Not In Hour Name

Madison Hours Local Currency System is proud to count itself a member organization of the Madison Area Peace Coalition. We joined not only because war and militarism are antithetical to what local currency is about, but also to deliberately rebuke the popular notion that money is somehow a "neutral" entity, above the impassioned fray of politics and moral values.

Money's Neutrality
It's true on one hand that money is nothing more than a simple utilitarian tool, invented by human beings to raise commerce above the arduous level of barter. And money certainly does not seem to distinguish or care where, or with whom, or for what we spend it. This sort of blind universality makes it appear completely value-neutral.

But highly mobile national currencies are a quite recent invention, perfected in the last century to better facilitate international trade. This was a useful innovation, but modern money's ubiquity and ability to travel are precisely the factors which now make it increasingly problematic to the world community.

Whether bahts, dollars or pesos, central-bank money is designed to be a non-local and unaccountable actor. While it travels easily across borders on floating exchange-rates, it does poorly at measuring value equivalently: an American laborer's hour might be worth $15, a Bangladeshi's or Zimbabwean's perhaps 15 cents. Such outrageous disparities are a commonplace of our age, but to those seeking a profit they are a central motivation for exporting production away from the site of consumption. As world-market participants, we must routinely operate in a cloud of ignorance which acts as a sort of moral veil behind which the very worst can happen with our (unintended) blessing. Significantly, this is the case prior-to and apart-from additional political maneuverings (financial deregulation, "free"-trade arrangements, and so on) that corporate lobbyists are able to finesse in the halls of Congress or the backrooms at the WTO which further unbalance the global-trade playing field.

Indeed, the neo-liberal shibboleth "free trade" is not even conceivable were it not first for modern money's untrackable mobility. The current open-throttle phase of world capitalism is both enabled and stoked by money's unhindered flow through financial and production markets -- so much so that even national boundaries and sovereignty are starting to fall before its tide, as the creation of the Euro-zone and recent proliferation of free-trade agreements will attest.

As accelerated money flows continue to extract wealth from the global south and concentrate it in the north, resource depletion, desperation and debt-bondage increasingly drive global demand for the tools of violence that have made arms trading one of the world's largest industries.

Bomb 'em with Dollars
Central bank money also plays a more direct and intimate role in the propagation of warfare and violence across the planet.

One of the reasons that arms manufacturing is so lucrative in the U.S. is that the Pentagon -- with military contractors lobbying endlessly on its behalf -- enjoys what is essentially an open sluice-gate from the Treasury. Because the armaments industry can basically sell its entire capacity to U.S. taxpayers ($500 hammers included), it soaks up investment money from the private markets like a sponge. Access to such willing capital further encourages the industry's growth; that equates to more lobbyists and even greater pressure to expand Pentagon budgets with the "free" dollars that flow out of our pockets at tax time.

No matter how pacific your inclinations, when you spend dollars -- even on something as benign as locally-grown produce at the neighborhood co-op -- that money is free to travel, and it's inexorably drawn toward the places where it will get the highest return. If that involves producing missiles or landmines or surveillance-systems or F-16s, there's not much you can do about it -- except to use local currency next time.

A Revolution in Money
Money's "neutrality" is really nothing more than its ability to travel without account, to be laundered and come clean, whether by drug barons, arms dealers, forest-cutters or junk-bond hawkers; whether denominated in kroner, drachmas, shekels or yen. What's needed is money that's tied down to the local communities or regions which produce the wealth (via labor) which backs it. If local moneys are both democratically-controlled and denominated in a universal and meaningful way (labor-hours, e.g.), not only should national and international trade still be possible, but local communities in all areas will be better able to safeguard their workers against exploitation by outside forces.

Local currency is about reestablishing accountability in the money supply. Madison Hours has faith that when such accountability is again returned to the local level -- to the forum of face-to-face democracy -- that no locality on earth will countenance the use of its money for production of anti-human devices like modern weaponry.

Until that time comes, Madison Hours will actively support the prevention and ending of wars, which inevitably destroy human beings and environments -- the labor and resource base which together produce all things of value, and without which we cannot live.

There's never been a better time to abandon the dollar. For the sake of peace, use local currency. Circulate your money locally -- that's the only way you'll keep it out of the hands of the weapons contractors.