Social Money: Lever of the Economic Paradigm

During the last two decades, a variety of experiences related to complementary currencies have been developed in different social and cultural contexts, in which the shortage or absence of money is met with creativity through distinct instruments of exchange. These initiatives run from neo-liberal projects to projects with an ideological mark of resistance to neo-liberal globalization. The SOCIAL MONEY workshop specifically addresses the study of those initiatives based on paramonetary instruments, which can be submitted to social control, and that demonstrate the possibilities of "another economy", initially complementary to formal economy but later capable of reinforcing the solidarity economy. This could contribute to the creation of a new model of social organization capable of reverting the capitalist model of accumulation. A change in the monetary system -upwardly mobile, since the international financial institutions do not seem much interested to operate in this direction- could bring us to face new possibilities to build up a world in which responsibility, plurality and solidarity are the main values.