Glossary for
THE ECOLOGY OF MONEY

Citizens' Income: an income which it is proposed should be paid by the state to all citizens as a right, regardless of how much of how little they earned. It would replace income tax relief and social welfare payments.

Demurrage: a fee charged for the use of a currency for a period of time. The fee is intended to encourage users to spend the money quickly, rather than hoarding it.

DTQs: Domestic Tradable Quotas: a rationing device proposed by Dr. David Fleming to control emissions of CO2. Both DTQ units and money would be needed to buy coal, petrol, electricity and other types of energy. Each person would be allocated the same amount of DTQ units every month and, if they did not need them all, they would be able to sell the surplus to those who needed more. .

ebcus: Energy-Backed Currency Units. These would play the same role in the proposed international currency system that gold played in the days of the gold standard (q.v.). Their value in terms of SERs (q.v.) would be guaranteed by an international organisation.

Fractional reserve banking: banking based on the practice of keeping reserves of cash worth only a fraction of the amount which customers would be entitled to withdraw if they chose to do so.

Gold standard: the currency system under which the value of each national currency was related to a certain weight of gold, and thus to other national currencies.

Gold exchange standard: a variant on the gold standard under which the US dollar was exchangeable for a fixed amount of gold, and all other participating currencies were exchangeable for US dollars.

LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) the acronym invented by Michael Linton for the local currency system he developed.

Scrip: privately printed paper money.

SERs: Special Emission Rights, the right to emit a specified amount of greenhouse gases and hence to burn fossil fuel.

Social Credit: a body of ideas developed by C.H. Douglas between 1918 and 1922 which would, among other things, bring money creation under social control.

Stamped scrip: scrip (q.v.) to which a stamp had to be stuck at prescribed intervals to maintain its validity. The organisers of the currency collected a fee for supplying the stamps both to cover their operating costs and as a form of demurrage (q.v.).

Time Dollars: a system of credits for the time that people spend caring for others. All carers receive one credit per hour, no matter what they do, and either spend their credits on care for themselves or give them to friends and relatives to use. Dozens of communities use Time Dollars in the US, and the system has now spread to the UK and Japan.