Economic activity without official currency in Greece: The * hypothesis

Historical study has not been within the scope of the research project titled “Exchange networks and parallel currencies: Theoretical approaches and the case of Greece”. However, this proved to be a deficiency of the project and the present paper is an attempt to formulate a hypothesis, with the intention to see at least within such a historical perspective, how scheme members with both their discourse and action challenge our perceptions about important issues in economics. There is no name or title for this hypothesis (yet). We believe that it is too early to name it. It seems that the schemes studied are the surface of an economy or economies which never ceased to exist, as both material spaces and experiences in people’s histories. It is about viewing all this activity as setting a different agenda for economics than what capitalist and anti-capitalist discourse can offer.