[P2P-F] presenting panoply

Fri Sep 9 17:28:10 CEST 2011

This seems quite progressive for the most part, and it seems to be not  
fully out of the neo-classical financialized capitalism box. Lietaer's own  
The Future of Money directly admits concession to the debt based monetary  
model. I believe I remember that it appears on page 214. In effect the  
agenda of nominal monetary reform without much actual monetary reform.

By way of an historical example from the 19 century in the US, Pres.  
Andrew Jackson's battle against the Second National Bank of the US as a  
group of blood thirsty frauds and thieves was not a simple hero story  
featuring good guy versus bad guys. It is actually an example of right  
problem but wrong solution. The power of the states and local banks to  
circulate their own certificates/currencies was the applied solution  
became known as the free banking era in US economic history. As a  
consequence of no banking regulations virtually at all By the time of the  
issuance of the US Greenbacks in 1861 there were 7,000 different  
currencies being used. The Free Banking period is renown for the  
widespread fraud, bankruptcy, and counterfeiting resulting from a state's  
rights "solution" to a commons problem. This is the same level of  
subversion of the need for a genuine alternative in a commons based  
monetary paradigm.

The Greenbacks became politically hazardous later exactly because of the  
massive positive effect of an asset based, sovereign issued currency, the  
banking sector lobbied hard toward converting the US system onto a Gold  
standard, and they won that one. In 1863-4 the National Banking acts were  
passed as a compromise with the banking sector of the pro-war merchants.  
These laws allowed the operations and incorporation of banking  
corporations across state lines and shut down the ability of local and  
state banks to issue currencies. This allowed the mega-banks to be largely  
control the development of the economy once the US Civil War ended. And  
there is more, and then also the fraud of the US Federal Reserve, in the  
lineage of the Bank of England fraud playbook. The failings of the  
Confederacy was particularly interesting in that they preserved the states  
rights category of impairing actual common economic participation, and  
thereby did not have anything like the Greenbacks.

The point here is that the same sort of centrifugal dynamics will prevail,  
including in the assumption of limited framing and alternatives. To put it  
in zen koan structure, when is an alternative, like one hand clapping? To  
put it another way perhaps the possibilities should be only limited by our  
capacities, rather than by the acceptance of standards and policy manuals  
for the sake of free rent and worse. Cook's Open Capital model also hovers  
on the edge of the post-Keynesian macro-commons. In effect the Greenback  
was the right solution to the chicanery of the Second National Bank of the  
US. It was not a debt based currency. Exhortations to a social  
libertarianism seem most practical when the additional capacities can be  
explored outside the installed pre-suppositions.

as we go, Tadit Anderson

Civilized, gives people equal economic opportunity and basic income  
security.

  Massively parallel decision making and pricing based on a market (the  
best of capitalism).

  Environmentally conscious.

  Resilient to future changes in automation, robotics.

  P2P lending encourages community building, nurturing trust, and long term  
thinking.

  Resolves the tragedy of the commons in a mature way:

  P2P trust effectively limits the effects of free-loaders without ruining  
the entire playing field.

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:00:19 -0400, Michel Bauwens  
<michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:

> *Mohamad Tarifi <http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/bio/tarifi/>'s economic
> proposals at http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/tarifi20110908 are quite
> interesting and sensible,
>
> I'll be excerpting the p2p paragraphs on the blog on the 18th,
>
> Michel
> *