[P2P-F] self-regulating markets

Tue Jun 21 21:51:01 CEST 2011

El 21/06/11 04:23, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis dijo:

> What I am about to say needs testing and more thinking but let me tell you
> what I have done so far to create an alternative to the free market.

We're probably using the term "free market" in a different sense.  The
market can refer simply to the cash nexus, or the arena of commodity
production for monetized exchange.

But it can also be used, by market anarchist like me, to describe the
entire spectrum of voluntary transactions and relationships --
including cooperatives, gift economies, communal property, informal
barter, mutual aid, etc.

>>  I have created a new class of currencies that are very similar to the
>> very
>>  old currencies. What if each person used the creation of his work as
>>  currency. When someone owns 5 paul's chairs for example , It is meant
>> that
>>  Paul will have to give him those 5 chairs in the future if he asks for
>> them.
>>  This is then some kind of loan. Someone gives something now in exchange
>> for
>>  something in the future. If he doesnt need the chairs, he might have to
>>  exchange Paul's chairs with something else.

That sounds a lot like Tom Greco's mutual credit clearing networks,
which I'm a big fan of.  Every member runs a balance that looks a lot
like the balance in a checking account.  When you sell a good or
service to a member your balance goes up, and when you purchase same
it goes down.  And the system allows people to run negative balances,
so long as the negative balance is limited to some value relative to
their average monthly sales and the account continues to be active and
turn over.  So "money" is essentially backed by the goods being
traded; rather than being a store of value from past production, it is
simply a unit of account for denominating trade of present-for-present
or present-for-future production.  Nobody has to have a store of money
from past production in order to trade, so there's no problem of
economic stagnation for want of liquidity ("there's not enough money
in circulation").  People create money by trading.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html