Monnaie Complémentaire versus Microcrédit Solidaire et Tontines: Contribution Comparée à un Développement Solidaire Local (Draft)

Proposals for solidarity-based local development through monetary and financial mechanisms began to appear in the first half of the nineteenth century, referred to variously as solidarity-based microcredit schemes, as well as complementary, alternative and social currency. There are also a range of forms of informal savings and loan associations known in French as tontines. These three forms of organization entail debt dynamics between participants. This paper compares the relative contributions of their specific modes of financial inclusion in solidarity-based local development. Conceptually, the analysis is based on Polanyian principles of economic integration: reciprocity, redistribution, market exchange and sharing. Their mobilization implies a distinction between solidarity and protection involving forms of domination.

Jean-Michel Servet is Professor Emeritus of Lyon University, currently Professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and Research Fellow in the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (Paris). His research deals with social finance, local exchange trading systems, financial globalization, the history of economic thought and interdisciplinary methods.