OT: A system that would replace money

[adventurepants_]

I already barter in my extended circle. I know many people with skills, and we trade them in helping each other, mostly trading in time. We all offer money, but part of the ritual is turning it down, in the expectation that a favour will be called in down the track. We dont need a tracking system, we are all grownups.

On the small scale, many people do this already.

Outside of my circle, i dont trust any of you as far as money is concerned. Im glad that cash is backed up by laws and regulations so that there is no debate about how much a dollar is worth.


On the macro scale, how do i get a bank loan to buy a house, if there are no banks? Do i have to convince 50 people to lend me 10k each? Remember that your time is worth money. I dont want to have several hundred conversations a week about how Jane changed her mind about how much mowing her lawn was worth.

Innovation needs liquid money. There is a direct historical correlation between the explosive rise of technology, and the formation of banks and mercantile institutions in the 19th Century. How do you propose to continue innovation without liquid cash?

And on the ground level, someone would hack your program, and would be impersonating you and taking your phat l00tz within about 3 seconds.

Im not trying to criticise, its a great discussion, and im glad people are thinking differently about this.

[Grappadura]

I already barter in my extended circle. I know many people with skills, and we trade them in helping each other, mostly trading in time. We all offer money, but part of the ritual is turning it down, in the expectation that a favour will be called in down the track. We dont need a tracking system, we are all grownups.

On the small scale, many people do this already.

Outside of my circle, i dont trust any of you as far as money is concerned. Im glad that cash is backed up by laws and regulations so that there is no debate about how much a dollar is worth.


On the macro scale, how do i get a bank loan to buy a house, if there are no banks? Do i have to convince 50 people to lend me 10k each? Remember that your time is worth money. I dont want to have several hundred conversations a week about how Jane changed her mind about how much mowing her lawn was worth.

Innovation needs liquid money. There is a direct historical correlation between the explosive rise of technology, and the formation of banks and mercantile institutions in the 19th Century. How do you propose to continue innovation without liquid cash?

And on the ground level, someone would hack your program, and would be impersonating you and taking your phat l00tz within about 3 seconds.

Im not trying to criticise, its a great discussion, and im glad people are thinking differently about this.

Hey man, good points!

About the house: A bank does not give you a loan if they don´t think you will eventually be able to pay it back. Same goes here. The house - seller will sell you the house if you´re worthy of credit. Now, instead of the bank giving the money to the house - seller, you give it to him, by issuing a debt warrant over the value of the house (= money). He can spend it inmediatly after. The house - buyer will have to generate value until he has paid his debt. He will basically be rebuying his debt warrant. When the debt warrant is paid, this "money" disappears.

If you are conscious about the fact that money represents debt, it would be good to have a system that makes the book keeping in a way that it cancels out your debts.

Liquid money: I dont disclose money raising as a job in this system. You can have other investors, and you can pay someone to raise these funds. But the very good thing about this system is that you can go to exactly to those people whos services or goods you require to make your project happen, and you can issue money from your own bank (extending a debt). No middlemen (banks) required.

[Grappadura]

some more on your post. You said you barter already, but you don´t trust people outside your social environment.

what if you could see that your money goes through other peoples hands and returns to you. If you could see who was involved in these transactions, you might start to trust other people, and even get to know them personally.

[adventurepants_]

I already barter in my extended circle. I know many people with skills, and we trade them in helping each other, mostly trading in time. We all offer money, but part of the ritual is turning it down, in the expectation that a favour will be called in down the track. We dont need a tracking system, we are all grownups.

On the small scale, many people do this already.

Outside of my circle, i dont trust any of you as far as money is concerned. Im glad that cash is backed up by laws and regulations so that there is no debate about how much a dollar is worth.


On the macro scale, how do i get a bank loan to buy a house, if there are no banks? Do i have to convince 50 people to lend me 10k each? Remember that your time is worth money. I dont want to have several hundred conversations a week about how Jane changed her mind about how much mowing her lawn was worth.

Innovation needs liquid money. There is a direct historical correlation between the explosive rise of technology, and the formation of banks and mercantile institutions in the 19th Century. How do you propose to continue innovation without liquid cash?

And on the ground level, someone would hack your program, and would be impersonating you and taking your phat l00tz within about 3 seconds.

Im not trying to criticise, its a great discussion, and im glad people are thinking differently about this.

Hey man, good points!

About the house: A bank does not give you a loan if they don´t think you will eventually be able to pay it back. Same goes here. The house - seller will sell you the house if you´re worthy of credit. Now, instead of the bank giving the money to the house - seller, you give it to him, by issuing a debt warrant over the value of the house (= money). He can spend it inmediatly after. The house - buyer will have to generate value until he has paid his debt. He will basically be rebuying his debt warrant. When the debt warrant is paid, this "money" disappears.

If you are conscious about the fact that money represents debt, it would be good to have a system that makes the book keeping in a way that it cancels out your debts.

Liquid money: I dont disclose money raising as a job in this system. You can have other investors, and you can pay someone to raise these funds. But the very good thing about this system is that you can go to exactly to those people whos services or goods you require to make your project happen, and you can issue money from your own bank (extending a debt). No middlemen (banks) required.

Wouldnt this lead to a sort of indentured servitude? those debt warrants could possibly be bought and sold, and suddenly someone else would hold a bunch of your debt warrants, meaning you would be a legal slave to that person?

[Grappadura]

Wouldnt this lead to a sort of indentured servitude? those debt warrants could possibly be bought and sold, and suddenly someone else would hold a bunch of your debt warrants, meaning you would be a legal slave to that person?

No, if this would happen you would just owe money to a single person. Same as today. You can repay by introducing value to the system. Due to the intelligent book keeping system, if through any business chain the creditor is favoured, the debt is cancelled out.

[adventurepants_]

some more on your post. You said you barter already, but you don´t trust people outside your social environment.

what if you could see that your money goes through other peoples hands and returns to you. If you could see who was involved in these transactions, you might start to trust other people, and even get to know them personally.

Money changes things. Two people who have been friends for years can instantly turn on each other if money is involved. We have all seen this happen.



How do the police and the courts enforce non payment in this system? What are the recourses if someone scams you? You can say that they would be shunned by the barter system, but there is always a trusting sucker out there ready to give their cash away. The fact that spam email scams are wildly successful with only a .001 strike rate bears this out.

I love these coop ideas that social networking technology has given us. things like Freecycle and the Couch Surfer sites show that people can and do trust strangers, and it pretty much turns out well. It just makes me uneasy once the transaction reaches a certain value, some people will sell their Mother for a 'fat wad of cash and a stack of French porn".

the world needs more idealism. Write a book and start a movement!

[OvertoneZero]

imho the issue is not with the existence of money, which is simply a convenience, an abstract unit of value.. it is with the implementation of the currency and fractional reserve systems

[micro-jr]

Sorry, i just dont get this.

This is the system we had, right?
This is the system that evolved into the system we have today, right?

Some points, sorry if you have dealt with these before in the thread.

1: If the lawnmover man from your example breaks his leg he is fucked.
There will, for different reasons, always be people unable to contribute.
Your system tries it best to exclude them, voila an underclass is created.

2: This whole " keeping the money in your social circle" thing disturbes me.
It smells of egoism and protectionism. By keeping the money away from a central
distributor you take away lots of opportunities to distribute wealth among those who most
need it. True, many countries dont use these opportunities anyway but some do.

3: You keep on about removing the middlemen/ the banks.
Those are people as well. My bank offers services to me, services I happily
pay for with money. The problems starts when banks stop being banks and
become money making vehicles in themself. This is a flaw with the system that
can/ should be regulated. Anyway, the reasons why it happens would still
exist in your system, human nature.


Keep up the work though, it sure is interesting.

[crumhorn]

In this system how would we fund things things like road networks, electricity distribution grids, water and sewage networks, police forces, armies and rockets to the moon, etc?

[micro-jr]

In this system how would we fund things things like road networks, electricity distribution grids, water and sewage networks, police forces, armies and rockets to the moon, etc?

I`ll build the road to your house and fix the sewage for......say, a million and a half haircuts?

[SubFunk]

I still don't see any advantage, because it will be just like any other idea that tries to deal with the 'organisation' of humans, good idea (well in this case i don't even see any difference, except money vs haircuts or apples) and it will fail in the long run... we are humans there will never ever be a 'system' that will make us equal or something, we are simply not designed like that (and thanks for that)

[Angstrom]

the problem is not 'money' , it's not even 'profit'. The problems begin when wealth is abstracted into 'shares' that are treated as a meta-currency, but one that controls the lives of people as barter coins

Money is OK
money is just a barter counter that enables barters to be carried outside the immediate social circle.
Think of a worker who can buy raw material cheaply, he adds labour, then sells the outcome at a profit. That profit is what enables him to buy food, with the rest of the money going to buy more raw materials.

Now, even when we scale this up to 1000 workers all doing the same thing, receiving 'profit' (wages), and spending it at the local butcher/baker/brothel. The system is still pretty good, it is an abstracted barter that allows easy quick self-valuation and easy and quick trade of goods and services.

Even better: if one worker falls ill the other workers will kindly let him still draw those barter tokens(money), as the profit is collectively made.

When it goes bad
If some workers abuse the system, they sell part of their 'share' of the wage.
They know that they will earn 1000 credits in a year, so they sell half of their wage for a quick 500 creds.
Now the badness begins. Now there is a new economy of buying and selling indentures
the 'share' is now owned by someone who has no care for anything but the value of the share, and the dividend it produces.

big subject

[H20nly]

So I was driving along in my car last night... got caught at a light and started to wonder...

This is the system we had, right?
This is the system that evolved into the system we have today, right?

...that exact thing.


Surely this is how what we have now started.
Granted, its always good to start over, but will the fate be any different?
The people and their faces have changed, but greed has remained the same for as long as our collective histories can count.


+ 1 on Angstrom's post above.

[SubFunk]

So I was driving along in my car last night... got caught at a light and started to wonder...

This is the system we had, right?
This is the system that evolved into the system we have today, right?

...that exact thing.


Surely this is how what we have now started.
Granted, its always good to start over, but will the fate be any different?
The people and their faces have changed, but greed has remained the same for as long as our collective histories can count.


+ 1 on Angstrom's post above.

exactly, any system applied to humans will fail.

[Grappadura]

Hey guys, I opened "part II", a new thread to this topic, cause I got my manifesto together. Plz tell me if it makes sense to you.