The Coin's Third Side: Illiberal Money and the Sociality of a Community Currency

Classic work in the analysis of money has emphasized the role of the state and the market in giving money its value. This article seeks to build on work that has emphasized the coin's “third side,” in which society serves as a source of monetary value. In so doing, the article builds on the concept of illiberal economies by theorizing what is termed illiberal money. It does so through an analysis of the Comox Valley LETSystem, a community currency developed in British Columbia in the mid‐1980s and intended to promote community resilience in the context of global recession and a local depression. Local exchange trading systems (LETS) are networks that create a unit of account distinct from state money to facilitate the exchange of goods and services between community members. This article suggests that, in contrast to liberal markets, where the goal of exchange is the generation of profit measured in money, the goal of LETS is to strengthen the interdependence of community members on one another by creating credit and inviting others to participate in commercial exchange through what is termed expanding the “credit field.”