Interesting idea but how to really anchor it in economic reality, where regular money does exactly the opposite (very efficiently) and erasing all different aspects of wealth, melting it into one single number? It would need strong "dimensions" like different communities with certain values they live and fix for themselves (and would not easily bend). Maybe then, in trading between them and others they could implement a multidemensional clearing to pass their values also to the outside and filter foreign goods to fit in their own value system.
Years ago we had a pilot with a local (paper) money that had, like a check but as a list, the date, reason/content and the buyers name of the last transactions on it, so registering where the specific bill was passing. There you had like three dimensions as in the next purchase, the seller could reject certain bills as he/she would not like the reason or the people who were using this bill before. This was a measure/try to make transactions transparent and hinder unethical trade in an analog way. It was an interesting story but stopped after two years.
The relative value index would live as part of a curation. A curation of general commitments toward resources (Commitment Pool) made exchangeable - might work naturally as a local economic system in villages - while in cities each pool would likely be much more specialized - and the network of those pools becomes an aggregate bottom up economic system.
For instance the curation of gift cards and loyalty points from the best vegan restaurants serves the purpose of discoverability, marketing and exchange between those businesses and their clients. By itself that vegan commitment pool would not be a whole economy, but it could be connected via common commitments to other pools and form a network.
Generally the local 'money' approach misses the element of valuable curation and goes too broad too fast trying to get everyone under one structure or one currency. This is essentially the colonial method of imperial monetary systems - just on a smaller scale. This is one of the main flaws I see in the alternative or community currency or mutual credit space.
"Generally the local 'money' approach misses the element of valuable curation and goes too broad too fast trying to get everyone under one structure or one currency. This is essentially the colonial method of imperial monetary systems - just on a smaller scale. This is one of the main flaws I see in the alternative or community currency or mutual credit space. "
Whereas it's been my contention for several years that YOUR project is thoroughly colonial. But not necessarily beyond redemption.
Perhaps we can find an hour to debate this - live, with audience and facilitation - for the record?
Yes, I've come to think of my early understanding of currency as very much a colonial construct and hash out in that paper where that and observing ancestral practices has brought me over the years. I should point out that your "YOUR" is a little misguided - to see the work I've been part of involving Grassroots Economics, Red Cross, WFP, many many villages and community groups and many many peers, as just 'my project'. But I can see how it might seem that way to you .
Commitment Pooling feels like the right fit for what I love. Please do read the document and make a response document yourself or if you like a video and share it and we can work asynchronously.
I am working on a project which is explicitly about foreign exchange (as in Keynes' Bancor that Will cites) among the local/regional alternative currencies that Will has lost faith in. So definitely a different model but overlapping math. Its working title is "oSwaps" and you can see more here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTmC7q4ZZ5mRnV9lbdmUJJcFee6a2D0i0FU7ORvYndY/edit?usp=drivesdk
In this model relative values are floating rather than curated, although I anticipate "curators" (local/regional governance mechanisms) would take actions within their economic scope to encourage stability in relative valuation (exchange rates).
Here is a pool with 69 Community Asset Vouchers (you might call them community currencies). Relative value between them can be changed by a stewardship council. I think our SwapPool contracts do everything you are asking for, and if not happy to improve the system etc.
I suppose it's important for folks to understand why we don't use the term money or currency. As we've understood nonmonetary resource coordination and developed the commitment pooling protocol ... I've seen currency as a form of value signals, one issued by the state. That particular value signal .. money ... Is exactly what people understand it to be and there is a history of trauma that surrounds the words money and currency.
Commitment Pooling is about curated environments that enable exchange between value signals.
The main question I get from software designers is, why don't you use my code .... Instead of them looking at the open source agpl3.0 code already in use.
Hi Will
Interesting idea but how to really anchor it in economic reality, where regular money does exactly the opposite (very efficiently) and erasing all different aspects of wealth, melting it into one single number? It would need strong "dimensions" like different communities with certain values they live and fix for themselves (and would not easily bend). Maybe then, in trading between them and others they could implement a multidemensional clearing to pass their values also to the outside and filter foreign goods to fit in their own value system.
Years ago we had a pilot with a local (paper) money that had, like a check but as a list, the date, reason/content and the buyers name of the last transactions on it, so registering where the specific bill was passing. There you had like three dimensions as in the next purchase, the seller could reject certain bills as he/she would not like the reason or the people who were using this bill before. This was a measure/try to make transactions transparent and hinder unethical trade in an analog way. It was an interesting story but stopped after two years.
The relative value index would live as part of a curation. A curation of general commitments toward resources (Commitment Pool) made exchangeable - might work naturally as a local economic system in villages - while in cities each pool would likely be much more specialized - and the network of those pools becomes an aggregate bottom up economic system.
For instance the curation of gift cards and loyalty points from the best vegan restaurants serves the purpose of discoverability, marketing and exchange between those businesses and their clients. By itself that vegan commitment pool would not be a whole economy, but it could be connected via common commitments to other pools and form a network.
Generally the local 'money' approach misses the element of valuable curation and goes too broad too fast trying to get everyone under one structure or one currency. This is essentially the colonial method of imperial monetary systems - just on a smaller scale. This is one of the main flaws I see in the alternative or community currency or mutual credit space.
"Generally the local 'money' approach misses the element of valuable curation and goes too broad too fast trying to get everyone under one structure or one currency. This is essentially the colonial method of imperial monetary systems - just on a smaller scale. This is one of the main flaws I see in the alternative or community currency or mutual credit space. "
Whereas it's been my contention for several years that YOUR project is thoroughly colonial. But not necessarily beyond redemption.
Perhaps we can find an hour to debate this - live, with audience and facilitation - for the record?
Hi there, check out the paper linked here on Commitment Pooling https://grassecon.org/commitment-pooling (will send the final version your way shortly).
Yes, I've come to think of my early understanding of currency as very much a colonial construct and hash out in that paper where that and observing ancestral practices has brought me over the years. I should point out that your "YOUR" is a little misguided - to see the work I've been part of involving Grassroots Economics, Red Cross, WFP, many many villages and community groups and many many peers, as just 'my project'. But I can see how it might seem that way to you .
Commitment Pooling feels like the right fit for what I love. Please do read the document and make a response document yourself or if you like a video and share it and we can work asynchronously.
I am working on a project which is explicitly about foreign exchange (as in Keynes' Bancor that Will cites) among the local/regional alternative currencies that Will has lost faith in. So definitely a different model but overlapping math. Its working title is "oSwaps" and you can see more here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTmC7q4ZZ5mRnV9lbdmUJJcFee6a2D0i0FU7ORvYndY/edit?usp=drivesdk
In this model relative values are floating rather than curated, although I anticipate "curators" (local/regional governance mechanisms) would take actions within their economic scope to encourage stability in relative valuation (exchange rates).
Here is a pool with 69 Community Asset Vouchers (you might call them community currencies). Relative value between them can be changed by a stewardship council. I think our SwapPool contracts do everything you are asking for, and if not happy to improve the system etc.
Link to such a pool https://sarafu.network/pools/0x48a953cA5cf5298bc6f6Af3C608351f537AAcb9e
I suppose it's important for folks to understand why we don't use the term money or currency. As we've understood nonmonetary resource coordination and developed the commitment pooling protocol ... I've seen currency as a form of value signals, one issued by the state. That particular value signal .. money ... Is exactly what people understand it to be and there is a history of trauma that surrounds the words money and currency.
Commitment Pooling is about curated environments that enable exchange between value signals.
The main question I get from software designers is, why don't you use my code .... Instead of them looking at the open source agpl3.0 code already in use.