What if the idea of consumerism is taken out of the equation?

I had a realization last night as I was going to sleep with Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith’s ‘Community Currency Guide’ rolling around in my head. There is a fundamental difference in the structure of a local, community currency based in tapping people’s creativity, and the more traditional complimentary currencies which are explored in all these amazing resources.

The difference is that everyone is talking about currencies in terms of consumerism. There are Business to Business exchanges, like barter currencies, there are Business to Consumer exchanges, like air miles, there are Consumer to Consumer exchanges, and Consumer to Business exchanges. Okay, furry muff, but what if the idea of consumerism is taken out of the equation? What if the dynamic was no longer dependant on the idea that businesses create stuff that people consume? If people are creators, not consumers, and we don’t look to businesses to have our needs met, and everyone is equal and (in effect) a small business owner creating their own product or service to share. So should we be looking at consumer to consumer models or business to business models as examples to work from? Or are both relevant? I guess we just have to figure it out as we go along.