THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

Mildly supportive
This is the level of support that the New Zealand government and
more than 30 states in the US have been providing to complementary
currencies (in the New Zealand case to LETS type 'green dollar'
systems, in the US to Time Dollar systems). In the UK, the
government of Tony Blair seems to be moving towards this direction
as well.
In both the US and New Zealand the local governments have been
directly instrumental in funding a number of start-up projects in
complementary currency systems. The main justification for doing
this is that for a given amount of social support provided to the enduser,
setting up a complementary currency system costs only a
fraction of the more traditional support to unemployed people.
Complementary currency systems provide a mechanism for people to
help themselves on a permanent basis, at no permanent cost to the
taxpayers.
In New Zealand, Australia and several states in America,
governmental entities pay full-time administrators and promoters of
Time Dollar systems. In Britain, some local governments have been
doing the same thing. Their salaries have been justified because
complementary currencies - respectively 'green dollars' and Time
Dollars - have proved to be an effective complement to social
programmes which were failing without them. It has been proved
time and again, for instance, that crime cannot be reduced just by
adding more police, or that failing education cannot be remedied by
throwing money at the problem. Nothing can replace a community
where people watch out for each other, or where older children
mentor younger ones. And complementary currencies have been able
to build community and other social capital in a way that national
currency simply fails to do.