. >> reporter: brian butterworth is the red lion inn's director of sales. >> we don't make money offit or lose money off of it. >> reporter: but wait a second. i just got a 5% discount. that's not good for the red lion inn, is it? >> we take your berkshares at the same value as u.s. dollars and we spend them as u.s. dollars. and it stays in our community because there's a geographical limit to where you can redeem berkshares. >> reporter: and in keeping with the small is beautiful philosophy, the limit is about ten miles outside berkshire county's borders. >> but we don't enforce who can take berkshares and who can't. >> reporter: alice maggio runs the berkshares program out of the schumacher center for new economics in great barrington. e.f. schumacher was the author of "small is beautiful." but maggio admits small can also be parochial. >> you can see local currencies as isolationist and secessionist. >> reporter: protectionist. >> or protectionist. >> reporter: but she hardly thinks berkshares represent a threat to global trade. >> we used to have this system in this country, we u