The acceptance of alternate forms of money is the path of least resistance, an alternative to conflict. One may speculate on alternate forms of money. Recall, any commodity can be money. As an example, let’s consider electricity as an alternate form of money.

Electricity is a primary societal need. To not have electricity would severely disrupt society. Everybody is wired to electricity. The intrinsic value of an electrical unit, measured in kilowatts, is uniform and could be fairly obvious. One root of all comparative valuation would be a kilowatt.

Since the storage capacity of electricity is negligible, the extraction rate of electricity equals its consumption rate. For the most part, what’s produced is consumed immediately. Though the extraction rate and the consumption rate may increase, they increase proportionately. As long as the storage capacity of electricity is negligible, the result is a zero growth rate of money. A zero growth rate does not facilitate the application of interest. Society will restructure itself to accommodate a zero growth form of money.

The process of extraction is the replenishment of electricity since the storage capacity of electricity is negligible. The extraction and replenishment rate of electricity are correlative to the extraction and replenishment rates of its energy sources. Oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydro are the predominate sources of energy used in the production of electricity. Solar, wind, and bio are ancillary energy sources. Oil, natural gas, and coal are finite resources with extremely low replenishment rates.

The relationship of a kilowatt with its energy source would become primary societal knowledge. To ‘save money’ would be to save electricity, perhaps enough to eliminate the need for nuclear and foreign fossil fuels immediately.

The immediate source of money would be the utility serving the local power grid. In California, PG&E would be the utility for Northern California and Socal Edison would be the utility for Southern California. The production of electricity comes from many sources contracted with the utility; however, the distribution of electricity is centralized and controlled by the utility. The management of money would go from global to regional while still maintaining a global form of money. Eventually and perhaps quickly, more independent ways to produce electricity would be creatively found.

From there, the logistical details of how an actual transaction occurs using electricity as a form of money becomes academic. It takes a lot of people to run the utility and they have needs like everyone else i.e., the basis of trade with others. The rest is accounting.

The same analysis can be applied to other alternate forms of money.