Michiana Community Currency Initiative
Posted: May 24th, 2006 | Author: ted | Filed under: currencies, friends | 17 Comments »In a comment on my post about expiration dates for currency, Doug points to the Michiana Community Currency Initiative:
- Do you want more choices about what you can do for a living?
- Do you want to feel part of a local community?
- Do you own a local business & want more customers?
Very cool stuff. Arthur and Gerry have been talking a lot about reputation currencies and lots of other types of systems to encourage flows, some that look like money and others that do not. Lots more to come in this area, as it develops.
Thanks, Doug!
Ted–
You are welcome.
Please say more about encouraging flow.
:- Doug.
do you know about liberty dollars, ted? seems to be the most developed alternative currency plan i’ve seen. but it’s alternative, i think, not complementary. metta zetty involved in austin, btw.
What’s the difference between alternative, not complementary?
alternative would seek to replace national fiat money system. complementary would build on it. one wants to be a whole new river, the other just create local eddies and such. or so i gather from my brief study.
hmm, I don’t see much of a difference, if any – lots of really interesting conversation going on about this at o/net these days – arthur is all about currency as flow – and flow being about way more than money, so he’s not even interest in fiat replacements of any kind, alternative or complimentary, it seems
he’s even come up with a new metaphor, rather than currency (which people equate with money): spectrum
our eyes only pick up a small range of the radiation all around us – that’s like money – if we can develop the equivilant of infared glasses and xray machines and radios and TVs, a lot more flow can be both observed (that which is studied, increases) and created (cell phones were created only after it was understood how to actually make signals and send them, not just receive environmental signals)
anyway, good stuff
and yes, Doug, I’ll write more about flow and all of this in a new main post
spectrum. flow. that’s money as energy. and that’s the difference between alternative, which would want fiat dollars to literally go away, would compete with dollars and complimentary, which would seek to add more bits of the spectrum. no matter if you call it spectrum, compliments, or whatever, we’re still talking opening up the flow, yes, of energy. lietaer talks about fiat systems currently in place as male, i think, and compliments as female. i think the gold standard was universal female, just guessing, and then fiat currencies were compliments to that. but then they got disconnected, or if you like, took over. boys will be boys, right?
Well, based on these definitions, I have yet to see an alternative currency implimentation or even plan.
When Arthur’s talking about non-money-replacing currencies, (or spectrum, I suppose), he’s talking about things like grades as a performance metric and college degrees as a “status” metric etc. These metrics (currencies) have a huge influence on behaviour, obviously and yet they don’t look like “money” at all. They can’t be bought or sold, but they do have value.
yep. he’s talking complimentary currencies. the liberty dollar folks are talking competitive currency model. i think it argues for replacing fiat system and gettign back to a gold/silver standard again. that’s different.
catherine austin fitts has a thing i see last night about ‘financial intimacy’ …investing in places close by. i’ll have to blog the link.
I see absolutely no benefit in a gold/silver standard. The problems I see with national currencies were present long before we went off metal standards.
what problems?
scarcity, primarily – as far as I’m concerned, our medium of exchange should be based on human effort, which is scarce, but at such a high level that it’s effectively not scare, rather than some natural resource that by definition is scarce
Ted and Michael–
I’d like to see something like this:
Granny issues to Ted a note valued at 10 (Dollars, Pesos, Euros, Yen, Loaves of Bread) by signing the note. Ted has earned it by reading to Granny at the Senior Center.
The Senior Center has a master sheet of the notes, which it reproduces on a copier. A nurse or another visitor at the Senior Center validates Granny’s note by co-signing it.
Ted takes the note to the bookstore and uses it to buy a book by this guy Litaer. Ted signs the note to revalidate it. The bookstore owner signs the note when she gives it to an employee for part of his wages. Employee signs it when he donates it to church or ashram.
The notes which have many signatures have been validated by their very passage in the community–and become a joy to pass along to others. Everybody gets involved in the fun.
:- Doug.
Doug, that sounds great! One question we always need to ask about a currency design like this is, “Where does the currency get created at where is it retired?” One way to retire this currency of Granny’s is for Granny to accept it as payment for something she’s selling. How else could it be retired?
Ted–
Why does it ever need to be retired?
:- Doug.
Massive inflation.
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