Academic

This looks like an idea destined for a free-thinking town near you: local currency. Marketplace ran a story about the Lewes Pound, which is just the latest in a number of local currency launches. Check out BerkShares, Salt Spring Island Dollars, and the Totnes Pound, among others.

Why local currency?  The Community Currency Guide explains the aspiration:

Community Currency allows localities and regions to create real wealth in their local economy by matching the unmet needs with the underutilized resources. It also provides a way for the wealth that is produced locally to benefit local people, rather than being siphoned off to distant companies.

Does it work? Any readers from Ithaca?

UPDATE: If this topic interests you, check out John Chung's new and mind-expanding article on SSRN entitled "Money as Simulacrum." That title may send you running for the exits, but take a closer look. This is an ambitious paper exploring the role of money in modern society. Here is the motivating idea, but you'll have to read the paper to see the implications Chung draws from it:

Our money is now pure simulacra, pieces of paper completely decoupled from any tangible backing. The only reason our money functions as money is because the law requires us to treat it as such by fiat, and because the result is that we believe that the money has use and value. Our money is therefore a pure abstraction supported only by two other astractions, law and faith. (p. 71)