Adventures in mutual credit | Matslats - Community currency engineer

By matslats, 2 June, 2023

#CoFi is now a thing!

Report on the first Collaborative Finance Gathering at the Commons Hub, Austria, May 22-28, 2023.

It was an honour to be asked by the Commons Hub to design a conference and I took the opportunity to bring together crypto-people with some working on more traditional complementary currency innovations.

By matslats, 16 March, 2023

The Currency of Politics - audiobook

The neoliberal approach to money is that it is apolitical, facilitating exchange without interfering in it. But with the bailouts of 2008 and then COVID, more people understand that money does not work by itself, but must be managed through the political process.

By matslats, 4 February, 2023

The difference that money makes: sovereignty, indecision and the politics of liquidity

Just a short glance indicated to me that this would be worth recording, and I was right. With a flair unexpected in a PhD thesis, Drumm draws on English and classical history, much of it presented through Shakespeare, to show how history has been defined by the politics of liquidity, and how this politics is really the management of an unresolved dilemma at the heart of the monetary theory.

By matslats, 12 December, 2022

Resource network

There have been a few half-hearted attempts to do mutual credit, or business barter on a blockchain, but the only one that has cut any ice at all with me so far is Resource. Founder David Casey was a social entrepreneur experimenting with mutual credit long before venturing into blockchain and he has assembled a team which seems to be committed to honest finance rather than shilling shitcoins.

By matslats, 31 October, 2022

Economic grammar of the multitude - Protocols for postcapitalist economic espression

The Economic Space Agency has spent several years imagining a system for individuals and organisations to account for exchange, allocate risk and reward, and measure and store value without using or even referring to fiat money.

They have finally produced a book explaining the economics of it, which is presented here, along with my rendition of it.

By matslats, 10 September, 2022

The missing social network

The assumptions of web software architecture.

The most successful organisations are mostly private corporations who jealously guard their members / customers, and seek to grow and squeeze out the competition and establish a monopoly. The software of the web reflects that, as each company has its own web platform, inside of which it seeks to retain its users by being the largest or only player in the space.

By matslats, 10 September, 2022

Inadequate Equilibria

This is a book about thinking about thinking, with a focus on anyone who would try, or presume, to be able to improve a complex system, say by starting a new business in the space. Can you know when there is a real gap or when you are being arrogant or over-optimistic?

By matslats, 24 June, 2022

LETS and blockchains

[Written for users of Community Forge software]

By matslats, 2 June, 2022

Audiobook: Justice is an option

I've been immersed in monetary theory for several years. At one point I realised that money-as-we-know-it and markets are actually just two aspects of the same idea, and that the two evolve together. So saying, I've read a lot about money, its sociology, history, philosophy etc, but very little about markets.

By matslats, 11 May, 2022

REFI Spring Conference

'Regenerative' is the new 'sustainable'.

If 'DeFi' means decentralised (i.e. blockchain) finance, 'ReFi' means Regenerative decentralised finance. It was under this banner that 50+ folks met last week in Austria, including superstars Art Brock & Eric Harris Brown (Holo founders) and Shaun Conway from IXO.

Adventures in mutual credit