Something to be proud of in my adopted country of Thailand, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.
Excerpts only, the full article has a lot more details.
James Hookway:
“The villagers of Santi Suk began creating their own cash here on the sun-bleached plains of northern Thailand following Asia’s financial crisis a decade ago.
Decorating their money with children’s sketches of water buffaloes and Buddhist temples, the villagers conceived it as a do-it-yourself attempt to protect themselves from the whiplash of vast outflows of speculative money which undermined local currencies and threw Thailand — and much of Asia — into recession in 1997-98.
At the time, some villagers faced questioning before Thailand’s central bank and were accused by local government officials of plotting a secessionist revolt.
Now, with Thailand’s economy slowing sharply, the DIY cash is beginning to flow freely again.
“We need our own money more than ever now,” says Phra Supajarawat, the wiry, orange-robed abbot of the local Buddhist monastery, who doubles as a “governor” of Santi Suk’s tiny, one-room bank. “Things are turning bad in Thailand and people need something they can believe in,” he says.
Pattamawadee Suzuki, an economics professor at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, has studied the phenomenon closely. She says she is unsure whether there really is a significant financial benefit to using local currencies such as that used in Santi Suk. “When times are good, villagers prefer to use Thailand’s national currency,” she says. “But there is a very strong social benefit to using local currencies,” Ms. Pattamawadee adds. “That place, Santi Suk, is more self-reliant than other rural areas of Thailand. They don’t depend on remittances from relatives in Bangkok.”
Many villagers — who use the local notes as a means to barter for everyday goods — corroborate Ms. Pattamawadee’s analysis. A visit to the village’s early morning market reveals a brisk trade in freshly harvested vegetables and a couple of butchers are hard at work selecting cuts from a side of beef. Shoppers haggle and gossip, clutching scrip depicting local rural scenes.
“We’ve learned to depend on our own work,” says Buasorn Saothong, a robust 54-year-old rice farmer, who also dabbles in creating herbal hangover cures. (“Just chew on this paste and five minutes later you’ll throw up and feel much better,” she says.)”
When “the villagers changed the name of their currency to the Thai term for “merit” instead, and circulation began to steadily increase. The government dropped its objections, and Santi Suk-style currencies have since begun to slowly spread across the rest of northeastern Thailand as neighboring villages adopt the idea. Other villages are switching to barter trade for business instead of using Thailand’s national currency, says Ms. Pattamawadee, the economics professor.
Today, interest in Santi Suk’s monetary experiment is picking up again. Visitors from other parts of Thailand and nongovernment organizations are streaming into Santi Suk to see how it works, despite the currency’s murky legal status.
“It was a big coup for us when the local rice mill began accepting it,” says Ms. Buasorn, the hangover expert. “The mill is the focal point of the local economy. It means other people now realize our money is a real alternative.”