They have been described as the New Alchemists - people who take something worthless and turn it into something of great value.

Is this magic? Is it a scam? No, it is a reasonably straightforward process involving people and releasing their potential. The basic concept behind it is one of 'social capital' - identifying all those people who are unemployed or underemployed, and deciding what work needs to be done. These two are brought together.

Money tends to be the sticking point. There's never enough, yet there is many times more money in the world than there are things to buy with it. So new alchemists invent their own. Why not? It's not illegal - despite what people might think - so long as they don't try and pass it off as sterling, dollars or other legal currency.

In Ithaca, New York State, Paul Glover invented the Ithaca Hour, a printed note worth one hour of anyone's time, or $10 if you wanted to buy non-Ithaca commodities such as clothes, bicycles or jumbo jets. People started to accept them, and the local farmers exchanged them for food and paid their casual labour partly with 'hours'. This took off, and now hundreds of people in the area use 'hours' to get extra work done, buy extra food, or whatever they need.

In the UK, entities called LETS¹ have existed since the 1980s. A LETS is a club where the members agree to accept points instead of money from one another. One person keeps a record of all the accounts and all the members receive a list of the other members and their skills. Everyone also receives a 'cheque book' with which to pay for goods and services. Some schemes link their points to the pound (1 point = £1) while others link the value of the point to time (5 points = 1 hour's labour), or even make the best of both worlds saying 1 point is £1 and having a standard rate of 5 or 6 points per hour.

In this way it is possible to optimise the performance of the labour market. The rules say that members can go overdrawn, so you can start spending straight away. The commitment you must sign up to is that you will balance your account from time to time, and the only way of doing that is to do something for one of the other members.

LETS are doing particularly well in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and now several European countries, with the UK taking the lead. Hungary is about to launch their first LETS with help from the British Council and UK LETS advisors.

Other similar schemes include the 'time dollar' in the USA, which was invented by Edgar Cahn. This is a system which provides caring support for disabled and marginalised people without spending huge amounts of money. It has developed in a variety of ways, even to the point of young people being able to earn capital items such as computers for activities such as helping younger students, or turning up for a course which was normally skipped.

Once money is in the hands of the people they do with it what needs to be done.