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I’ve been to Southern Germany quite a few times over the last couple of years. I’ve travelled to the big places like Munich and to smaller villages hidden away in the countryside. I’ve noticed the obvious things like the wealth, the organisation and the industriousness, but I have never seen it as a hotbed of social innovation. So I was surprised to read about the success of the ‘Chiemgauer‘, Bavaria’s alternative currency. How have the seemingly uber-conservative Bavarians managed to make their currency take off while the more outwardly progressive transition town folk of Brixton have seen their alternative pound stay stuck to the ground?
There are some practical reasons for the Chiemgauer’s success like its location in smaller, more clearly de-marked towns and the relative strength of the region’s town centre artisanal markets versus our chain dominated high streets and out of town hypermarkets.
But it also feels like there is something deeper going on here. The philosophies behind the approaches in Bavaria and Brixton feel markedly different. The Bavarians used innovative structures (the Chiemgauer depreciates if you don’t spend it) and existing systems (you can get a Chiemgauer debit card) to get the currency up and running fast. Put simply the Bavarians behind the Chiemgauer are hacking their currency systems rather than trying to go around them.
The lessons from Bavaria are important. We need to speed up change and we need to root our approaches as much in efficacy as in ideology. The end justifies the means.
Vorsprung durch hacking!
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