<div dir="ltr">an argument from shann turnbull<div><br></div><div>""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."</div><div><br></div><div><h1 id="firstHeading" class="" lang="en" style="color:black;font-weight:normal;margin:0px 0px 0.25em;overflow:visible;padding:0px;border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(170,170,170);font-size:1.8em;line-height:1.3;font-family:'Linux Libertine',Georgia,Times,serif;background:none">Local Standard of Value</h1><div id="bodyContent" class="" style="line-height:1.6;font-size:0.875em;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif"><div id="contentSub" style="font-size:11.76px;line-height:1.2em;margin:0px 0px 1.4em 1em;color:rgb(84,84,84);width:auto"></div><div id="jump-to-nav" class="" style="overflow:hidden;height:0px;zoom:1;margin-bottom:1.4em"><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Local_Standard_of_Value#mw-head" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background:none"></a><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Local_Standard_of_Value#p-search" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background:none"></a></div><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="" style="direction:ltr"><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit"><br></p><h1 style="color:black;font-weight:normal;margin:0px 0px 0.25em;overflow:hidden;padding:0px;border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(170,170,170);font-size:1.8em;font-family:'Linux Libertine',Georgia,Times,serif;line-height:1.3;background:none"><span class="" id="Discussion">Discussion</span><span class="" style="font-size:small;margin-left:1em;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;font-family:sans-serif"><span class="">[</span><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Local_Standard_of_Value&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Discussion" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background:none">edit</a><span class="">]</span></span></h1><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit">Shann Turnbull:</p><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit">"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.</p><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit">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.</p><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit">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.</p><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit">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!</p><p style="margin:0.5em 0px;line-height:inherit">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)</p></div></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
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