Providing Jobs in a matter of Hours

The 99% occupation of Wall St. shows us that many people are waking up to the colossal failures of our economic system and the main tenets of "Free Market" Capitalism. Our centralized currencies are not unlike a mono cultured crop, a fragile system vulnerable to any number of threats. Diversity has the strength that mono-cultures lack, because even if one entire crop fails the greater harvest can still succeed. Centralized currencies are literally money-opolies, they are monopolies of money itself, and they must be broken up in a controlled demolition before they bring down the whole system when they fall. But our current government backed currencies can work side by side with alternatives, allowing for a transitional shift to a new system. If any of these suggestions seem too "radical" or "socialist" for you, consider the fact that we have a mixed economy that has for the last half century been systematically stripped of the most important socialist elements that have kept the system functioning for so long, and that now more drastic corrective measures must be taken to have an effective outcome.

Local hours based currencies (Also called Time Based Currency) offer a solution in both the immediate and long term future for the many challenges we now face, and challenges yet to unfold. With a very simple idea local towns and cities can stimulate economic growth in times of national and global economic downturns. Hours based currencies have been around for a while and there are more towns and cities around the world adopting them every year. Cities like Ithaca, New York and Madison, Wisconsin are the largest hours based currency systems in the united states and have been operating successfully for decades. So there are already a variety of models that can be studied and implemented based on the characteristics of your local economy. Here are some ideas, some of which are already a part of these models, and some are suggestions on how to expand an hours based economy beyond current models so that they can take the wheel when our national currencies are too punch drunk to drive.

Hours are issued through a collectively owned and operated 'Hours Bank' or 'Hours Collective' and decisions are made by members of the collective in transparent, democratic forums. The current model is one that must function in the context of our federal laws and with the dominant federal currency, therefore these collectives must charge membership fees to cover the costs of the operation. This sets a slight disadvantage on the psychological front when people ask why they must pay federal dollars to take part in a alternative currency. One of the problems with federal currency and it's 'get rich quick' pyramid scheme design is that it breeds skepticism over any and every exchange where dollars are involved. The current Hours based currency model is also limited to service and labor due to existing federal law stating that alternative currencies given a dollar value are then taxable as dollars by the federal government. These flaws in the current models are temporarily imposed by the federal government whose main players profit from it's long standing monopoly. Hours can easily integrate commodities and cover all costs once these false barriers are lifted, the flaws are in the laws.

So how can we make Hours work in our current legal system? Our existing democratic institutions can work in concert with this system in a few key ways: Local City/Town councils can endorse/promote the establishment of an independent Hours collective to help lend the fledgling currency legitimacy (a concern for all new forms of currency since the dawn of paper money) and encourage local businesses to accept it. In return the council can commission the Hours Bank to issue Hours as compensation for labor invested into public works and projects. Building and maintaining public infrastructure can be fully or partially funded with hours based currency, enabling projects previously lacking funds to go forward. Hours can exist simultaneously with national currencies, but are not adversely affected when large fluctuations or crashes in the national currency occurs. In fact, this is precisely why these local hours based currencies are required, so we can continue basic trade in the event of a total collapse of interdependent centralized currencies. Hours can work in two ways: they are issued to the workers of public projects, cooperatives, and collectives as compensation for hours worked. Then, once Hours are in circulation they stimulate the local economy and help anchor the poor and middle class in hard economic times.

Hours collectives can function as a socialist mirror to the banks in a capitalist system. Whereas Banks loan funds to private entities to create private wealth, Hours collectives can actually pay the labor cost of a collectively owned and operated organization. In an hours based economy hours don't represent some arbitrary value system, or even a far away piece of gold, hours represent your work. And as you work, you earn the work of others and the products they produce which you redeem with your Hours based currency. But the first generation Hours issued directly from the collective come from no fund, but the raw renewable resource of human labor. Instead of capitalizing that resource for the gain of the few, these hours are invested in public, lateral, democratic institutions. The Hours collective is simply one collective among many, whose paid staff earn no more than the hours for the time they worked. But they enable the sprouting of many new collectively owned businesses that can provide more than just jobs, but secure living wages.

Imagine waking up in 10 years to a world with no unemployment, with a thriving market and strong infrastructure. Imagine a world where the gap between the rich and the poor is all but vanished as we embrace that old work ethic that tells us that if we want more we can simply work harder. Imagine having everything you need to start a new enterprise, as long as you can do so in the collective format equally sharing the profits, costs, and goals and visions with all those who work their fair share. Imagine a world where people no longer think in terms of owners and workers, or use the rhetoric of our outdated class war.  A world where one must earn what they own, where the tyranny of inherited wealth no longer tilts the tables of equality. Imagine a world built by the people, with their hard work as the capital invested in the commons. A world that we the people actually own, with local shops and industries that we provide for as they provide for us. It's time for 'We the people' to take charge of our own welfare, to create a world of the people, by the people, and for the people.



Here's an interesting idea from England that takes a different approach, but the current systems work basically the same way in the US. I believe currencies should be locally issued by collective hours banks in autonomous city-states, and globally compatible: One hour of human labor being universally equal. This video is a nationalist, centralist model to which I am opposed, though it would be a step in the right direction and they make their case very clear.