Here in Ithaca, New York, we've begun to gain control of the social and environmental effects of commerce by issuing over $65,000 of our own local paper money (called HOURS) to over 1,300 participants, including 370 businesses, since 1991. They have made millions of dollars value of trades with HOURS, representing hundreds of job-equivalents at $20,000 each. HOURS are thus real money - local tender rather than legal tender, backed by real people, real labor, skills and tools. Ithaca HOURS come in five denominations: 2 HOURS ($20), 1 HOUR ($10), 1/2 HOUR ($5), 1/4 HOUR ($2.50) and 1/8 HOUR ($1.25).

We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars. Ithaca's HOURS, by contrast, stay in our region to help us hire each other. While dollars make us increasingly dependent on transnational corporations and bankers, HOURS reinforce community trading and expand commerce that is more accountable to our concerns for ecology and social justice.

Here's how it works: the Ithaca HOUR is Ithaca's $10 bill, because ten dollars per hour is the average of wages/salaries in Tompkins County. Most HOURS have been issued as payments to those who agree to be published backers of HOURS, listed in our bimonthly directory HOUR Town.

These HOUR notes buy plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, roofing, nursing, chiropractic, child care, car and bike repair, food, eyeglasses, firewood, gifts, and thousands of other goods and services. Our credit union accepts them for mortgage and loan fees. People pay rent with HOURS. The best restaurants in town take them, as do movie theaters, two large locally-owned grocery stores, our local hospital, many garage sales, 55 farmer's market vendors, the Chamber of Commerce and the Public Library. Hundreds more have earned and spent HOURS who are not in the HOUR Town directory. 

Ithaca's new HOURly minimum wage lifts the lowest paid up without knocking down higher wages. For example, several of Ithaca's organic farmers are paying the highest common farm labor wages in the world: $10 of spending power per HOUR. These farmers benefit by the HOUR's loyalty to local agriculture. On the other hand, dentists, massage therapists and lawyers charging more than the $10 average per hour are permitted to collect several HOURS hourly. But we hear increasingly of professional services provided for our equitable wage.

HOUR Town's 1,500 listings, rivaling the Yellow Pages, are a portrait of our community's capability, bringing into the marketplace time and skills not employed by the conventional market. Residents are proud of income gained by doing work they enjoy. We encounter each other as fellow Ithacans, rather than as winners and losers scrambling for dollars.

The "Success Stories" of 300 participants published so far testify to the acts of generosity and community that our system prompts. We're making a community while making a living. As we do so, we relieve the social desperation that has led to compulsive shopping and wasted resources.

At the same time Ithaca's locally-owned stores, which keep more wealth local, make sales and get spending power they otherwise would not have. And over $6,000 of local currency has been donated to 35 community organizations so far, by the Barter Potluck, our wide-open governing body.

As we discover new ways to provide for each other, we replace dependence on imports. Yet our greater self-reliance, rather than isolating Ithaca, gives us more potential to reach outward with ecological export industry. We can capitalize new businesses with loans of our own cash. HOUR loans are made without interest charges.

We regard Ithaca's HOURS as real money, backed by real people, real time, real skills and tools. Dollars, by contrast, are funny money, backed no longer by gold or silver but by less than nothing - $5.5 trillion of national debt.

The world's largest local currency loan to date has been made by the Ithaca HOUR system. Alternatives Federal Credit Union/CUSO received $30,000 in the form of 3,000 Ithaca HOURS. The HOURS will be spent to pay 5 percent of contract work for building the credit union's new headquarters. The credit union will spend the HOURS for plumbing, carpentry, electric work and a wide range of other services.

We've just received a letter stating that the United Nations has convened a committee to explore promoting HOURS worldwide as a unit of money.

The Ithaca HOURS headquarters were also recently visited by a top official of China's central bank, Wen Tiejun, sent from Beijing by the President of the People's Bank of China (their Alan Greenspan) to talk about adopting HOURS as money in China. Wen Tiejun will report directly to the bank's president, who will deliver the report directly to China's Premier.

According to Wen, China is profoundly concerned that the world economy has become dependent on U.S. dollars, which he says (as we've said) is backed by market speculation (98 percent of daily trade) and military control of foreign oil, rather than by real goods. So China is looking for a new and stable form of money, backed directly by labor, before the dollar bubble breaks.

We have recently started an Ithaca Health Fund: nonprofit, locally-controlled health financing, with HOURS as part of premium payment: http://www.lightlink.com/healthfund.

We intend to open a community economic development center called HOUR Town. We'd look forward to being able to provide major funding to community organizations and new business start-ups. We could fund municipal projects like weatherization and transit. We could purchase land to be retained in farms.

Visit the Ithaca HOURS Web site, www.lightlink.com/hours/ithacahours.

Reprinted with permission from HOUR Town. Paul Glover is the author of several urban histories and many articles on urban planning. He was founder of Citizen Planners of Los Angeles. He has worked in advertising, journalism and barnyards. He holds a degree in City Management, rides his bicycle everywhere and in 1978 walked from Boston to San Diego. He is also the inventor of Ithaca HOURS.