In the 1920s there was huge recession. Unemployment was rife and poverty was the order of the day.

There was no money to pay for anything but in Worgl, a town in Austria someone had a good idea. The local Burgermeister (Mayor) decided to create his own money. The Worgl Schilling was created and people who worked for the local authority were paid for their work in Worgle Schillings. This newly created money circulated quickly and a minor economic miracle started to take place. Unemployment dropped drastically and many civic projects were completed which raised the standard of living locally.

Other Mayors in other parts of Austria took up this new way of dealing with economic problems and things started to look up. However the Austrian National Bank took the Mayors to the Austrian Supreme Court (on the basis that it was a banks job to create money not local Mayors) and the Supreme Court ruled that the banks were right and the experiment was forced to stop.

What do we learn from this?

Hopefully we learn to question the status quo. If there is a problem and someone comes up with a constructive solution that works who would want the solution to be stopped? People with a vested interest in the old way - even though it is not solving the problems but may be adding to them.

What is money?

It seems like a simple enough question and people immediately think about notes and coins. But notes and coins are only a tiny aspect of money. Isn't it crazy that healthy people with access to tools confronted with a practical problem can't solve it because they have no money. You might as well say, "I can't make my bed today because I have no money."

Money has several functions but one of the functions seems to be to limit the amount of work we can do rather than facilitate it.

People across the world find local solutions to the money problem. Did you ever hear of the Polynesian Islanders who use shells for money? Did you think "How quaint!" or even "How silly!"

Did you ever wonder about what a Polynesian Islander may think about our economies that have large workforces which remain idle because they can't find pieces of paper or bits of metal?"