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Adventures in mutual credit

The conflict at the heart of modern money

published by matslats on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 23:06
Published last year in Open Democracy blog

Recent currency innovations like Bitcoin and an economic recovery now dragging into its seventh year have led many people to question what money is - and more importantly, what it should be. Answering this question is fundamental to any attempt to transform society.

Economy of Hours - B2B timebank

published by matslats on Sun, 03/22/2015 - 00:25

Just heard Matthew McStravick today talking about Economy of Hours, his widening of timebanking to include local businesses.

Is gold money?

published by matslats on Wed, 01/28/2015 - 16:57

In 2011 after second deluge of Quantitative Easing in the US, congressman Ron Paul challenged Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke asking him, "Is Gold Money"?

Do you know what money is? Have you noticed that there are competing definitions? How could money have become so pervasive in our minds and relationships without being properly defined? How can we improve the technology of money when we don't even know what it is?

A sociological view of money

published by matslats on Wed, 01/28/2015 - 15:05

In the process of writing and researching for the forthcoming Money and Society MOOC, Jem Bendell and I learned a great deal about the subject we to were teaching. In Lesson 1 in which we investigate the very essense of money Jem introduced me to Georg Simmel's The Philosophy of Money. Simmel was not an economist, but a sociologist, and his understanding of money runs far deeper than any economist I've read.

Ecovillage economy tour: Conclusion

published by matslats on Wed, 12/31/2014 - 12:20

[One condition for my GEN ambassadorship was a writeup at the end of the year. This is it, though I've written up a handful of individual ecovillages previously in this blog]

I've had the honor of spending a several days in several ecovillages, but I didn't manage to write economic profiles of all of them!

A view from Russia

published by matslats on Fri, 12/19/2014 - 20:54

Evgeny Fedorov, from the Russian Parliament, explains what Russian Central Bank's role in the currency war, and then outlines how the USA is planning a coup in Russia.
It is 20 mins of subtitled Russian, so I took notes...

Thanks to Trade with Dave for bringing it to my attention.

So you want to start a LETS?

published by matslats on Mon, 11/24/2014 - 02:25

Is it a good idea to start a LETS in 2014? The brand is 30 years old, and has a track record littered with poor governance, currency collapse, low participation and high turnover. The domesticated hippies of the 80s and caring sharing consumers of the 90s are not the same as the Occupiers and Transitioners of today. The existing LETS projects at least in UK are failing to thrive even in recession. The movement preferred decentralisation over software coordination, and slicker projects emerge every week.

Responsible donorship

published by matslats on Sat, 11/22/2014 - 23:41

Of course I'm jealous. People tell me every other day that my work is important, but much funding flows to demonstrably stupid projects.

I no longer seek funding or material support or even volunteers for my work. I no longer worry about funded projects overtaking mine. I have understood that what I'm doing is antithetical to money, and unlikely to be funded by any reasonable plutocrat or angel. Just as states and banks simply can't see moneyless people, projects which neither beg nor boast are invisible to donors.

Presentation to HullCoin notes

published by matslats on Wed, 11/12/2014 - 14:25

Reality check: Functions of money

Store of Value for rich people
Medium of exchange for traders/producers
measure of value etc.
No one monetary design is optimal for all functions.

A typology of money

Very little consensus on this. Important for the integrity and long term stability of the project. For all currencies note that the issuer has a tremendous benefit by being able to thrust the money into circulation and usually to control the quantity. Recession means not enough money circulating in the economy.

Solidarity economy networks & Software 2

published by matslats on Sat, 11/01/2014 - 15:00

Last time I described several solidarity economy networks and a bit about their software situation and needs. Today I want to look at some solutions which could help them work in a more integrated way.

This article starts from the specific problem of accounting, and widens out to whole-platform approaches.

For full interoperability the accounting needs to be abstracted out of the community portal into its own service, and made accessible with an API.

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