LETS Connect at Home | Contents Listing | Previous Page | Next Page
The vision we have is strongly influenced by E F Schumaker especially his book Small is Beautiful, subtitled "A Study of Economics as if People Mattered". As we see it LETSystems completely rewrite the economics rule book so that people and the environment do matter.
This means regaining a sense of community, self worth and responsibility (literally the ability to respond) through being able to exchange goods and services on a local level. Most of you probably have experienced this, it has a value beyond price.
To us LETS is not only this, but also represents a paradigm sift in economics creating alongside conventional, state issued money a new kind of money, personal money. We believe this makes it possible as never before to solve many of the problems people face - social and economic inequalities, exploitation of the environment, alienation from work (not just unemployment but also the increasing tendency for work to be stressful, meaningless and soul destroying), poverty and hunger.
A big vision but not pie in the sky. All these problems arise in part from the way we trade and particularly the kind of money we use to trade. LETSystems make these major problems soluble. Imagine if personal money could be used for a significant part, say 10%, of the economy. First, the very great efforts already being put into addressing the big and small problems would be more effective, these efforts could access much greater resources . Secondly, those problems arising from the drive to make money, such as environmental damage and the exploitation of natural resources, would cease to be created.
Sounds great, we thought, but what are we going to do about it? The fact is, though we believe all this we don't know if we are right. There is only one way to find out - see if we can help make it happen. We looked about to see what was already being done. There is good work being done on getting across the community benefits of LETS, mostly by those people, including ourselves, who have started or traded on LETSystems. Obviously there are benefits to sharing experience and supporting each other as shown by the activities of LETS Link and LETS Connect, however, resources are a problem and we find the critical and antagonistic nature of much LETS development discussion depressing.
It was in the area of our wider vision that we saw the biggest gap. Many people in the LETS community share this vision to some degree but, true to the pluralistic nature of LETS, they were working on it in their different ways. Fine we thought, so we'll work on it in our way.
Since none of us is independently wealthy we looked at how we could get the necessary resources. We decided to offer information, training and consultancy services for fees. Economic necessities and the lack of multiLETS coverage across the country has meant these fees have to date been in sterling. To make our ethical position clear we set up formally as a not for profit limited company based on cooperative principles.
Our particular approach has been first to communicate that LETSystems are for everyone. Particularly that they are not just for "alternative green types" (even though that pretty much describes LETS Solutions members) or, as is more recently the case, "for the poor". With the increasing inequality in the conventional economy we see a danger of LETS being taken as a kind of amelioration for the underclass. Secondly (or alongside) we've been working on how can LETS become a significant part of the whole economy? This has included both researching and developing recommended strategies for LETSystem development with local authorities and other interested organisations, and collaborating to find practical ways to make LETSystems work for the bigger things without losing their essential base within communities i.e. multiLETS.
Throughout we have valued exchanging information with all kinds of people (particularly Michael Linton, who developed the LETSystem and multiLETS in the first place, and Paul Felix from Tasmania who is a master at negotiating and getting things done) if you would like to know more about what we are doing, please get in touch.
LETS Solutions: Scott Clifford Bradford LETS 01274 593871 Siobhan Harpur Manchester LETS 0161 434 8712
LETS Connect at Home | Contents Listing | Previous Page | Next Page