Niko Georgiades

Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure of alternative societies. In the last of our specials on community currencies and alternative economies, we showcase FairCoop, a self-organized and self-managed global cooperative created through the internet outside the domain of the nation-state.

In the second of our three part series on alternative economies and community currencies, we spotlight Kenya’s Sarafu-Credit. Community currencies are types of complimentary currencies shared within a community that are utilized as a means of countering inequality, class, debt, accumulation, and exclusion.

While capitalism and consumerism dominate the culture of the United States of America and the Western world, community currencies are creating a buzz elsewhere. The radical need for alternative economies and community currencies is becoming more commonplace among societies across the globalized world dealing with the crisis of mass poverty and inequality. In part one of our three part series shining a light on some of these alternatives, we look at the Athens Integral Cooperative.