Complementary Currency
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Gift Economy
The Special Logic of Gift Economies « Webisteme
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.
Confidence builds confidence. Order generates more order. Them that has, gets. - Kevin Kelly, The Nine Laws of God A recent conversation with a friend on the subject of “karmic” social currencies led me to an interesting idea.* What if it were possible to design a social currency which created positive feedback: the more you earned it through helping others, the more help would likely come your way in return. One interpretation of Karma is as a principle of increasing returns: the more you act in a certain way, the more the feedback from your environment reflects this way of acting. Do good onto others, and others will do good onto you.
Social Currencies and Increasing Returns « Webisteme
Thoughts on the Retweet Economy « Webisteme
This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek post, but with a more serious purpose in mind… Let’s start by asking a broader question: What does it mean to ask whether there is a retweet economy? I think there are a few things which would have to apply for there to be one: Since the first point is obviously the case, I’ll start with the second. The idea is a little perplexing, because retweets are not necessarily exchanged. The mere fact that someone retweeted your tweet doesn’t necessarily create an obligation to return the favour – although, it sometimes can. In some contexts, it might be normal to try to reciprocate a retweet, in others, it isn’t really an issue.
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.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?
What should Peer-to-Peer Money be? « Webisteme
#PunkMoney: How to Print Money on Twitter « Webisteme
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.
GiftPunk: A Twitter Tool for Giftcasting « Webisteme
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.
Welcome to the Metacurrency Project | The MetaCurrency Project
If the next economy is going to facilitate healthy flows of resources and information which support people, society and the planet, we have a lot of changes to make. Because that's certainly not what the current economy does. We are building the means (technology platforms and protocols) for this kind of healthy economy to exist.
If we stop buying stuff and start giving away what we have. Not only our stuff, but our time, our skills and our emotions. Our fundamental measures of value, the fiat currencies, are collapsing under our very noses.
Matslats - Community currency engineer | "Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessing" - Thomas Carlisle
The impersonality of markets can perhaps be described like this: when you turn up in a shop, as long as you have money to pay for the goods you want to purchase, it doesn’t matter to the shop-owner who you might be, or whether he will ever see you again. Having the money to pay him is enough for the transaction to proceed. It might be that the shop-keeper does in fact have a personal relationship with you, but it’s not essential for a market transaction to take place.
webisteme
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.
The Future of Money: It’s Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free | Magazine
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. Most social and balanced forms of organisation of relation are Mutual Credit systems, like LETS and Time Banks. Members of these system are free to interact each other by-passing regular intermediaries.
Eka-People.doc
Virtual Currencies
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."
Transcript | This American Life
Create your money
Community Currencies
Time Banks
The P2P Foundation thinks that readers may be interested in the following recent development. First, one word about the structure of the P2P Foundation. The Foundation is first of all a virtual and physical community of contributors, people who volunteer content for our wiki, blog and other resources. This is entirely a non-remunerated activity and creates our knowledge commons, which people in the world can access for free.
The Monetary Future
Thomas H. Greco Jr.
Bernard Lietaer