"Prosperity is relating, not acquiring." ~ Tom Brown, Jr.

A currency of cooperation is a type of money system that encourages sharing, conservation, and community; not competition, consumption, and anonymity. [1] Such currencies facilitate an economy in which the best business decision is, too, the best ecological decision; in which the creative entrepreneurial energy is aligned with the wholeness of nature and the health of society.

This money, present in the Age of Reunion, will thus become an agent for the development of social, cultural, natural, and spiritual capital, and not their consumption. It will be a mechanism for the sharing of wealth and not its accumulation. It will be a means for the creation of beauty, not its diminishment. It will be a barrier to greed and not an incentive. It will encourage joyful creative work, and not necessitate “jobs”. It will reinforce the cyclical processes of nature, and not violate them. [1]

When wealth is separate from accumulation but refers to a richness of relationships, each person’s wealth makes everyone wealthier. Art, the creation of beauty, will no longer be limited by what we can afford, for money will be art’s ally not its enemy. Business will be the seeking of ways to bestow wealth upon others rather than the stripping of wealth from others. [1]

We, Citizens of One, are Present In The Work to create a currency of cooperation that unlocks One Inc Cooperative and facilitates a Restorative Economy. It started with One Ledger. [2]

Examples

Demurrage-Based Money System; a currency that subjects money to the same laws as natural commodities by bearing a form of negative interest thus compelling its circulation.
Local Exchange Trading System; a mutual credit system in which money is generated by transactions, not by banks or a central issuer, quantifying contributions to the community.
Potlatch; a gift-giving feast and an economic system where status in such a community comes from how much one contributes, not how much one owns.

Reflections

"None of these currencies will ever truly supplant our present system unless our self-definition changes (from the self to the Self), they are nonetheless an agent of change that can help to induce the reconception of self and world. [...] When this happens, work will no longer be bound to the search for money, but will seek out ways to best serve each other and the world, each according to our unique gifts and temperament.” ~ Charles Eisenstein

Contexts

[1] Currency of Cooperation, The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein
[2] Currency of Contribution (letter), by Brian Swichkow of One, Inc.