Director,
T.E.(Terry)
Manning,
Schoener 50,
1771 ED Wieringerwerf,
The Netherlands.
Tel:
0031-227-604128
Homepage:
http://www.flowman.nl
E-mail: (nameatendofline)@xs4all.nl : bakensverzet
Incorporating
innovative social, financial, economic, local administrative and productive
structures, numerous renewable energy applications, with an important role for
women in poverty alleviation in rural and poor urban environments.
"Money is not
the key that opens the gates of the market but the bolt that bars them"
Gesell, Silvio The
Natural Economic Order
Revised English
edition, Peter Owen, London 1958, page 228
Edition 13: 10
December,2006
The
basic principles behind the project are:
a)The enhancement of self-sufficiency within the
framework of cooperative, interest-free, inflation-free local economies.
b)Existing social traditions will not suffer.
c)Local expertise, labour and materials will be used.
d)Women will play an active role in the project.
e)The people in the project area are able and willing
to take full responsibility for all structures, goods and services provided
under the project and for its administration.
f)The users contribute financially to capital
repayments, cover on-going costs and accept the powers of the elected tank- and
well commissions.
g)The project is self-funding. Savings on traditional
fuel costs for cooking and services will cover most of the project costs.
h)The supply of traditional natural fertiliser for
agricultural purposes will not be compromised.
i)Each individual user will be enabled to meet his
financial commitments to the project.
Household difficulties in meeting monthly
formal money quotas can be cushioned either from the monthly allowances
received by the tank commissions, by social support at tank-commission,
well-commission or project level. Local money obligations will be cushioned by
creating a simple LETS system safety net. Members temporarily in difficulty
will be allowed to run up a larger than usual debit balance. Their debits are
covered by social support (families, friends, other groups) at tank-commission,
well-commission or project level
j)'Small is beautiful'.
Small decentralised systems are preferred wherever possible. This promotes
close contact of the people in the project area with the structures set up and
their operation.
k) Local LETS currencies will complement the
lack of formal money in the project area that would otherwise be needed to
expand the quantity of local goods and services
transferred there. Economic development within the LETS systems will
also stimulate growth in the formal economy which will increase its formal tax
base.
l)The (grant, seed loan) capital will be
systematically recycled to users as interest-free micro-credits as it is
repaid. The micro-credits will allow goods and services for productivity
increase that cannot be locally produced to be bought with formal currency
outside the project area.
m)Leakage of formal currency out of the project
area will be reduced and if possible eliminated altogether. Seed capital will
be retained in the local area at least for
10 years, after which, if it is in the form of an interest-free loan, it
will be repaid.
n) 25 Progressive graduated
steps to local development
Dan Chiras and Dave Wann of Evergreen, Colorado
(USA) have devised a list of 25 steps to help to create sustainable
neighbourhoods in developed countries.
They are cited from the periodical The Last Straw, Issue 35, Fall 2001,
p. 11. Some, but not all, of the
initiatives are built into this project. Others could typically be taken under
the local money systems set up to strengthen community ties.
o) Articles 119-126 of
the 1999 Constitution of Venezuela, on the rights of indigienous peoples.
Forward: five
basic conditions.
Back: economic
bases of the Model.
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