an argument from shann turnbull ""I cannot see how money can become democratic unless its value is determined independently of the financial system just as standards of weights and measures are determined independently of those that use them as a common good." Local Standard of Value <http://p2pfoundation.net/Local_Standard_of_Value#mw-head> <http://p2pfoundation.net/Local_Standard_of_Value#p-search> Discussion[edit <http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Local_Standard_of_Value&action=edit§ion=1> ] Shann Turnbull: "I cannot see how money can become democratic unless its value is determined independently of the financial system just as standards of weights and measures are determined independently of those that use them as a common good. A local standard of value established in each bio-region would allow anyone in that region to enter intro contract to exchange goods and services with reference to the accepted standard. There would be no need for either a centralised or distributed ledger even if one was kept. Establishing the standard of value on a democratic basis becomes a governance problem not a financial one. Millions of producer and/or suppliers of benign renewable energy being shared through a cooperative creates a democratic governance arrangement that unlike LIBOR or foreign exchanges could have its value cross checked by millions of its stake holding suppliers/consumers. I would caution the call of requiring money to be created without debt unless you also specify "Bank" debt. If we are going to use money as a medium of exchange it will be creating private peer to peer debt! If you want democratic money then we cannot have money that creates money by earning interest. The ability of money to earn interest also misallocated resources to creating money rather than investing in real things that can increase prosperity on a sustainable basis without growth and even with de-growth." (email, February 2016) -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/