Adventures in mutual credit

This report briefly covers the field of non-commercial mutual credit software, discussing the issues and challenges they collectively face in meeting the needs of the movement. The author's purpose is to draw out some themes of collective concern to a few small, under-resourced, and disparate projects which are working along very similar lines, and to encourage discussion. The intention is not to make direct comparisons but to take a higher view, with concrete examples.

Disclaimer: The author is the developer of the Drupal module and Co-founder of Community Forge

Community Forge hosts community web sites including a complementary currency payment system.

We're making a leap of faith.

Ning recently announced that it would stop providing sites for free. Now Community Forge is bucking the trend by switching back to the Fremium model. Are we crazy? How will we survive - especially in this economic climate?

I read Thomas Greco's 'The end of money and the future of civilization'. He talked about mutual guarantor groups, which are common in microcredit loans. This idea had natural appeal because it's more about trust in people than arbitrary formulae, and it has predecessors in many cultures and works very well.

Auroville in South India (population: 2000 ish), is a conscious experiment in building a model city of the future, in accordance with the ideals of the esteemed Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Work is going on here with energy, permaculture, transport, education, therapies, water treatment, art, development, (typically in the surrounding villages), spirituality and of course currencies.

Just for reference, here is the hopelessly bloated list of what I think needs to be done, as soon as possible in order to create change from below in the global financial system.

Community Forge

• improve design of www.communityforge.net, so our poverty isn't so obvious.
• employ a tech manager so I can get on with other things
• draft a five year plan to apply for funding to allow them to work at a higher level.
• map all the schemes in Western Europe, according to commitment made by Tim at summer camp 2009

Some folks in Worcester are planning to introduce a local pound. I would like to offer an opinion during this design phase.

I would like you to consider a different local currency mechanism to the ones being used in Totnes, Lewis, Brixton, and Sussex. But first I would like to ask you some important questions.

It seems to me that local currencies come in three flavours.

Mutual Credit

This is what my software supports. It's just a way of tracking debts between people - and when all the debts are paid off, the total value in the system is zero. This system is best for communities with good boundaries, and a solid membership. The main problem with is that half the members will be in debt at any time, and there is nothing to stop them dropping out while owing.

Fiat

Neither sustainable nor just: the current financial system

The story of money is the backstory of history, and some see in it a catalogue of the largest fraud and theft campaign in history, the present problems being no exception.