Tumin: How a Mexican Alternative Currency Has Made the Government Nervous Rafa Fernandez de Castro - Fusion
go to original July 27, 2015

The túmin currency is printed in paper bills depicting revolutionary heroes, indigenous symbols and muralist art by Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo. (tumin.org.mx)

“We Accept Túmin,” reads a sign posted in an organic coffee shop in the trendy neighborhood of Colonia Roma. Shop owner Zyntya Ponce Nava says her decision to take payments in the alternative currency is not an act of rebellion against the Mexican peso, rather “a way to help the community.”

It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by others who have adopted the Mexican alternative tender, of which there’s only some $15,400 worth circulating in the country on bills of 1, 5, 10, and 20.

Túmin is named after and partially inspired by ancient indigenous money practices. It was started as a university project in the eastern state of Veracruz in 2010 in an effort to promote local trade and protect small businesses from recurring recessions. Upon expanding beyond the walls of the Intercultural University of Veracruz campus, the currency began circulating in the indigenous municipality of Espinal.

Boosters say the túmin, which is far too small to be considered mainstream, is a way of helping impoverished communities and socially aware businesses focused on “economic solidarity and self management.”

But critics of the initiative — including the Mexican government — view the alternative currency as a frontal challenge to official monetary policy. As soon as the túmin began circulating, Mexico’s Central Bank, which claims the money is too easy to counterfeit, sued the currency’s creators for printing money and trying to substitute the peso. Bank officials also pressured the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to investigate.

...Despite the central bank’s fretting, the alternative currency clearly does not pose a serious threat to the peso. But the idea behind the new money seems to be the real challenge to the current system; the túmin represents an invitation to return to the days of transactions based on trust, relationships and community solidarity above the interests of profit and gain.

But maybe that’s an idea whose time is yet to come.

Read the rest at Fusion

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