More purchasing power
In many cases one of the main reasons development is blocked is related to a lack of purchasing power and/or the fact that purchasing power that is actually available leaves the local community’s circulation long before it has provoked the optimization of all productive capacities.
Communities as well as countries are engaged in a rat race to attract money through exports, fighting their competitors on price, quality, quantity and delivery. As the world market becomes more connected and world resources limited, it is obvious that all the players exist in a zero sum game. As one country benefits in the short term by being a net exporter, another country looses by seeing its money supply flee and internal circulation drop. Eventually this depressed market affects the exporter as well. We are all unavoidably connected.
These imbalances in trade could be dealt with by introducing a stable international financial system such as was proposed by Keynes and Schumacher in their ICU/Bancor proposals. However an international agreement seems a long way off, so bottom up initiatives can be used to solve the worst problems. Social TRade projects support the availability of purchasing power in communities in two ways. Specific software has been created that can be used:
- for creating new forms of money and credit; and
- to capture purchasing power within a set of rules that provides incentives to get more circulation and in which withdrawing it meets disadvantages, such as a fee, called a Malus, that has to be paid.
This last option provides an opportunity for governments with limited resources to fight an economic crisis.