The Special Logic of Gift Economies. The gift is inherently unquantifiable: to count its worth too closely is to destroy its status as a gift. This might explain why it will never be possible to scale a gift economy beyond small social networks, even with the help of reputation measurement technology. Goods and services haven’t always flowed through market exchanges, and neither do they entirely today. Tribal societies most commonly exchanged value in the form of gifts. Such gifts usually carried obligations to accept and to reciprocate, either directly or indirectly, with the group. The flow of goods in such an economy is maintained by the human tendency to reward fairness and shun free-riders.
Today, the market has replaced gift flows as the predominant means of resource allocation in society, but gift economies still exist in parts of the economy where the market cannot enter. Underlying such patterns of exchange, an informal quid pro quo exists. Abundance and empathy Measuring reputation In conclusion… Read More: Elsewhere. Debt: The first five thousand years - David Graeber. Throughout its 5000 year history, debt has always involved institutions – whether Mesopotamian sacred kingship, Mosaic jubilees, Sharia or Canon Law – that place controls on debt's potentially catastrophic social consequences. It is only in the current era, writes anthropologist David Graeber, that we have begun to see the creation of the first effective planetary administrative system largely in order to protect the interests of creditors.
What follows is a fragment of a much larger project of research on debt and debt money in human history. The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call "the economy". What's more, origins matter.
Let me start with the institution of slavery, whose role, I think, is key. In most times and places, slavery is seen as a consequence of war. I. What should Peer-to-Peer Money be? Thinking about debt outside the twin intellectual straitjackets of state and market opens up exciting possibilities. For instance, we can ask: in a society in which that foundation of violence had finally been yanked away, what exactly would free men and women owe each other? What sort of promises and commitments should they make to each other? This post is more about principles than detail; though I intend to follow up with more information about Pebble, a project I am collaborating on to create money around trust, soon.
The idea is to use this post to define what I think is the most pressing question in the future of money debate: how to create genuine, decentralised and abundance-based peer-to-peer money. Money matters First of all, a detour. However, I want to look at a different question, which I think is fundamental to the future of money. Given this, I can return to peer-to-peer money. 1. Peer-to-peer money should be radically decentralised. 2. 3. 4. Why build it? #PunkMoney: How to Print Money on Twitter. NB: For a more up to date post on #PunkMoney, go here. In the Middle Ages, producers created their own money as a promise to deliver goods and services in the future, and spent it with people who trusted them. The promisee, who became the bearer of a new credit note, could transfer it to a third party as payment, by signing it on the back.
If a note ever came back to the issuer, it would be redeemed for whatever it was a promise for. Personal currencies were effective forms of trust-based local money when bullion was in short supply. Today, as we face another shortage of sovereign money, why not revive the old practice with new technology? Credit money can be created by anyone with something to produce, and some trust that they can deliver it. So here’s a proposal on how to literally print money with Twitter, called #PunkMoney.
To make #PunkMoney work best, I’ve put together a set of minimal rules for money issuance, transfer and redemption. Print money Expires in X days/months/years. GiftPunk: A Twitter Tool for Giftcasting. Recently I’ve been thinking about communities, and how to build them. Communities are in some sense defined by the flow of gifts, rather than market-based transactions. Perhaps the kinds of behaviour encouraged by the market is one of the reasons communities have been in decline in recent history. As one person put it to me recently, “community building is a truly 21st century problem.”
If gifts define community, it might be because they encourage feelings of generosity and gratitude, and hence bonds of kinship. After experimenting with #PunkMoney, a promise currency based on Twitter, I’ve been exploring how Twitter can be adapted and repurposed to do new, unexpected things. How it works A community sets up a central account, for example @OccupyLondonGifts. For example, if Alice wanted to offer legal advice, she could tweet: @OccupyLondonGifts I offer an hour of legal advice. – Alice GiftPunk can find Alice’s tweet, interpret it and tweet through the community account: – @OccupyLondonGifts.
Welcome to the Metacurrency Project | The MetaCurrency Project. Matslats - Community currency engineer | "Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessing" - Thomas Carlisle. Edgar Kampers's answer to Alternative Currencies: How do you start a local alternative or complementary currency system. Webisteme. This is my second post on defining a trust metric for Ripple, or in fact any peer-to-peer credit network which relies solely on trust. In my last post, I looked at a simple approach based on measuring the average ratio of credits and debts for a user. While this wasn’t a bad start to thinking about the problem of trust in general, it suffered from being too simple (I’ll explain why.)
In this post, I want to explore a new approach suggested in a comment by Jordan Greenhall, based on measuring trust as a perspectival, probabilistic calculation rather than an inherent property of a node. First, let’s revisit the reasons why a trust metric is so critical for any peer-based credit network like Ripple to scale. Background Ripple is a system to create money out of credit relationships between peers, rather than between individuals and banking institutions, or the state. This sets the context for why Ripple needs a trust metric. Trust as Credit Ratio However, there are some serious limitations. The_Future_of_Money-Bernard_Lietaer.pdf (application/pdf Object) The Future of Money: It’s Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free | Magazine. Cash in the clouds—neither paper nor plastic.Illustration: Aegir Hallmundur; Benjamin Franklin: Corbis A simple typo gave Michael Ivey the idea for his company. One day in the fall of 2008, Ivey’s wife, using her pink RAZR phone, sent him a note via Twitter.
But instead of typing the letter d at the beginning of the tweet — which would have sent the note as a direct message, a private note just for Ivey — she hit p. It could have been an embarrassing snafu, but instead it sparked a brainstorm. That’s how you should pay people, Ivey publicly replied. Money Over Time A brief history of currency technology. —Bryan Gardiner 9000 BC: Cows The rise of agriculture made commodities like cattle and grain ideal proto-currencies: Since everyone knew what a heifer or a bushel was worth, the system was more efficient than barter.
Just a decade ago, the idea of moving money that quickly and cheaply would have been ridiculous. Ivey got around that problem by using PayPal. Eka-People.doc. Description of the system of mutual relations "Eka-People" Key ideas of the system : humanity and balance. Financial relations must become humane, and human relations - balanced.
The first can be archived by following the Gold rule of morality - do not "act in relation to other how you would not like, that they acted in relation to you". The second comes from understanding that even the best internals of people, appearing in the field of defective rules, involuntarily become on service to this system of rules. The rules of balance are called to put in order activity of people by an optimal method and with a positive result for the both, for an society on the whole and for everybody individually. Base of relations: Single the measure of all things. To be able to organise relations of people and put them in balance we need find way to measure these relations and set proper rules.
Most social and balanced forms of organisation of relation are Mutual Credit systems, like LETS and Time Banks. 1.
Transcript. Ira Glass This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our show of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, "The Invention of Money. " We have stories today about the fictional quality of money. How it gets made out of nothing, and what's great about that, and all the trouble that can get us into. We've arrived at Act 2 of our show. When the United States was on a real gold standard, it was clear what money was and how much money there was. If you have any cash in your pocket right now, pull it out, you see the name right at the top of the bills, Federal Reserve note.
Though the Federal Reserve does that, and though the Federal Reserve's chairman is appointed by the president. With me so far? Since 2008 when the current financial crisis took hold, the Fed has done all kinds of things that central banks just don't do. Alex Blumberg David Kestenbaum The meeting is closed to the press, members of Congress, even the president isn't allowed. Complementary Currency. Create your money.
Time Banks. The Monetary Future. Thomas H. Greco Jr. Bernard Lietaer. Transition Currency 2.0 - an online banking system for local money. UPDATE (10th June 2011) Dear Transitioners, This is a note to say that we have now began work building a service infrastructure for complementary currencies (Transition Currency 2.0). We are working to the 'Request for Proposal' attached below with some minor modifications. The Dutch complementary currency foundation QOIN are now partners with nef and Transition Network in the development of the service infrastructure, having worked with us from the beginning on the scope and functionality of the system and having now also made a significant financial investment via a Dutch philanthropic donor. After a competitive tendering process, we have chosen to use the Cyclos open source software for the back-end of the platform which is a tried and tested system for CCs connected to legal tender as with the existing Transition Currencies.
Cyclos has been developed over a ten year period by the Dutch NGO the Social Trade Organisation with whom we have strong links. Josh Ryan-Collins. The Secret of Oz - Winner, Best Docu of 2010 v.1.09.11. Ripplepay.com. MAD3/4/2 Money as Debt III - Evolution Beyond Money Part 4: Monetary Reform Movements / segment 2.