Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T09:23:51.766Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

7 - Smaller Scale Trueque

Get access

Summary

The collapse of the Redes de Trueque in the second half of 2002 and the first half of 2003 was like a big-bang, to the point that some observers announced the Trueque was dead. However, it was far from dead. The CT just became much smaller, of a scale comparable to other experiences of CCS around the world. They also changed in various ways.

In the years of exponential growth, CT had mostly lost the connection to their local communities and participants could come from quite far. After its decline in 2002–3, the coordinators and the most committed participants in each CT got to make critical choices again. The most pressing decision was whether to keep the node open and, in that case, under what conditions. That is, whether to operate independently or articulate to a network with other nearby CT. In 2004 the surviving nodes inaugurated a new stage in their development, one of empowerment of the coordinator and reconnection to the local level. With a smaller scale, the local context and the non-economic motivations for continuing with the Trueque regained significance.

CCS are an institution that localizes economic activity, while at the same transforming the quality of the exchanges. In the last two decades, a few hundred regions, localities and communities in both the developed and the developing world have created community currency systems in an attempt to increase the control over their resources. Their purpose is not to disconnect from the national economy, but to complement and adjust to it.

This chapter discusses four rationales for the creation of CCS to study the motivations of CT to continue after 2004. The first discussion is to what extent seigniorage constitutes an attractive income for the leaders of the Trueque. The second one is that Trueque changed the qualitative characteristics of exchange, embedding transactions in social relations which go beyond income generation. The third one is that it protects the local economy and stabilizes it through the national business cycle. The last one is that it provides households an extra opportunity to diversify their sources of income. Monetary networks and complementary currency systems are used as synonyms in this chapter.

Type
Chapter
Information
Argentina's Parallel Currency
The Economy of the Poor
, pp. 133 - 154
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×