Local Exchange and Trading Systems (LETS) in Australia: a new tool for community development?

Abstract

A LETS can be described as a non-profit community based trading network that operates by way of a locally created currency, i.e. a locally recognised measure of exchange value as distinct from national currency. LETS’ emergence in the 1980’s, and rapid growth throughout English speaking countries in the 1990’s (Williams 1995), arguably stems from experienced scarcity of money in local communities. According to Jackson (1994), it is primarily a product of developed nations ‘where money has assumed dominance as the medium for exchange’. Considered in the context of contemporary economic developments, LETS also invites regard as localised responses to the globalisation of capital. It was with an eye to the latter, that I undertook this exploration of eight LETS groups in Victoria, Australia.