New Money for a New World

by Bernard Lietaer

  Subak: for water irrigation cooperatives for rice production;

  Pemaksan: for the coordination of religious rituals;

  Banjar: the most important civic organization, which orders the social aspects of the community.

  These organizations form an integrated structural fabric that strengthens each community and the culture as a whole.

  The Banjar is the principal civic organization in Bali. It operates in a decentralized, hyper-democratic, and cooperative manner at a grassroots level. Written references to the Banjar date back to 914 CE (a century prior to the advent of the Central Middle Ages).459 This system’s longevity is in no small measure related to its adaptability. Anthropologist and local resident Fred B. Eiseman explains, “Even today, among families who have spent several generations in an urban setting away from the rice fields, the Banjar still plays an important role.”460

  The number of Banjars in an area varies from only one in a small village to several in larger towns. Each Banjar has its own rulebook, the Awig-awig, all of which are based on the same general democratic principles. The Banjar leader, the Klian Banjar, is elected by a majority vote of members and can be dismissed at any time, though this is rarely done. He or she receives no remuneration for this function. Anthropologists Clifford and Hildred Geertz describe the leader as “More an agent than a ruler.”461

  Each family has one representative in the krama, the Banjar council, where every member is considered equal and has one vote. No special status is granted to wealthier or higher caste members. At monthly meetings, new activities are proposed and ongoing projects are discussed. The contributions of time and money for each project are then decided upon, customarily by a majority vote. In short, the Banjar functions as a community-based planning and implementation unit, which budgets all its activities.

  Balinese leaders credit the Banjar—a system of mutual cooperation—for the resilience of Balinese culture. Two Klian Banjars describe the benefits this way: “Banjar is what holds the community, each other, together.”462 “Banjar is the most fundamental organization that keeps the Balinese character intact.”463

  But what holds the Banjar together?

  A Complementary Currency System

  A key to the Banjar is their dual-currency system.464 The rupiah is the conventional national Indonesian currency. The Nayahan Banjar, or “work for the common good of the Banjar,” is a time-services currency whose unit of account is a block of time equal to about three hours of work. The availability of both currencies provides unusual flexibility in mobilizing local resources.

  On average, a Banjar starts between seven and ten different projects every month, big and small. The expected contributions of each family unit, in rupiah and in Nayahan, are estimated for a project. In poorer Banjars, the rupiah monetary constraint is typically more binding, while in richer ones, the Nayahan time commitment tends to be more challenging. In all cases, a mixture of rupiah and Nayahan currencies is used, although the proportional mix varies widely by project and by Banjar.465

  Community members consider the Nayahan Banjar money more critical than rupiah for keeping cooperation strong. The importance of the time commitment to these projects is reflected by the main penalty meted out. It is not a rupiah fine, but ostracism, the exclusion from the Banjar of someone who refuses three times in a row to respect community decisions. Such bans can be devastating, as Clifford and Hildred Geertz report: “The Balinese still say today that to leave the krama [Banjar council] is to lie down and die.”466 A Klian Banjar explains the impact of such isolation: “When they [ostracized Banjar members] have an important family ceremony, like a cremation, marriages, or coming-of-age rituals, then nobody will give time for helping them in the preparations.” The rituals are sacrosanct and each requires a communal effort. Depriving someone of time from the community is thus considered the ultimate retribution.

  It should be noted that use of the national rupiah, by both the Banjar and the Balinese people, only dates back to Indonesian independence in the 1940s. Up until that time, the offical conventional currency was the Dutch Guilder. While the Nayahan Banjar has been in use since before written records as a time-backed currency for public works, the principal medium of monetary exchange used by the Banjar was an odd-looking coin, noted for a traditional square hole in its middle, called the Uang Kepeng, or “Coin Money.”467 This currency was outlawed in the 1950s and finally went out of circulation in the 1970s. Research by international currency expert, Stephen DeMeulenaere, has brought our attention to this currency (see insert).

  The Balinese Uang Kepeng

  The Uang Kepeng has a long history. Its use in Bali can be officially traced back to the formation of decentralized local governance in 914 CE, though its introduction to Bali is likely to have occurred centuries earlier.468 It is, however, from the time that the Uang Kepeng became the official medium of exchange of the Banjar and could be taxed, spent on public works projects, and circulated as a fully-functioning currency, that its significance to Balinese society was formalized, according to DeMeulenaere.469

  This coin money was minted in China and used as trading tokens, much in the same manner that trading beads were used in North America with indigenous peoples.470 Chinese seafaring merchants traded these tokens and other goods, such as ceramic objects, to obtain local Balinese spices.

  Though the Balinese came into contact with, and were in fact governed by, other cultures periodically during their long history, the only currency they formed a particular attachment to were these odd-looking coins. Dutch anthropologist De Kat Angelino noted back in 1921 that the Balinese preferred Uang Kepeng as a medium of exchange to Dutch, British, and Mexican money, which they instead often melted to make into silver jewelry.471

  It was only after the introduction of the Indonesian rupiah in the 1940s that the use of the Uang Kepeng subsided, although its use as a ceremonial currency and for fines in some Banjars continues to this day.

  The Uang Kepeng are closely connected to the Balinese economics and mathematics. The Balinese calculation system, similar to that of the abacus, was developed using these coins. Miguel Covarrubias noted in the 1930s, “The Balinese do not count in the present Dutch monetary system of guilders and cents…the ringgit, big silver coins (worth two and a half guilders) are normally divided [instead] into 1,200 Kepeng.”472

  The Uang Kepeng were typically strung together and carried in bundles of twenty-five coins each. The Balinese word for 25 is selae, derived from se (one). The word ikat means to tie something together in a bundle. The word for fifty is sekat, i.e. two bundles of selae that have been tied together. The word for seventy-five, telung, means three bundles of selae that have been tied together, and so on. When someone is broke, they say “Sing Ada Pis,” referring to the other name for the Uang Kepeng, Pis Bolong or “Pierced Piece.”

  The Uang Kepeng and Current Change

  It was only when new national banking and currency laws were put into effect after Indonesia gained its independence, that the Balinese were forced to accept the Indonesian rupiah in replacement of the Guilder and the Uang Kepeng. According to many unofficial accounts however, the Uang Kepeng continued to be used by the local Banjars as a medium of exchange up until the early 1970s.

  It should be understood that the Uang Kepeng was the more popular form of currency. This complementary currency and the rupiah were functionally different types of money. The replacement of the local currency by the official legal tender was not a trivial matter; it changed the dynamics of the Balinese monetary system. Though both currencies were interest-bearing, the interest was applied in very different ways. With rupiah, like with all modern national currencies, interest is automatically assigned and exacted. But in the case of the Uang Kepeng, the interest feature was less formal, more flexible, and did not tend to accumulate over time. The interest might be paid back in Uang Kepeng or in goods or services, such as assisting in a harvest or a religious ceremony. Additionally, there was no formal control
over the supply of this money. In fact, Uang Kepeng were readily available.

  According to DeMeulenaere,

  We might think that it would not be possible to manage a currency without being able to control its supply, and that only a scarce currency is a strong currency, and by extension, that a currency lacking scarcity would be weak. The Balinese, however, and other traditional societies that used an abundant currency as a medium of exchange, developed unique means of keeping the circulating supply low enough in order to maintain its value: they spent it on ceremonies or artistic displays of their savings. In Bali, those with too much Uang Kepeng had statues of a goddess made out of the coins, which were displayed prominently in their homes. The coins were also used in large quantities during the ritual blessing of a new house, or for cremations and other religious and cultural ceremonies. In these ways, demand for the currency and its value was maintained over the centuries.

  As a readily available local means of exchange, Uang Kepeng encouraged the circulation of locally-produced goods and services, supporting the agricultural economy, the local marketplace, and the women who managed it all. Until the 1950s, Uang Kepeng protected the Balinese agricultural economy and society from penetration and destruction by foreign money, trade and tourism, market and currency fluctuations, or other adverse situations. Up until that time, the introduction of foreign money did not affect the local economy or the behavior of the people, who could choose to participate in both economies and not be forced to choose between the traditional economy of Uang Kepeng and the new economy of Indonesian rupiah.

  The decline of Uang Kepeng as a medium of exchange corresponds with a shift in economic behavior towards earning the Indonesian rupiah. Although many significant elements of traditional life remain vibrant in Bali, the monetary protection blanket they once had with Uang Kepeng has been stripped away, leaving the Balinese people and society increasingly vulnerable to situations beyond their control and subject to the same financial and consumption pressures faced by all of us living in the modern world.473

  Complementary currencies, especially the Uang Kepeng474 and Nayahan Banjar, have been a mainstay of the Banjar system for more than a millennium. This dual-currency system keeps community spirit and collective cultural expressions strong by enabling greater options in project choices and a diverse array of activities. Banjars in poorer communities automatically favor projects that require time, such as the great temple dance, the kecak, which traditionally involves much manpower. In contrast, more affluent districts that are less concerned about financial costs are, therefore, more inclined to approve projects that can be paid for in rupiah. For example, one single project in a wealthier Banjar had a budget of 1.2 billion Rupiah (equivalent to about $132,000) and proportionally much lower expenditures of time.475

  The Banjar system extends beyond religious and cultural events to civic activities, such as support for building primary schools or local roads, especially when the central government is unable to provide funding. In short, local resources can be mobilized to support a fuller spectrum of undertakings, whatever the community chooses to focus on.

  The Great Mother Archetype

  The repression of the Great Mother archetype has, as noted, cast its shadow upon much of our world. Precious little is left of the once vibrant cultures in which everything was considered sacred, a belief common to many so-called “primitive” societies. Some 5,000 years of an imbalanced patriarchal supremacy has helped shape the modernist view that perpetuates a split between spirit and nature, mind and matter, soul and body.

  Bali, however, has managed to preserve key elements of its heritage that predate the Central Middle Ages and endure in part to this day, despite seventeen centuries of invasions, foreign religious influences, European colonization, integration into the predominantly Muslim nation-state of Indonesia, and terrorism. This resilience forms part of a cultural coherence that we refer to as the “Balinese exception.”

  Daily life in Bali integrates the mundane and the spiritual. This is evidence of the yin coherence, an honoring of the more feminine aspects, such as the community cooperation found in a vast tapestry of offerings, daily rituals, and festivals.

  Offerings

  A clue to understanding this culture is provided by the etymology of the word bali, meaning “offering” or “gift.” It is a fitting name for a culture in which, with but one exception during the year, no day passes without at least some form of offerings.

  Authors Francine Brinkreve and David Stuart-Fox write:

  They [the offerings] are found everywhere. Each day the lady of the house places little palm leaf containers with beautiful flowers on a family shrine. A driver places a similar offering on the dashboard of his car or truck. A family member graciously carries towers of fruits and cookies to a temple on its festival day. Whole villages sometimes create enormous offerings several meters high. And within offerings, such wondrous details as little rice dough figurines and delicate palm leaf creations are almost hidden from view. The immense variety of form and color of the Balinese offering is truly amazing.476

  Festivals

  Each of the many thousands of temples in Bali has its own odalan festival, a special feast that celebrates the gods coming to the annual commemeration of the founding of their temple. “The people renew their ties with the gods and also reinforce their bonds with each other during the elaborate preparations and ceremonies.”477 Such festivals are filled with dances, some masculine and warrior-like, others feminine and graceful.

  There are procession rituals in which each family presents its offerings to its deities and ancestors. These rituals are accompanied by prayers with the sprinkling of holy water and blessed rice on the foreheads of participants, and carnivals, night-long drama dances, and trance dances in which participants receive visitations from spirits. The more important festivals can go on for days and even weeks.

  Death

  Miguel Covarrubias, who first visited Bali in 1937, described the particular Balinese ritual response to death:

  Strange as it seems, it is in their cremation ceremonies that the Balinese have their greatest fun. A cremation is an occasion for gaiety and not for mourning, since it represents the accomplishment of their most sacred duty: the ceremonial burning of the corpses of the dead to liberate their souls, so that they can thus attain the higher worlds and be free from reincarnation.478

  Death is a cause for celebration: “The grand send-off of the soul into heaven, in the form of a rich and complete cremation, is the life-ambition of every Balinese.”479

  The material body is seen as the container of the soul. Death is but a passing from one form to another, the beginning of another chapter, a normal part of life’s cycle, like a tree shedding its leaves. Life on this Earth is considered by the Balinese as just an incident in the long process of the soul’s evolution. In short, death is most certainly not a taboo in Balinese culture.

  Cremations, religious ceremonies, and artistic activities permeate life and hold great meaning to the Balinese, who participate with pride, intention, and craftsmanship. Many hours or even weeks of preparations are required, along with the combined efforts of the entire community.

  In every aspect of daily living there is a deep and abiding honoring of what is best described as the yin expression of life, in which the spiritual and the mundane are seamlessly intertwined.

  Balance and Trust

  Together with its particular archetypal framework and dual-currency system, another characteristic that is exceptional about Bali, and distinquishes this society from much of the rest of the world today, can be described in a single word—trust.

  Returning to Dr. Bernice Hill’s Sacred Wounds of Money, we recall the difficulties often associated with being financially well-off in our society: the burdens of expectation; a deep sense of isolation accompanied by suspicions regarding relationships and friendships; a tendency toward dysfunctional family dynamics; and having one’s own sense of self brought into questio
n. We noticed that each of these wounds is characterized by a lack of trust at different levels of interaction. Though their particular objects of concern may differ, lower and middle classes also suffer considerably from a lack of trust, with regard to both fellow citizens and the “abundance of the universe,” in a society that uses only conventional national currencies.

  When poverty strikes and people are forced to live paycheck-to-paycheck without much in the way of job security or savings, increasing attention is paid to concerns such as individual survival and caring for one’s own. In such a paradigm, one is continually confronted with scarcity, competitiveness, and the yang-shadow coherence.

  A very different set of dynamics emerges in a society in which a means of exchange is available to all, whether it is in the form of money, time, or whatever each member of that society can contribute. A deeper sense of security, belonging, and identity are reinforced, and the walls of separation are no longer necessary. With a complementary currency system, the basic needs of even those at the lowest end of the financial spectrum can more easily be met. There is, therefore, far less reason for the haves and have-nots to mistrust or to envy.