This section's theme are generally the monetary aspects of P2P trends, and more specifically, aspects of monetary reform, that aim to make the monetary system into a participatory resource that more broadly benefits larger sectors of the world population.
Human and social wealth is never reducible to its translation in money, see the Wealth Typology.
A very good summary of: What's Wrong with the Current Monetary System, by Mark Joob.
Recommended experts:
- For Credit Commons oriented solutions at the local level, see Thomas Greco [2]
- For Public Credit and credit-free financing solutions at the national level, see Modern Monetary Theory and Ellen Brown
- For solutions relating to a global monetary commons, see Bernard Lietaer
Contents[hide] |
The Way Forward, a P2P commentary
Michel Bauwens:"My view is that we need to work on several levels at the same time.
First level is the creation of local (up to regional) complementary currencies, so that the local economy can compensate for the fluctuations in the global economy, especially in an era of structural crisis and lack of reform
The second level is national, where we need policy reform and an end to debt-driven money creation. So, a sufficient national currency created on the basis of need and real economic activity, not speculation, and not created 'with debt' by the banks. I'm starting to agree more and more with the neo-chartalist of the Modern Monetary Theory school on this. Central banks need to be made democratic again.
The third level is continental and global. Here the major reform is to make currencies independent of any nation-state, and made 'ecological'. The Terra approach of Bernard Lietaer, based on a basket of currencies representing energy usage and commodities, is the right direction to look into.
A fourth and special level are the virtual currencies, which can experiment with new rules and designs and fuel the emerging collaborative economy driven by online cooperation.
On the agenda should also be a transition income for socially beneficially and sustainable/ecololgical activities, and experiments with full basic income on local scales to see real-life effects.
Parallel with monetary and economic transformation, there is a lot we can do to demonetize the economy. One of my specific visions is the following: peer producers/commoners create their own production entities, i.e. mutualist Phyles, using the Peer Production License to create a counter-economy around the commons. These alternative enterpreneurial coalitions can make substantial progress to resource-based economics that do not need to involve money, for example by practicing radical open book management and production transparency, at least within the commons network. This and other steps would create larger areas of social life that are demonetized. What the exchange and sharing of rival material goods is concerned, which could deplete an entity is reciprocity was not assured, open accounting ledgers could be used, that do not involve the creation of classic 'money'."
Introduction
The P2P Foundation supports the direct social production of money, such as for example through Open Money and other P2P Exchange Infrastructure Projects systems. This marvellous presentation by Robin Upton explains how this can work.Key distinctions: Currencies ; Free Currencies ; Wealth
For starters, read Eric Harris-Braun key argument: Why Monetary Design is Important
The following guide has all the essentials on Open Money and Complementary Currencies and is really recommended, for beginners and practitioners alike:
- Community Currency Guide. by Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith. 2006 [3]
- Updated state of the art review of Complementary Currency Open Source Software in 2010. Matthew Slater IJCCR Special Issue, State of the Art of Complementary Currencies: D 82-87 [4] "This report briefly covers the field of non-commercial mutual credit software, discussing the issues and challenges the projects collectively face in meeting the needs of the movement."
- A comparative table of alternative currencies by SocialCompare [5]
Introductory Video
- very clear intro of both what is wrong with the current financial systems and how citizens can rebuild a functional one: Jem Bendell on Rebuilding a Financial System by Ourselves
Introductory Articles
- The Co-Belongingness of Money and Community
- The Design of Money is not Neutral. By Bernard Lietaer, Gwendolyn Hallsmith.
- Read this excellent introduction to the negative role of interest-based money by Charles Eisenstein
- Best current report on the topic: Creating New Money: A monetary reform for the information age. By Joseph Huber & James Robertson. New Economics Foundation
- Arthur Brock: Differences between Open Source and Open Currencies
- Kevin Carson introduces the Peer Money debates
- Michel Bauwens on the Importance of Peer Money
- Alan Rosenblith: We need P2P Architectures for Money!!
- Jean-Francois Noubel: Economics of Flow vs Economics of Accumulation
- Ellen Brown on the Case for a Public Credit System: Money today is simply credit. When the credit is advanced by a bank, when the bank is owned by the community, and when the profits return to the community, the result can be a functional, efficient, and sustainable system of finance. See also: Money is Not a Thing, but a Relation
- Eric Blair: The Greenback vs Goldbug Debate
- Charles Eistenstein: Money, the Self, and Negative Interest Money. From Sacred Economics, Chapter 12.
- What Should Peer-to-Peer Money Be? By Eli Gothill.
Goals:
- Better redistribution of the existing money
- Transformation of the monetary system through the social production of money
- Alternatives to money: Peer Production ; Gift Economy ; Sharing; and other ways to assist in a transition to a more Resource Based Economy through Peer to Peer Exchanges and P2P Exchange Infrastructure Projects
Current Hot Projects to monitor
Key digital Open Money projects are: 1) Bitcoin ; Ripple ; 3) Open Coin; 4) Open-Universal Digital Currency Project; 5) Circular Multilateral BarterSee also:
- Banco Palmas, in Brazil, emits a local currency and supports the local economy. Video: The Story of Banco Palmas in Brazil
- The Common Good Bank initiative [7]
- The Metacurrency Project: the tci/ip platform for diverse currency creation: see the Flowspace project as first attempt to establish sucn an infrastructure for Free Currencies
- Open Coin: an actual published open specification for creating distributed digital currency
- The creation of the Open Source Hardware Reserve Bank. Details here
- Multiswap.net: A free platform for circular barter exchange
- WIR Economic Circle Cooperative: this 70-old Swiss mutual credit clearing system is getting traction as a model for the rest of Europe
- The historical experience of the Worgl Shillings
- The Swedish interest-free JAK Bank [8] [9]
- SocialCompare - overview chart of key characteristics of alternative currencies (editable)
Tools:
Tools to create People-Produced Money:
Under development:
- Open-Universal Digital Currency Project: Open-UDC is based on TRM (Théorie Relative de la Monnaie,by Stéphane Laborde) and Universal Digital Currency project (UDC project), which aims to create a new digital currency based on individual members and the digital world. [10]
- OSCurrency,
- Cclite, [ GETS] (commercial),
- Ripple
- Regenerosity, Local Exchange
- Money 2.0
Also:
- Comparison page at http://www.communityforge.net/compare
- Software overview page: http://www.complementarycurrency.org/software.html
Our P2P Open Money Network
{{Person|image1=
|name1=Jean-Francois Noubel
|contact1=
Twitter: @jfnoubel and @thetransitioner
Blog: http://www.noubel.com
|image2=
|name2= Thomas Greco
|contact2=thg at mindspring.com
|image3=
|name3=Fernanda Ibarra
|contact3=
Twitter: @fer_ananda and @thetransitioner
Profile at: http://people.thetransitioner.org/profile/FernandaIbarra
|image4=
|name4= Michael Linton
|contact4=michael dot linton@gmail.com
|image5=
|name5=Georg Pleger
|contact5=georg at pleger dot at
Check out profiles of Open Money experts such as Alan Rosenblith ; Arthur Brock [11] ; Edgar Cahn [12]; Eric Harris-Braun [13]; Thomas Greco ; [[Jean-François Noubel [14]
}}
The open money software playing field: an overview
See also: Timebanking Software Platforms- Source: The state of CC software, for IJCCR by Matthew Slater (Retrieved on 04/04/11)
Cyclos
| Language/ platorm | Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| Java | 4 | Many | No | www.cyclos.org |
Community Exchange System (CES)
| Language/ platorm | ! Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| MS asp | 1 | 200 in one | Yes | www.ces.org.za |
ccLite
| Language/ platorm | Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| PERL | 1 | No | www.hughbarnard.org |
Fourth Corner
| Language/ platorm | Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| Php | <1 | More or less | www.fourthcornerexchange.com |
Drupal & Community Forge
| Language/ platorm | Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| Drupal | 1 + 1,000 | 35 | No / Yes | drupal.org/project/mutual_credit www.communityforge.net |
oscurrency
| Language/ platorm | Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| Inoshi | 1 | 2 | No | www.opensourcecurrency.org |
Also worthy of mention is Time Banks whose membership includes a special license to use the proprietary 'Community Weaver' software.
Circular Multilateral Barter
| Language/ platorm | Full time developers | Implementations | Plug 'n' Play? | Url |
| Python | 1 | No | sourceforge.net/projects/cmb www.multiswap.net |
One thing that distinguishes CMB from other credit commons is that all debts in CMB are person-to-person debts. There is no central political/administrative unit to decide who deserves to be trusted and who does not. Because of this, CMB should be able to scale-up very well, so that local communities can be seamlessly aggregated into larger ones.
Citations
To survive and thrive, human systems *need* a not just a network view, but a multi-dimensional, multi-scaled view and definition of systems. this will help us see how many, many people can operate and multiply many forms of wealth within systems that previously seemed easily depletable. Peer networks are vital to creating the multi-dimensional maps and models and views that will allow all of us to see the cornucopia of options that now exist, provided we can shift out focus from exploitation and control, to existential symbiosis with everything that is around us, on as many scales as possible.- Sam Rose
I think its important to distinguish "currency" from a reputation measurement. Implicit in the term currency is the idea that it can be exchanged for something.A system for "recognition" is only a currency if that recognition is exchangable for something.
- Tom Salfied
“According to Margrit Kennedy, a German researcher who has studied this issue extensively, interest now composes 40% of the cost of everything we buy. We don’t see it on the sales slips, but interest is exacted at every stage of production.”
- Ellen Brown [15]
On Open Money
You treasure what you measure, and you measure what you treasure. Open money provides the tools to implement this maxim. What should we be treasuring in our culture and on our planet that we so far have no way to measure?- Open Money [16]
Money is making a fundamental evolutionary step into community currencies. Conventional money as we know it has a built in architecture that leads to scarcity, centralization, concentration, secrecy, proprietarization. This conventional monetary system is not appropriate to dealing with today's global systemic challenges (harmonizing local and global needs, creating ecological sustainability, enabling the information economy, leveraging the open source paradigm, etc). Just as there are now millions of media outlets today, currencies will follow this same evolution by shifting from centralized authoritative models to distributed ones that allow better sustainability, distribution, transparency, and regulation mechanisms.
- Open Money [17]
How to best transcend the current economic mess? Put Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Elon Musk, Tim O’Reilly, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Nathan Myhrvold, and Danny Hillis in a room somewhere and don’t let them out until they have framed a new, massively-distributed financial system, founded on sound, open, peer-to-peer principles, from the start. And don’t call it a bank. Launch a new financial medium that is as open, scale-free, universally accessible, self-improving, and non-proprietary as the Internet, and leave the 13th century behind.”
- George Dyson [18]
Depression Economics
"During periods of so-called economic depression, societies suffer for want of all manner of essential goods, yet investigation almost invariably discloses that there are plenty of goods available. Plenty of coal in the ground, corn in the fields, wool on the sheep. What is missing is not materials but an abstract unit of measurement called ‘money.’- Tom Robbins [19]
Leakages from the local economy
"Poor liquidity and leakage (money flowing from the local economy) are key causes for floundering and/or disappearing regional economies. To overcome these shortfalls local communities should be increasing local liquidity and plugging the leakage through the introduction of complementary community currencies thereby re-building their respective local communities in the coal mining area of Wales. When local residents within their respective communities changed the agreements they had about conventional money, by creating and spending complementary community currencies locally instead of spending only diminishing amounts of federal currency with giant corporations, it commenced re-birth in the local communities. Molly used the term local multiplier when she discussed how local liquidity increased proportionately to the amount of complementary community currency being circulated by those who were choosing to participate."- (from a summary of) Molly Scott reporting on complementary currencies in Wales [20]
Aristotle on unnatural wealth
"There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."- Aristotle [21]
The Disintermediation of the Banks
"First, the distribution monopoly of the Postal Services was hit hard by the Net as people discovered they didn’t need to buy stamps. Then, the copyright industry’s distribution monopoly was flatly and unceremoniously run over. As a third and fairly recent victim, we find the old centralized journalism with its tightly controlled news distribution. As fourth and coming victim, there’s an information distribution few people have thought of in terms of information: the money in our society."- Rick Falkvinge [22]
On the End of Banking
“There is no reason products and services could not be swapped directly by consumers and producers through a system of direct exchange – essentially a massive barter economy. All it requires is some commonly used unit of account and adequate computing power to make sure all transactions could be settled immediately. People would pay each other electronically, without the payment being routed through anything that we would currently recognize as a bank. Central banks in their present form would no longer exist – nor would money.”– Mervyn King – Governor of the Bank of England [23]
Introductory Material
- Money is not the Only Value Measurement System . By Geoff Chesshire .
- Why Peer to Peer Currencies will Grow
- Bernard Lietaer: The Four-tiered Monetary System of the Future
- In his landmark essay, Valuing the Ethical Economy, Adam Arvidsson explains why we need Wealth Acknowledgment Systems for the Ethical Circuit of Value
- Must reading: Charles Eisenstein on Why Demurrage needs to replace interest (see the entry on Demurrage). Also: Money and the Crisis of Civilization on why the current crisis is also an endgame.
- The case for open money. See also: Open Money Manifesto]
- Ran Prieur: Fire vs. Water Economies, and the role of Demurrage in this tradition.
- Essential theoretical and historical introduction to the long term history of money and debt, as rooted in social violence, by David Graeber at http://www.metamute.org/en/content/debt_the_first_five_thousand_years
- Eric Harris-Braun on the necessary Difference between Multi-currency Platforms and Market Making Platforms
- Thomas Greco: Why Exchange Alternatives Fail to Thrive
- Robin Wood: Shifts in Value Exchange and Human Development: applying the spiral dynamics model to value exchange
- The three modalities of Production Sharing, i.e. working together for a common pool, without individual exchange or barter: 1) Labor Quota System; 2) Fair-Share Labor System; 3) Anti-Quota Labor System
- Why Matrifocal Societies Use Dual Currencies. Bernard Lietaer. [24]
- Steve Keen on Why We Need to Tackle Debt Pushing, not Money Creation
- Introduction to the Eight Forms of Capital
Also:
- Rationale for Monetary Reform by Greg Martin.
- Monetary Transformation, not Monetary Reform, is What is Needed. By Thomas Greco.
- Why the Growth Imperative is Linked to our Monetary Format
- Declaration Of The Universal Right Of Monetary Creation and the Open Money Manifesto
- Peter Koenig's summaries on the History and Future of money
- The Future of Money by Paul B. Hartzog
- Capital, Profits, and Interest. Benjamin Tucker.
- Chris Cook: a proposal for Open Capital
How-to:
- Process of Designing a Complementary Currency System. How-to recommendations by Stephen DeMeulenaere.
Discussions
Via: http://groups.google.com/group/metacurrencyKey Resources
Funding for Open Money and Complementary Currencies infrastructures via: the Fund for Complementary Currencies- The Re-Inventing Money site, at http://reinventingmoney.com/
- The Book: "Money; A Mirror Image Of The Economy" by Dr. J.W. Smith - full text at http://IED.info/books/money Applying Henry George’s philosophy across the economic spectrum transposes monopoly rent values into equally-shared use-values. Quality of life increases as working hours drop by half.
- The consultancy: Value for People, helps local communities initiate complementary currencies
Key Articles
- How to start a community currency?. By Mira Luna.
Key Blogs
Of key importance is the work by Eric Harris-Braun and friends on meta-currency platforms, see hereAlso:
- New Currency Frontiers: very thoughtful new money blog with Eric Harris-Braun and others working on the Metacurrency Project
- Beyond Money: Thomas Greco's blog on monetary transformation and mutual credit
- Evolution of Money
- Open Source Currency
- Coverage of social money trends in Guillaume's blog
- Trust is the only currency: excellent analysis
Key Books
- What Comes After Money? Essays from Reality Sandwich on Transforming Currency and Community, edited by Daniel Pinchbeck and Ken Jordan. EVOLVER EDITIONS/North Atlantic Books, 2011.
- "Money and Sustainability: The Missing Link" by Bernard Lietaer, Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner and Stefan Brunnhuber. Triarchy Press, 2012 [25]. A report from the Club of Rome to Finance Watch and the World Business Academy
- The trilogy by Bernard Lietaer:
- Bernard Lietaer, The Mystery of Money (Munich: Riemann Verlag, 2000).
- Bernard Lietaer, The Future of Money (London: Random House, 2001). Full text [26]
- Bernard Lietaer & Stephen M. Belgin, Of Human Wealth: Beyond Greed and Scarcity, Galley Edition Version 2.1. (Boulder, Colorado: Human Wealth Books and Talks, 2004.
From other authors:
- Thomas Greco. The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. Chelsea Green, 2009
- Money and Liberation. The Micropolitics of Alternative Currency Movements. Peter North. University of Minnesota Press, 2008
- Interest and Inflation Free Money. Margrit Kennedy.
- Peter North: Money and Liberation: The Micropolitics of Alternative Currency Movements. [27]
- Creating New Money: A Monetary Reform for the Information Age, by Joseph Huber and James Robertson. New Economics Foundation (2001) [28]
- The Ecology of Money. By Richard Douthwait
Guidebooks:
- Community Currency Guide. Workbook by Bernard Lietaer
Also:
Key Concept Pages to read
- Abundance vs. Scarcity and Monetary Scarcity vs. Monetary Sufficiency - Non-scarcity based monetary systems
- Monetary Reform, Demurrage and Seigneurage, the Credit Commons
- Four conditions for Open Money: Open Data Currencies ; Open Identity Currencies ; Open Rules Currencies ; Open Transport Currencies
- Wealth Typology,Because we need Wealth Acknowledgment Systems for the Ethical Circuit of Value
Key Conferences
Conference: Multiple moneys and development: making payments in diverse economies. 2nd International Conference on Complementary Currency Systems (CCS) ; 19 – 23 June 2013; AmsterdamKey Delicious Tags
- I'm now on Diigo, replace the below (in front of the tag) by: http://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens
- Abundance, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Abundance
- Complementary Currencies, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Complementary-Currencies
- Monetary Reform, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Monetary-Reform
- Open Money, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Open-Money
- P2P Money, http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/P2P-Money
Key Directories
- Online Database of Complementary Currencies Worldwide
- Global Resource Exchange Groups and Localized Exchange Communities
- Peer to Peer Exchanges and P2P Exchange Infrastructure Projects
- Electronic currencies in the Wikipedia
Key Documentaries
- The Money Fix: video by Alan Rosenblith shown at PBS stations in the U.S. in 2009/2010 [29]
- Money as Debt
- The Wealth of Neighbors
- The Money Masters
- In Debt We Trust, remarkable documentary about personal aspects of debt crisis
Key Essays
- Peer to Peer Lending, June 2007 overview report by Brad Slavin.
- Raoul Victor: Money and Peer Production, a marxist perspective
Bernard Lietaer
- The Future of Payment Systems. By Bernard Lietaer.
- Is Our Monetary Structure a Systemic Cause for Financial Instability? Evidence and Remedies from Nature. By Bernard Lietaer, Robert E. Ulanowicz, Sally J. Goerner, and Nadia McLaren. Accepted for publication in Journal of Futures Studies Special Issue on the Financial Crisis (February-March 2010)
- Options for Managing a Systemic Bank Crisis. Bernard Lietaer, Dr. Robert Ulanowicz, and Dr. Sally Goerner. Sapiens-journal Volume 2, number 1, March 2009
Thomas Greco
- Thomas Greco: Why Exchange Alternatives Fail to Thrive: The State of the Alternative Exchange Movement, Excerpt from The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, Chapter 13,
- Thomas Greco: Towards A Complete Web-Based Trading Platform Excerpt, End of Money, Chapter 17,
See also
- How Barter Followed and Did Not Precede the Creation of Money. David Graeber.
Key People
- Alan Rosenblith ;
- Arthur Brock [30] [31] ;
- Edgar Cahn [32];
- Eric Harris-Braun [33];
- Thomas Greco ;
- Fernanda Ibarra
- Margrit Kennedy
- Bernard Lietaer
- Michael Linton
- Jean-François Noubel [34]
- Elf Pavlik
- Jay Standish
Key Podcasts
See also:Key Webcasts
Recommended:- Douglas Rushkoff of Getting Past Free Through Radical Abundance: the current monetary system is an obsolete legacy system, no longer corresponding to contempary needs.
- 97 Percent Owned: probably the best documentary on how monetary creation works, though based on the situation in the UK
- 4 part course: Mary Mellor's Introduction to Understanding Money
Documentaries:
- Money as Debt II: great explanation
- Introductory Animation to Complementary Currencies
- Alan Rosenblith on Open Money ; Alan Rosenblith on Open Money Protocols and Agreements
- Chris Cook on Peak Credit and Open Capital: excellent video presentation
- Arthur Brock and Eric Harris-Braun's Introduction to The MetaCurrency Project ; Arthur Brock on Open Data Currencies
- Bernard Lietaer Interviewed on a New World Currency ; Bernard Lietaer on Complementary Currencies for Social Change ; Bernard Lietaer on Currencies for Cooperation ; Bernard Lietaer on Human Wealth
- Christian Nold on the Bijlmer Euro
- David Karsbol on Virtual Finance
- David Korten on Monetary Reform
- Douglas Rushkoff on Medieval Money
- Ellen Brown on the Web of Debt
- Giles Andrews on the Evolution of the Zopa Social Lending Project
- James Robertson on Monetary Reform for the Mainstream Economy
- Jean-François Noubel on Free Currencies
- Mohammad Yunus on Microfinance
- Peter Koenig on What is Money
- Philippe Van Parijs on the Basic Income
- Richard Douthwaite on Debt-based Money
- Sarah Hearn on the Berkshare Local Currency Program
- Thomas Greco on Monetary Transformation ; Thomas Greco on the End of Money ; Thomas Greco on the Importance of Mutual Credit Clearing ; Thomas Greco on the State of the Monetary Reform Movement m Thomas Greco on the History of Money and Debt
- Extensive collection of Videos on complementary currencies. More videos on the Network Economy YouTube channel
No comments:
Post a Comment