Spain's crisis spawns alternative economy that doesn't rely on the euro

Time banks and alternative currencies can be used to trade goods as well as services

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/04/spain-euro-free-economy

Ariana Eunjung Cha for The Washington Post

Guardian Weekly

Alternative ... a butcher in Rosenheim, Germany, holds the Cheimgauer currency, created to help bolster the local economy. Photograph: Paul Cooper/Rex Features

Psychologist Angels Corcoles recently taught a seminar about self-empowerment for women, and when she finished the organisers handed her a cheque with her fee. The amount was in hours, not euros.

But Corcoles didn't mind. Through a citywide credit network that allows people to trade services without money, the 10 hours Corcoles earned could be used to pay for a haircut, yoga classes or even carpentry work.

At a time when the future of the euro is in doubt and millions are unemployed, a parallel economy is springing up in parts of Spain, allowing people to live outside the single currency.

In the city of Málaga, on the country's southern Mediterranean coast just 130km from Africa, residents have set up an online site that allows them to earn money and buy products using a virtual currency. The Catalonian fishing town of Vilanova i la Geltrù has launched a similar experiment but with a paper credit card of sorts. It implements a new currency worth slightly more than the euro when it is used at local stores.

In Barcelona, the preferred model is time banks, which allow people to trade their services in hours without the involvement of money at all.

"This is a way for people who are on the fringes of the economy to participate again," said Josefina Altes, co-ordinator of the Spanish Time Bank Network.

Similar projects are popping up in Greece, Portugal and other eurozone countries with troubled economies.

These experiments aim to take communities back to a time when goods and services were bartered, before things such as interest rates, market speculation and derivatives complicated the financial world.

While some local governments have backed these efforts, others have raised questions about their implications for taxes, the effect on local wages and the potential for fraud.

Social money or alternative currency systems have existed throughout history, mostly in places such as remote coal towns or occupied countries during war, or during times of great economic stress.

Many of these efforts took years to set up, and the number of people involved is limited. In Spain, however, the economic crisis has been an impetus to move faster. There are now more than 325 time banks and alternative currency systems in Spain involving tens of thousands of citizens. Collectively, these projects represent one of the largest experiments in social money in modern times.

Peter North, a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool who has written two books about the subject, said alternative currencies – or scrips – have tended to appear during times of crisis and often disappear soon afterwards. But North says the efforts in Spain may last longer because they are connected to the 15M, or indignados, movement, originally a youth initiative organised through internet sites that was the inspiration for the Occupy protests.

"Instead of just being a desperate way for people to survive a horrible economic crisis, this is part of the co-operatives, credit unions, community banks, organic farms and recovering factories – the alternate economy – that the Occupy movement is groping towards," North said.

While each social-money project has its own accounting rules, the basic concept is the same. You earn credits by providing services or selling goods, and you can redeem the credits with people or businesses in the network.

In Vilanova i la Geltrù's central square, a growing number of stores – including an upscale artisanal Catalonian bread shop, a deli and an electronics shop – now post blue Turutas aqui si (Turutas accepted here) signs in their windows.

Started as a way of breaking with the global financial system, the alternative currency – named after a traditional wind instrument – has been embraced by only about 190 of the town's 67,000 residents. But organisers say more are signing up as the crisis deepens.

Ton Dalmau, 57, one of the founders of the initiative, said the goal is to keep the money in circulation, which means that the bank where people keep their Turutas does not offer any interest.

"We are returning money to its origins and making it purely a system of exchange," he said.

Jordi Morera, 25, whose family owns the bread shop, said that accepting Turturas hurts his bottom line because his raw materials can be paid for only in euros. But he said the sacrifice is worth it because he believes in the goals of the initiative.

"Money limits our lives more than we realise," Morera said.

In Málaga, David Chapman, 65, said social money encourages innovation because you have to start thinking about different services or products you can offer to be able to participate in the market.

Chapman, a carpenter originally from Britain who has made Spain his home for 25 years, said he recently sold six sun ovens he made himself for a total of 300 comuns, the community's virtual currency. He was planning on cashing some of them in to pay someone to paint his house.

Launched three years ago by Chapman and some friends, the project has seen dramatic growth. From March to August, the number of people using the virtual currency has jumped from around 250 to 470, with most of the newcomers in their 20s and 30s.

The scale of the Barcelona projects is significantly larger, with more than 100 time banks that range in size from a few dozen members to 3,000.

Many of the time banks operate like real banks – with individual accounts, ledgers, chequebooks and, in many cases, even auditors. Some conduct transactions with physical checks and are overseen by a secretary who keeps track of deposits. Others exist solely on the internet.

Sergi Alonso, a 30-year-old computer technician who has been unable to find a full-time job, said he has helped numerous neighbours develop web pages and troubleshoot hardware problems through a time bank. In return, he was able to get private sewing instruction and piano lessons and learn about graphic design.

Time banks help remind people that "regardless of your skills, you can always bring things to others", Alonso said.

Greeks go back to basics as recession bites

By Chloe Hadjimatheou

BBC News, Evia, Greece

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-19289566

As Greece sinks ever deeper into the most severe economic depression in living memory, some young people are taking drastic action to change their lives.

In the spring of 2010, just as the Greek government was embarking on some of its harshest austerity measures, 29-year-old Apostolos Sianos packed in his well-paid job as a website designer, gave up his Athens apartment and walked away from modern civilisation.

In the foothills of Mount Telaithrion on the Greek island of Evia, Mr Sianos and three other like-minded Athenians set up an eco-community.

The idea was to live in an entirely sustainable way, free from the ties of money and cut off from the national electricity grid.

'Crisis of civilisation'

The group sleeps communally in yurts they have built themselves, they grow their own food and exchange the surplus in the nearest village for any necessities they cannot produce.

 “The Greek financial crisis is not all negative”

--Apostolos Sianos

"What others saw as a global economic crisis, we saw as a crisis of civilisation," Mr Sianos explains.

"Everything seemed to be in crisis - healthcare, the environment, education. So we made the decision to try something different."

Mr Sianos and his eco-activist companions first met in an online forum in 2008 and after two years of exploring ideas decided to put their principles into practice.

"When I first made the decision to give up the city and move to this patch of land I was a little nervous," he admits.

"But now I can't imagine ever being attracted by that kind of lifestyle again."

The community calls itself "Free and Real" - an acronym for Freedom of Resources for

Everyone, Respect, Equality, Awareness and Learning.

Now in its second year, it has 10 permanent members and more than 100 part-time residents who spend some of the year there.

But the last few months have seen an explosion of interest in the community from Greeks who feel let down by the system and find life in the financially crippled cities stifling.

Last year the country's economy shrank by 7% and 2012 could see a similar dip; in real terms that means thousands of businesses going bust and tens of thousands of people being laid off.

A recent survey by Thessaloniki University suggested 76% of Greeks would like to emigrate, but for those who cannot afford to start a new life abroad, going back to farming the land is an increasingly attractive alternative.

Mr Sianos says that this year has seen an enormous movement of people from big cities to the countryside, with many contacting his community to ask for advice on sustainable living and organic farming.

"The Greek financial crisis is not all negative," he says.

"It is providing a huge opportunity for people to see that the system they live in is not working, so they can begin looking for alternatives."

Seasonal jobless

Hundreds of miles away, another group of young Greeks is taking an entirely different approach to the dire circumstances their country finds itself in.

Like most people in Greece's fourth-largest city Heraklion, Andonis Sklavenitis is what he calls an "insecure worker".

Last year he worked a few months helping out on an archaeological dig and this year he has managed to get a few shifts a week as an airport security guard.

Since leaving university with a degree in tourism he has worked in bars, restaurants and shops, but in almost every one of those jobs his employers have refused to give him sick pay, holidays or pay his national insurance contributions.

To make matters worse it is all seasonal work. As soon as the summer is over he will rejoin the growing numbers of unemployed.

Mr Sklavenitis's experience is typical; Crete has the highest jobless rate of any region in the country, with nearly one in four people out of work and many others in unstable positions without decent conditions.

In 2010, when Mr Sklavenitis and his unemployed friends realised that their numbers were growing, they decided it was time they stood up for their rights.

They established the first Association of the Unemployed, which had two main objectives: to fight for decent working conditions and to provide practical and psychological support to those struggling financially.

 “If I didn't have that connection with other people in my position, which reassures me that I am not alone, I would probably have killed myself by now”

--Nikos Vrahasotakis

After the latest round of cuts, unemployment benefit in Greece is now around 350 euros (£273; $431) per month, but only those who have up-to-date national insurance contributions are eligible; and even then it only lasts for one year.

"When the 12 payments are up you are completely on your own," Mr Sklavenitis says.

Among the association's demands are free travel on public transport for the jobless, as well as discounts on electricity and telephone bills.

One member who desperately needs help with his bills is Nikos Vrahasotakis.

The 30-year-old does odd jobs as a cleaner, making around 10 euros daily, barely enough to feed his young family.

"I just got an electricity bill for 600 euros; it is the fourth bill they have sent, so I am expecting them to cut us off any day," he says.

Food and support

Mr Vrahasotakis, who is not entitled to state benefits, lives with his wife and 18-month-old daughter in an old building that used to be a canteen.

"In the winter it is freezing and a few months ago part of the ceiling caved in," he says.

Without the support of the association he says he would not be able to cope.

"If I didn't have that connection with other people in my position, which reassures me that I am not alone, I would probably have killed myself by now," he admits.

As well as the psychological support the association provides, they also distribute food parcels to families in dire circumstances.

Director Nikos Karantinakis, 31, says he and his whole family - father, mother and fiancee - are all unemployed and depend on food handouts to supplement the little they manage to grow in their garden.

"There are arguments every day at home because everyone is so stressed," he says.

It is estimated that around 1,000 people a day are losing their jobs in Greece and already the percentage of the population not working is higher than those who are employed. It is those under the age of 35 who have been the hardest hit.

"Our whole generation is on hold," Mr Karantinakis says.

 “Being able to work is a basic human right in a civilised society”

--Nikos KarantinakisDirector, Heraklion Association of Unemployed

He and his fiancee are unable to plan a future together. Starting a family is completely out of the question.

Since the Association of Unemployed was created in Crete, other chapters have been cropping up around the country, in big cities such as Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras.

Beyond the support it provides its members, Mr Karantinakis says the association has had few successes, but it has allowed him to feel he is doing something.

Before he began focusing on unemployed rights he used to sit in his room staring at the ceiling. Now he spends his days petitioning local government and organising demonstrations.

"Being able to work is a basic human right in a civilised society," he says.

"If the government won't provide us with it then we will have to fight for it."

American Pussy Riot

A call for revolution in the New York Times?

Adbusters , 21 Aug 2012

http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/american-pussy-riot.html

DENIS SINYAKOV/REUTERS

American zealots for the recently convicted Russian punk rock trio Pussy Riot don’t know what they’re actually supporting, says New York Times Russian columnist Vadim Nikitin. If they did, they might think twice – Pussy Riot stands for ideals most American liberals, let alone conservatives, don’t really want. The US has a long history of loving their competitors’ dissidents. And Russia, either communist or oligarchical, has always proven to be the perfect foil.

Here’s what Vadim Nikitin has to say:

From Madonna to Björk, from the elite New Yorker to the populist Daily Mail, the world united in supporting Russia’s irreverent feminist activists Pussy Riot against the blunt cruelty inflicted on them by the state. It may not have stopped Vladimir Putin’s kangaroo court from sentencing them to two years in prison on charges of hooliganism, but blanket international media pressure helped turn the case into a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

Yet there is something about the West’s embrace of the young women’s cause that should make us deeply uneasy, as Pussy Riot’s philosophy, activism and even music quickly took second place to its usefulness in discrediting one of America’s geopolitical foes. Twenty years after the end of the Cold 

War, are dissident intellectuals once again in danger of becoming pawns in the West’s anti-Russian narrative?

Back in the ’70s, the United States and its allies cared little about what Soviet dissidents were actually saying, so long as it was aimed against the Kremlin. No wonder so many Americans who had never read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s books cheered when he dissed the Soviet Union later felt so shocked, offended and even betrayed when he criticized many of the same shortcomings in his adoptive homeland. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be on our side?

Using dissidents to score political points against the Russian regime is as dangerous as adopting a pet tiger: No matter how domesticated they may seem, in the end they are free spirits, liable to maul the hand that feeds them.

[…]

Chilean tax reform incites new wave of student discontent

WEDNESDAY, 05 SEPTEMBER 2012 21:56

WRITTEN BY GWYNNE HOGAN

http://www.santiagotimes.cl/chile/education/25131-chilean-tax-reform-incites-new-wave-of-student-discontent

Wave of student takeovers sweep Santiago after the approval of controversial tax reform.

Hundreds of student protesters occupied various political party headquarters to show their indignation at the passage of a controversial tax reform late Tuesday night.

Frustrated high school students took over the headquarters of the center-left Christian Democratic Party (DC), the far-right Independent Democratic Union Party (UDI), and the liberal Party for Democracy (PPD), while the Socialist Party (PS) headquarters was occupied by university students.

High schoolers also staged a failed attempt to occupy the Communist Party (PC) headquarters. While most headquarters were taken peacefully, Álvaro Pillado, president of the UDI youth league, said protesters stormed the UDI headquarters by force, throwing rocks and smoke grenades.

According to Santiago police, the DC, UDI, and PPD occupations were evicted by Wednesday afternoon, and students voluntarily withdrew from the PS headquarters with no police intervention.

Members of the Socialist Youth explained to the press that the goal of their occupation was to hold their party accountable for its actions which they interpreted as incongruous with the core beliefs of the party. While socialist deputies voted en masse against the bill, all but one socialist senator supported it.

"It has been a peaceful occupation... we want to express our discontent with the actions of our congressmen and from now on the socialist youth will reclaim its space, and dispute that space within the party," Gabriel Ossandón, the group’s spokesperson, explained to press.

The tax reform will allot US$1.23 billion to education spending, mostly by way of an increased business tax. While it aimed to address student pressures for education reform, critics say it falls far short of what the country needs.

Hoping to soften the anticipated backlash from student groups, President Sebastián Piñera had directly addressed them in a televised speech Tuesday after the bill was passed.

"A message for the students: I know you are not responsible for the problems that face our education system today, but I do know that you should be part of the solution," he said.

However, Gabriel Boric, president of the Federation of Students of the Universidad de Chile (FECH), asserted that the students needed a stronger role in “the solution.”

"We do want to be part of the solution. We are not here just to say 'this is bad' and 'I don't like this' but we will not accept the argument by politicians that says 'thanks very much students for bringing this issue to light, now its our job to resolve it,'” Boric told CNN Chile. “We have proposals and we want them heard."

Boric said he would outline said proposals to the Ministry of Education this Thursday.

While happy about the increased budget for education reform, Boric questioned the ways in which those funds will be invested.

"(The funds will) mainly benefit a system of education that produces segregation in our country, and moreover it reinforces the for-profit education system," Boric said. "This reform does not address the needs of our country today … At the end of the day both sides are a little uncomfortable with it.”

By Gwynne Hogan (hogan@santiagotimes.cl)
Copyright 2012 - The Santiago Times

Protesters blockade Mexico's biggest TV station

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/27/us-mexico-election-protest-idUSBRE86Q03Q20120727

(Reuters) - Thousands of protesters on Thursday blockaded the studios of Mexico's most popular TV network, accusing it of biased coverage of the July 1 presidential election.

Shouting "Tell the truth," the demonstrators, including students and union workers, stopped employees entering the offices of the Televisa studios in Mexico City although they allowed others to leave.

The protesters allege that Televisa supported Enrique Pena Nieto, who won the election by almost 7 percentage points over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The protesters promised to continue the blockade for 24 hours.

Televisa, which carried on broadcasting as normal, argues that it covered the election fairly and gave all candidates time on prime-time news shows.

Televisa is the world's most popular Spanish language network and sells its soap operas around the globe.

Lopez Obrador has claimed that Pena Nieto paid Televisa for favorable coverage and bought votes. He has filed a legal challenge to the vote with an electoral tribunal, asking it to annul the ballot.

The tribunal has until September to rule on the accusations and officially declare Pena Nieto as president. It is widely expected to uphold the vote.

(Reporting By Ioan Grillo; Editing by Eric Beech)

Victory for Quebec students

https://educationactivistnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/victory-for-quebec-students/

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012 

Students and their supporters throughout the Canadian province of Quebec are celebrating the ousting of Liberal Premier Jean Charest, the promise of the withdrawal of Bill 78 and most importantly the freeze in tuition fees. This victory comes after six months of student strike involving more than 190 000 students.

Quebec students who already paid the lowest tuition fees across North America were faced with a 75% tuition fee increase. Even if the planned increase had gone ahead, Quebec students still would have pay less than in any other Canadian province. Why? Quebec students have a strong tradition of fighting for free education since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. And if you fight you can win!

During the six month –long strike many the demonstrations held on the 22nd of each month reached up to 500 000 protesters. However, it was the roughly180 local unions organised in CLASSE which carried the fight from day to day shutting down the Port of Montreal, ministerial meetings and nearly all classes in post-secondary education across the province.

In the face of state repression, the use of tear gas, shock grenades, the arrest of thousands of protesters, and riot police in college corridors, students didn’t buckle but instead called upon workers and the neighbourhoods to join in nightly pots and pans protests, the casseroles. Charest’s unpopular Bill 78 acted as a catalyist for the student movement to turn into a popular movement.

But student protesters were not only campaigning against tuition fees. Time again, they argued that Finance Minister Raymond Bachand’s provincial budget of 2011-2012 would cut public and accessible healthcare, hydroelectricity and education.

Over the last nine years in power the Liberals have pursued to restructure society in the interest of the rich. Tax cuts for corporations have gone hand in hand with increasing the retirement age to 67. After trade unions suffered a blow in 2005 it was announced that student fees were to increase. As the ‘sacred cows of Quebecoise society’ came under attack students engaged in a ‘general strike’, causing significant economic damage to the provincial government. This meant that the elections were a referendum on the student movement and dominated by two topics: tuition fees and student debt.

With full privatisation looming, students did not want to see a repeat of their 2005 strike, which saw them go back to class empty-handed. Students have learnt some important lessons. They are organising on a departmental/faculty basis, which has strengthened the overall organisation of the strike. This has also helped them to hold their unions and executives to account.

The high point of the ‘Quebec Spring’ has been the 350,000-strong demonstration in Montreal on May 22. Following the biggest student demonstration ever, students called for a week of economic disruptions, bringing inner cities’ traffic to a standstill while also mobilising 30,000 parents in support of the students’ demands. The two largest public sector unions also called their membership on to the streets for the mobilisation.

The looming summer break did not succeed in breaking the strike either. Instead students continued to carry their message into the streets and to the election rallies.

While the mainstream media continuously claimed that the liberal government had “extended a hand” by offering students an “increased bursary and loan programs”, the government was intent on breaking the movement time again. Premier Jean Charest said: “The decision has been made and we will not back down”. This only strengthened the determination of student strikers, and led them to forge new alliances. Students organised solidarity with locked-out Rio Tinto Alcan workers and with hundreds of Aveos employees who recently lost their jobs.

Protests also saw environmentalists and students come out together. They stormed the top floor of a conference centre in which Charest was to unveil further details of his ‘Plan Nord’, a mining plan which will see a 1.2-million-square kilometre stretch of indigenous land be sold off to big business.

At the same time, other students stormed a meeting of the federal Immigration minister Jason Kenney, best known for his anti-gay and anti-immigration stances.

This display of resistance has inspired activists far beyond the provincial borders of Quebec. The question is whether the newly elected nationalist government will stick to its promises and whether students will continue to be part of the fight for a different kind of society. Another Quebec is possible! Another world is possible!

by Mark Bergfeld