Community Currencies as Integrative Communication Media for Evolutionist Institutional Design

Abstract

The present article shows that community currencies (CCs) are interpreted as integrative communication media with dual aspects of money and language, and that, since money is the most indispensable medium of the modern capitalistic market economy, CCs should be strategic targets for evolutionist institutional design in order to solve current social and economic problems caused by global capitalism. In order to theoretically view the bidirectional effects caused by alteration of money as a platform institution in its evolutionary perspective, we introduce some basic concepts such as replicators and interactors and illustrate the micro-meso-macro loop model by using those concepts. Then we elucidate the significance and possibility of evolutionist institutional design in policy applications of the theoretical ideas put forward. Lastly, we investigate why and how CCs can be strategic platform media in evolutionist institutional design.