The End of Money and the Future of Civilization

Following up on Iaato's question "Where do we start with an Alaskan-local currency?", I did a bit of googling for answers, and posted the following to another forum I'm involved with:

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From LETSLink UK

LETS - Local Exchange Trading Systems or Schemes - are local community-based mutual aid networks in which people exchange all kinds of goods and services with one another, without the need for money.

How do they work? Should my community try to implement something like this? What are the pitfalls?

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I also found these criticisms of LETSystems at wikipedia (my highlights added). They seem like a good guide for things to watch out for, pitfalls to try to avoid?:

LETSystems often have all of the problems confronting any voluntary, not-for-profit, non governmental, community based organisation. LETS organisers often complain of being overworked, and may suffer burnout. Many schemes have ceased operation as a result. Many of these problems can be overcome through effective community organization and development. and effective use of software.

LETSystems, whilst generally appealing to people supporting a general communitarian or environmental ideology, have in many places managed to successfully translate themselves as social welfare initiatives. There are far fewer systems that have managed to communicate and translate themselves into a local business initiative catering to locally owned small to medium businesses. This is generally considered to be an unfortunate weakness of LETSystems to date by the initiators, as they feel that LETS potentially has the capacity to allow small business to compete on a level playing field with larger national and transnational business corporations.

A number of people have problems adjusting to the different ways of operating using a LETSystem. A conventional national currency is generally hard to earn but easy to spend. To date LETSystems are comparatively easy to earn but harder to spend. The success of a LETSystem is therefore determined by the ease with which a person can spend their LETS credits, and improve their quality of life by participation.

I got a number of responses to my request, but only one from someone who is actively involved. He recommended Thomas Greco's The End of Money and the Future of Civilization as a must read. Here are a couple reviews (click link above for more)...

“Thomas Greco dedicates his new book to the causes of social justice, economic equity, personal liberty, world peace, and ecological restoration. He begins by showing that none of these can be achieved until we give birth to a just and sustainable paradigm for exchanging energies. Clearly written, the roots of our current financial predicament are revealed, and the need for something better is lucidly explained. The serious reader will appreciate the author’s long experience with alternative currencies: this book is a concise and efficient way to get up to speed on the history of alternatives to conventional ‘money’ as well as enter the new world of technologically liberated exchange that has the potential to bring about the end of money as we have known it.”--Paul Grignon, creator of the movie Money as Debt

"Greco ... outlines the increasingly familiar story of how things got so bad, and he tells it as well as anyone has ever done.... More than that, Greco writes about how to change what has gone wrong. His credentials as an engineer, college professor, author, and consultant are impeccable. His book is among the most important written in this decade. It is truly a book that can alter the world and, if taken seriously, give large numbers of people a practical way to survive the gathering catastrophe."--Richard C. Cook, author of Challenger Revealed and We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform

“Greco precisely identifies the conflation of interests and confusion of thinking that have given rise to today’s monetary muddles and proceeds to elucidate a viable strategy by which we all, as individuals and in association with one another, can unravel the tangle and build the basis for mutually profitable exchange.”--Arthur Edwards, Director, Centre for Associative Economics

I just ordered the book from Amazon. Anyone else interested in starting a serious discussion?