Complementary currencies work in addition to existing money, rather than replacing existing, official money. There are whole different families of complementary currencies. One of them is local currencies. One is regional currencies. Another is functional currencies. Another is social-purpose currencies.
Bernard LietaerConventional money is supposed to be doing everything. By adding in complementary currencies, you actually get different types of things and different outcomes from different complementary currencies.
Bernard LietaerMoney is created through bank debt. When you go for a mortgage through a bank, they give you $100,000 to buy a house and basically send you out into the world to bring back $200,000 in the next twenty years. The first $100,000 is principal, and the second is interest.
Bernard LietaerLook at any financial institution, at any bank. They're all photocopies of each other. There's no diversity of institutions and even less diversity of currency. Therefore, just as you say its very logical that an ecosystem like this will collapse, it's very predictable a monetary system like this will collapse, too. And it hasn't finished collapsing, by the way.
Bernard Lietaer