Money on the Left speaks with Dr. Jens Martignoni, lecturer at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences and chief editor of the International Journal of Community Currency Research (IJCCR). Community or complementary currencies are phenomena of great interest to monetary scholars and activists. We’ve spoken often about them on this show–whether about the Benjamins classroom currency at SUNY Cortland, the DVDs currency at Denison, or our recurring work on the Uni Currency Project. During our conversation with Martignoni, the appeal of such projects becomes clear. Community currencies not only lay bare the false claims of prevailing monetary orthodoxy–and in so doing make powerful teaching tools, as Jakob Feinig has argued. They also permit and even compel us to imagine a world that is otherwise–a world figured first in terms of abundance rather than primarily or exclusively in terms of scarcity. In our dialog, we focus on Martignoni’s provocative essay for the IJCCR, titled “Money is Not a Medium of Exchange.” In doing so, we reflect upon the limits of “exchange” as a framework for understanding money, while simultaneously experimenting with more generative linguistic and conceptual tools to help us re-imagine monetary provisioning.   

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Music by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com