by being visually different, demands that people think about such things. And, if there’s an economic incentive to using it, as there is in the BerkShares model, then all the better.

So, what’s stopping us? Surely there’s an economist at one of our local universities that would help us hammer out the details, and I’m sure there’s a banker somewhere who would get onboard. I’ve never talked with Lisa at Think Local First about this specifically, but I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t like it. And I’ve exchanged notes with the folks at Sustainable Ypsi about it, so I know they’d be up for it. It seems, at the very least, we should all sit down in a room together and hash out the pros and cons? Ypsi needs something. Maybe this is it.

And, while we’re at it, why not also be the first ad free city in the U.S.?

[Folks interested in the subject of local currency might also want to check out the E.F. Schumacher Society. They’re the ones responsible for getting the Ithaca Hours off the ground.]