Script and Voucher Systems Alternative to Cashless Society

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

NOTE: I have reposted this thread at ATS from one I posted in Hernando's Hideaway back in 2016 and wanted it here as well.

Although you aren't legally allowed to create a private currency, script and voucher systems can be used as an alternative to out right bartering. Coupons, tokens, vouchers and scripts are legal if they don't look like the official currency or are minted coin from metals. They have been and still are being used like cash in certain communities and there are problems with getting people to use them, but if the government eliminates physical currency, you could go this route on a local or regional basis.

I can see a Bartertown scenario (open air or flea market) where this could work. Exchange goods with intrinsic value for scripts, like say metals, then use the scripts for purchases within the open air market. Any scripts not used could be exchanged for the goods that back the scripts in circulation. Items that have a limited shelf life are normally not used as an exchange commodity. I could see using minted coins, like pre-1981 copper pennies or current nickles, as an exchange commodity. esp. if the government decides to eliminate the penny like they want to eliminate the larger denominations ($100 and $50 bills).

Script


Voucher

Scripts are often used for fundraising activities and many companies offer company scripts, like Disney Dollars and the old timey Green Stamps. There is plenty of historical examples of script and vouchers being used.

There are other private "currencies" like bitcoin, of course that is a cashless deal.

It would be somewhat complex to fix a value to whatever you call your script or vouchers. I suppose that would depend on what was accepted in trade for said vouchers. Services can be exchanged in this way as well, but I imagine that services or commodities that are in the highest demand will be equal to higher value vouchers. If there is a worldwide economic collapse, then runaway inflation would make comparisons to legal tender currencies and metals difficult.

Then there is counterfeiting scripts and vouchers. Perhaps a method of keeping track of serial numbers in addition to watermarks on specially produced paper could do the trick.

It would be complex to do, but it would be like having cash in hand in a local economy. No worrying about runaway inflation, government tracking purchases, getting the Cyprus haircut, or negative interest rates.


Overall, I believe this would be a hard one to pull off with other markets doing business with other forms of exchange. Also, it is always a possibility that if scripts and vouchers become popular, then they will be made illegal even though it's legal at the moment.

[VioletDove]

Thanks for bringing this here.

I like the idea and have thought something similar to this before, but as you said it would be complex. It may work in smaller communities but I think it would be hard to get started and it really wouldn’t take long before it has to be abandoned for some reason or the other.

I used to think the government forces us into a cashless society it would go back to the simpler days where trade and barter could be a real thing. Maybe even pre 64 quarters and dimes could be used. The problem is, now they are too much in everything and too many people would be ready to rat you out if you don’t play by their rules.

Still, it’s something to think about as there may be some situations where it could actually work.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

One valid point is that many types of exchanges are ultimately based on some form of legal tender currency. Foreign money many be good for awhile, look at how many countries fall back to U.S. currency when their money inflates off the charts. However, if our currency takes a dive or gets cancelled, a lot of countries are going down with it.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I think of metals like this. Who would have a need for them and what would you want in exchange for them? I used to collect old silver coins along with gold and silver jewelry and back in the late 90's I cashed it all in for better than the market value because I went with fair dealers at the time. The coin guy was big on having silver for an eventual collapse of the dollar (I bet he's still sitting on a pile). I used the money quickly and so it retained it's value for paying bills or what have you

Now, the big problem with using metals like gold and silver during a SHTF situation is that they will be taken at the same inflated black market rate as any other currency. Metals other than perhaps copper, brass and lead, will be best stashed away until a stable currency takes hold, if it ever does and it's not some digital currency. Otherwise the government will confiscate gold and silver like they have in the past, even basic commodities that are considered "hoarding".

Basically, I don't think that PMs are the answer and that they might even take your case of toilet paper and baby wipes because your are hoarding, just don't expect them to distribute it to anyone who really needs it.

[Ninurta]

An intriguing thought. The economy around here for decades was operated on tokens and scrips. The coal mines paid their workers not in money, but in scrip which was redeemable only at the Company Store, then the coal companies imported life's necessities for purchase by the miners for that scrip (and of course got to set it's own prices, in scrip, for those commodities), so it was a "closed system" that worked fairly well. No need to negotiate external exchange rates when no external exchange is going on.

The military, too, used to be paid in scrip, called "MPC" which stood for "Military Pay Certificates", which could be exchanged by vendors with the military for "real" money.

In both cases, the systems were regulated by a higher authority - the company or the military - and those entities dealt with external exchange rates and the like, so that the common user didn't have to worry about it. They also controlled production and distribution of scrips so that common uses didn't have to worry about things like inflation in scrip value or counterfeiting. Those were the headaches of the "higher authorities" to contend with.

I think it's do-able, and would make a good adjunct to straight barter systems.

Governments would certainly make scrips unlawful if they got beyond certain parameters that might endanger use of their own counterfeit "currency", like CBDCs, but it would be a lot harder to control, I think, than the CBDCs, which is no doubt why they are going after CBDCs.

I'll be forced into the CBDC system eventually, as Social Security is not that far away for me. Before now, whenever I got government payments of any kind, I always took them off the card they were deposited to straightaway, and converted them to cash that could be stashed and not tracked. I'm not sure how I'll be able to do that going forward, but rest assured I will find a way. Burying a bank card in a mason jar in the woods, a card with nothing on it but imaginary "currency" like CBDCs anyhow, just doesn't have the same panache as burying mason jars full of metal coins in the woods, now does it?

As an aside, my first wife's grand dad buried mason jars full of golds coins somewhere on his farm, or around his farm as is more likely, in the 1940's and 1950's. He did that to hedge his bets, having lived through the Great Depression and seeing just how "stable" banks could be... and finding that stability lacking in the extreme. He eventually died of course, as we all do, without disclosing the location of the burials. To this day, none of those coins has yet been found, despite the fact that they were worth, at the time, about 30K dollars, and I have no idea what their inflated value would be now - certainly somewhere north of 300K dollars.

Those of us acquainted with folks who weathered the Great Depression have a healthy distrust of banks in general, which is why I NEVER allow a bank to hang on to MY money. If I keep it close to hand and tangible, instead of in imaginary numbers in a bank, I never have to worry about bank collapses or bank runs. It's already here, waiting to be used, not somewhere out there in the aether waiting to be stolen or vanished in a bank collapse. I won't have to stand in line in any bank runs, wondering if any cash will be left when it's my turn to cash in. Protip - it wouldn't be there, anyhow. Banks just don't keep much cash on hand. I once had to go to 3 different Bank of America locations before I found one with enough cash to cash out a measly 12,000 dollar check. Big bank like that, and no one had enough cash on hand to cash a little check like that. Lesson learned.




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