local currency innovation in the Berkshires
Community Issued Currency: A Tool for Relocalizing Economies By Susan Witt Article June 2023 Presented to the Roundtable on Credit Design & Community Development at Harvard Law School’s Money as a Democratic Medium 2.0 Conference, June 15-17, 2023. For over 40 years, the premise of our work at the Schumacher Center has centered on local production for local consumption as the soundest basis to economic development. Locally-owned businesses, embedded in place, build roots and connections that keep them accountable to community and less likely to pick up and leave. The unique culture, landscape, and skill sets of a region are pressed into the products emerging from its small businesses, maintaining and celebrating diversity. Small batch production is less technology-dependent, more labor intensive, providing meaningful livelihoods with less stuff. Travel costs are reduced along with the environmental impact of transporting over long distance. Production met...