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Press Articles Archive - 20032 June 2003 The Raam development currency BBC World Service Radio Global broadcast of the magazine programme "Outlook" on all frequencies and networks, including the Internet.
Welcome to Outlook, where we are about to find out that it's not just national banks that can print their own currencies. Frederick Dove reports. … Two years ago, from his base in The Netherlands, he launched an international affiliation of people who believe practising Transcendental Meditation can provide answers to many problems. The affiliation is called the Global Country of World Peace, and last autumn it launched its own currency called the Raam. Here's the Maharishi explaining how it works: [Maharishi:] "The Central Bank of the Global Country of World Peace has a policy that the Raam will help the development programmes of every country, and will not allow any country to feel the lack of financing for their development programmes. The second characteristic quality is that it is catalytic in character. That means, it causes the local currency to become more effective." So, what exactly is the Raam? Well in currency terms, it has a fixed rate of one Raam to ten US dollars. In the Netherlands, Raam bank notes have even been issued in a pilot project. The Global Country's finance minister Benjamin Feldman, explained what they look like: [Benjamin Feldman] "They come in one, five and ten Raam denominations. They have the image of King Raam, a king from the ancient tradition of India in whose time it is said there was no poverty. So, his image is used to represent this affluence that comes through the use of the Raam." If the Dutch pilot project succeeds, how will people in developing countries be able to use the Raam? "The Raam will be exchangeable in developing countries only after the production. In their case, they will use the Raam against the future earnings of the project itself. " So, having spent their Raams on their provisions while working on their projects, people can then cash their Raams in for other currencies after selling their products. "Exactly." And, if a project doesn't make money, what happens then? "That's a beautiful point, because – that's why it's important to remark that the Raam is a global development currency, because - what that does, is that you are having the project in different parts of the world, different weathers, different circumstances, and even if one project fails, all the projects will never fail all the time." The Global Country's finance minister Benjamin Feldman. ---------------------------------- So, can something like the Raam really work? Joining us now is Mary Fee, who works for an organisation called "LETS-Link" here in London. LETS stands for Local Exchange Trading Systems. And also with us is Geoff Powell, who has experience of setting up an alternative currency in Thailand. Now Geoff, let me start with you: Now, these alternative currencies – it sounds unusual, but can they work? [Geoff Powell] "Indeed they can, the evidence suggests that they can work in different areas, different countries, with different kinds of communities, in the North, in the South, urban and rural." So, give us some examples of other experiments or indeed successful projects. "I can let Mary talk about what’s going on in the UK and in Europe. In the global South, they have been very successful in Latin America, particularly in Argentina, very rapid spread of these kind of alternative currencies." At the moment because of economic crisis… "Yes, in fact, their greatest growth was during the crisis, when people had no other choice. They didn't have access to pesos or dollars, and so they relied on something that they could survive with……………………. [discussion continues with further examples and analysis] [later in the discussion] So, I mean, we heard earlier from the Maharishi there, saying this is a good idea for the developing world. Do you agree Geoff, that this is something that should be tried more often? [Geoff Powell] "I think it's something that could be tried in any community where they either feel that there's a need to strengthen the links between members of that community, or they feel that the resources that they have coming into the community are leaking out in a way that puts them at a disadvantage in terms of their engagement with the larger economy." [discussion continues, on other aspects of the subject].
Copyright BBC World Service 2003 Reproduced with kind permission of the BBC World Service END
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