When we walk into a department store to get something, we don't know where it was made or where the materials are from. You can't dick around on the price, and then you go home. Clerks in the store feel disconnected, and we feel neglected. It's just a bad system. Bartlett is part of a group of San Franciscans that is planning to introduce a local currency in our city by fall.
Community needs to be built on economic transactions and economic interdependence.
And it gives you an excuse to know your neighbors. The next big step is for local businesses to sign on, and a number of Berkeley restaurants have already come knocking. Though it might seem a tall order to convince wary shopkeepers of the value of a new currency, precedents have demonstrated that local currencies and local business get along famously. It's difficult to talk to local-currency activists without seeing their eyes glaze over when they speak in reverent tones of the Ithaca project. Residents can use the local currency to get into movie theaters, to exercise at health clubs, to get produce at the farmers market, to eat at dozens of restaurants.