ABSTRACT Silvio Gesell's concept of “rusting money,” developed in the late 1890s, aimed to stabilize economic cycles through state monetary policy. He proposed a controlled money supply to prevent inflation and stimulate circulation to counteract deflation. Gesell's ideas evolved with insights from Georg Friedrich Knapp's Chartalism, emphasizing the state's role in managing money through taxation and investment. His theories gained traction during the 1929 economic crisis, leading to the establishment of the WÄRA exchange in Erfurt, which experimented with currency featuring negative interest rates. Despite initial success, government bans halted these experiments. Interest in Gesell's ideas resurfaced in the 1990s and 2000s with the emergence of mutual credit and convertible local currencies, focusing on community building and ecological transformation. These modern initiatives blend social ideals with monetary programming, promoting cooperation over competition and aiming to enhance social prosperity within ecological limits. The goal is to foster a sustainable economy that benefits all members of society. With the help of the quantity theory, the quantitative effects of the regional currency Chiemgauer are examined and critically discussed.
Christian Gelleri (Thu,) studied this question.