[P2P-F] Fwd: Money for the People (GTN Discussion)

Michel Bauwens michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Tue Jul 11 09:13:04 CEST 2017 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: Money for the People (GTN Discussion)
To: Great Transition Network <gtnetwork at greattransition.org>


Having read Gwendolyn's contribution, I would like to caution on any too
enthusiastic reliance on the blockchain.

The blockchain is first and foremost a tool of the anarcho-capitalist
propertarians (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Bitcoin#Political_Aspects),
i.e. a tool for hyper-capitalist competitive markets, which we know lead to
oligarchies; moreover, interlinked data through such universal ledger can
easily lead to more control by the state and large corporations, who are
already heavily investing in these technologies. In other words, the
emancipatory aspects of the blockchain are not a given, and could lead to
hyper-state or hyper-market outcomes, not to a libertarian-propertarian
utopia.

But this is not so say that the idea of a universal ledger, linked to the
capacity of creating globa-local virtual currencies and tokens, has no
value at all or no potential for a more just, sustainable and open commons
economy.

The key is not in the currency, but in the value regime that is adapted and
which value regime the tokens or currencies represent. Do we accept that
value is only generated as a commodity with commodified labor, or do we
accept that communities can be value sovereign and recognize all value
contributions ?

Within the context of commons-based value sovereign communities, explored
in our report on Value in the Commons Economy (http://commonstransition.org/
value-commons-economy/), wiht 3 cases studies of how specific communities
chose to operate the boundary between the commons and the external market.
An earlier study of 300 peer production communities (P2P Value,https://wiki.
p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Value) is also highly interesting as it documents
that 78% of the communities studied have implemented, or were working on,
open and contributive accounting systems. The key will then to link the new
emerging value regime, with actual physical production, and it is in this
context of the 'open circular economy' (see our report, The Thermodynamics
of Peer Production, available via email request), and the need for
participatory and open supply chains, that the blockchain , as a universal
ledger, can play a vital role in the emergence of a mutual coordination
economy that will rely much less on planning and market pricing signals,
and much more on network resource planning amongst interlinked
commons-oriented entrepreneurial coalitions (I prefer to use
entre-donneurial, giving in between, rather than 'taking in between').

Interesting projects in this sphere are:

   - The Economic Space Agency
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Economic_Space_Agency> proposes
Commons-Oriented
   Decentralised Programmed Organisations
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Commons-Oriented_Decentralised_Programmed_Organisations>.
   cDPOs "are frameworks to bootstrap, develop & sustain commons projects".,
   aka, the commons-oriented version of DAO's. More info in the
article: Programmed
   Decentralised Commons Production
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Programmed_Decentralised_Commons_Production>
   .


   - The Metacurrency Project
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Metacurrency_Project> with Arthur Brock
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Arthur_Brock> et al. propose a Sovereign
   Accountable Commons
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Sovereign_Accountable_Commons> which is
   related to their Holochain
<https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Holochain> project,
   an alternative to the blockchain that does not require exponential energy
   usage


   - The FairCoop <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/FairCoop>/Freedom Coop
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Freedom_Coop> people, the creators of
   the Faircoin <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Faircoin>, are working
on a Open
   Collaborative Platform
   <https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Open_Collaborative_Platform>, which
   intents to merge both open contributive accounting mechanisms and open
   supply chains; Faircoin also has a low energy footprint*

In relation to the money world, I think we should aim for monetary
biodiversity

* the world of national sovereign currencies will continue to exist, but
could be reformed/transformed by progressive coalitions, on the lines
suggested by Mary Mellor, Positive Money, Modern Monetary Theory etc..; but
all these solutions stay in the redistributive sphere and recognize only
commodity value

* the world of complementary local currencies continues to expand to
protect and stimulate local economies against global instabilities and
extraction; there are a number of global credit commons initiatives which
aim to make these interoperable if they so wish (see the work of jem
bendell and matthew slater on protocol cooperativism); however, these
currencies are territorially based and are not very appropriate for global
productive coalitions

* thus we need the third sphere: the world of commons-based current-sees
(concept from Arthur Brock, seeing the currents of contributions) operates
for the virtual territories of globa-local productive communities,
(distinguished from the hypercapitalist cryptocurrencies based on the
libertarian blockchain which will soon be able to determine their relative
value to each other via the Bancor protocol, if it succeeds)

Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Great Transition Network <
gtnetwork at greattransition.org> wrote:

>
> From Gwendolyn Hallsmith <gwenhs at gmail.com>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Report from the Front Lines of Monetary Democracy
>
> Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Mary Mellor’s thoughtful essay
> about Money for the People. Her call for public money and robust,
> democratic, transparent money issuance can be seen as what Star Trek refers
> to as “the final frontier” in our efforts to create a resilient,
> sustainable world. I wholeheartedly agree with her public money solution,
> yet sadly lack her confidence in centralized, party-driven, representative
> global governance. I imagine she might be a Star Trek fan, with a secret
> hope that the Federation can save the day.
>
> I have to confess that I was immediately on guard with her abstract’s
> first sentence, which relegated “local initiatives” to the sidelines,
> claiming that they can only lead to modest gains, not large-scale
> transformation. Why are we so enamored with large scale in the first place?
> I have begun to see anything larger than human scale as part of the
> problem, not part of the solution. Particularly when it comes to democracy.
> (I am writing from the U.S., where we are suffering from extreme
> inequality’s impact on large-scale democracy – and the best government our
> corrupt and debt based money can buy).
>
> Beyond the initial assumption about local initiatives, she actually
> doesn’t talk at all about why large scale is needed, even in the quest for
> public money – she seems to conflate “public” with large, central states.
> Public comes in many flavors, after all, and the Sparkasse public banks in
> Germany have demonstrated that some level of public money is possible at a
> small scale – there is no town too small in Germany to host one of these
> independent, networked public banks. Here in bucolic Vermont, we have been
> working with some success to get a Vermont State Bank, which would wrest a
> portion of the money issuance authority from the large, private banks.
>
> My experience here, however, has shown me that the large powers – the
> globalized corporations, their partners in globalized banks, and their
> hapless cronies in neoliberal academia – have set numerous obstacles on the
> road to Money for the People, and these obstacles need to either be
> overcome or rendered obsolete before a large-scale transformation is
> possible. Overcoming them is nearly impossible – they control the media,
> the money supply, the armies, navies, courts, and legislatures. The rewards
> they offer their adherents – unlimited wealth, power, and privilege - is
> too strong a potion, even if it is only a pipe dream.
>
> Three years ago, 20 towns and cities in Vermont voted to direct the state
> legislature to establish a Vermont State Bank. Our towns and cities make
> decisions using the closest thing to direct democracy, where every
> registered voter has a right to vote on budgets, laws, and other
> propositions. Did the legislature take this democratic input and act? Not
> really. We still do not have a state bank, even though they threw us a bone
> where 10% of the money in the big banks is now loaned directly into the
> Vermont economy. This year, when we went to the legislature with the
> successful (and profitable) experience of that program as the wind at our
> backs, we ran into a stone wall.
>
> This is precisely because in addition to the growth imperative and
> inequality machine the current monetary system imposes, as Mellor very
> carefully and accurately documents, the artificial scarcity and hoarding
> the system requires pits the “haves” against the “have-nots” and the people
> in power – the elite – know on which side of the toast their bread is
> buttered, and do not lift a finger to help us, even when their political
> party has public banking as a plank in their platform. My faith in parties
> has died with my faith in large-scale democracy, I’m afraid. They are not
> public, they are not democratic, and they need to die a rapid and final
> death.
>
> Lest you imagine that my despair at the progress on the road to Money for
> the People has left me bereft, take heart. I believe we are on the cusp of
> the old system being rendered obsolete, much, much easier on some levels
> than overcoming the powers by fighting them directly through democratic
> organizing and legislative action. I am not giving up on that; just saying
> it is necessary but not sufficient.
>
> I have seen the future, and it is block chaining its way into the heart of
> the human value system, where things with true meaning and value can thrive
> again. The advent of new value-embedding technologies is something that
> Mellor does not even mention. While they are encrypted now in the
> labyrinthine interwebs, their principles and practices can apply
> universally, and I would argue even without the complex and sometimes
> impenetrable technology.
>
> My prediction: these systems will restore sovereignty to human-scale
> communities once again, and we will be free from large-scale totalitarian
> domination and impoverishment. They can be at once both private and public
> – the new transparency makes it possible to keep watch on their
> “amplification” and development. The distributed ledger is at once both
> local and global. Local iterations can spring into existence using highly
> democratic and time-tested issuance and conflict management practices.
> Their identity certification and transaction transparency can pave the way
> for direct, not party, democracy at all scales. The UN has just issued
> payments in a refugee camp in Ehters, for example, demonstrating that
> global and local can work together directly and effectively for the common
> good.
>
> Public, private, global, local, large and small – all of these demand
> definition and rethinking if we are to transcend the bitter and outdated
> paradigm that is driving the planet toward rapid human extinction.
> Neoliberal economics and their elitist partner in representative democracy
> are well past their shelf life – let’s bring on the new day already. Beam
> me up, Scotty.
>
> Gwen Hallsmith
>
> **************
>
> On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 9:31 AM, Great Transition Network wrote:
> From Paul Raskin
> ________________________________________
> Dear GTN,
>
> The old proverb—money is the root of all evil—may overstate the case, but
> money is, indeed, implicated in the iniquitous debt/growth spiral now
> degrading Earthland.
>
> Mary Mellor explains in her new GTI essay, “Money for the People,” that it
> needn’t be so. The modern money system is a social construct that evolved
> to spur capital accumulation, but lingers on in an era needing, instead, to
> throttle consumerism, debt, and the economic growth machine. Rather than
> creating money privately through bank lending, as the current system does,
> an alternative approach—public money—can undergird an economy oriented
> toward people and use value, not profit and exchange value.
>
> I think you’ll find Mary’s vision of a critical institutional pillar of a
> Great Transition economy illuminating, intriguing, and inspiring. Please
> read it at www.greattransition.org/publication/money-for-the-people, and
> let the comments and questions begin! How would public money work in
> practice? How would it interface with the market? How might its pursuit
> contribute to strategies for system change?
>
> Comments are welcome through JULY 31.
>
> Looking forward,
> Paul Raskin
> GTI Director
>
> HOW WE WORK
> Odd-numbered months are for internal GT Network discussions; even-numbered
> months are for public dissemination. You will receive all comments via
> email, and can review the entire thread online at
> www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-forum. The essay will be published
> alongside a “Roundtable,” comprised of selected comments from the GTN
> discussion and a response from the author.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Hit reply to post a message
> Or see thread and reply online at
> http://greattransition.org/forum/gti-discussions/191-money-
> for-the-people/2369
>
> Need help? Email jcohn at tellus.org
>
>
>


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