Thanks for links… very clear and well-laid out presentations.

The trick is finding mechanisms for moving from debt-based present system to new formulations in ways that are politically and culturally feasible. While some sort of ‘all-at-once’ shift may be theoretically possible it’s not likely short of a complete collapse first… which could, and would likely produce some unpleasant side-effects… and quite possibly an ugly Authoritarianism.

I believe the Commons-dedicated Account* (and resultant network)… which can grow naturally because of benefits entirely separate from currency creation… and can operate along-side of current ‘debt-based’ money so long as it exists…

Can eventually become a core structure for facilitating new modes of currency and credit.

*A Self-supporting , Commons-owned neutral network of accounts for both political and charitable monetary contribution… which for fundamental reasons of scale must allow a viable micro-transaction (think x-box points for action in the Commons). The resultant network catalyzes additional functionality for co-ordination of other social energy** utilization. (If desired, It’s also the most neutral and ultimately politically viable method for the public finance of elections.)

Technology & The Decision Landscape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXdhGQOwm54

**social energy: individual and collective decisions operating within the limits of available resources and natural law which (quite literally) result in the product you see as a civilization. A decision here is defined as an idea + an action. Decisions can be motivated by any number of factors. Technologies result from previous decisions thus becoming available resources. And decision here is defined broadly… everything from “Let’s build a pyramid for the pharoah!” to “I’ve got a headache I think I’ll lie down.”

All we see that is a civilization can be most fundamentally defined as a product of decisions: ideas + actions.

Political and economic systems are ‘decision technologies’…

Money as Debt:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544#

The Money Fix:
http://www.themoneyfix.org/content/video-money-fix

Michel

Cheers, keep on your important work,
Martin

thanks for the precisions.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. Of course, a changed capitalism remains a capitalism, but I do believe there are relative autonomous spheres, such as money and finance, and that it remains valuable to work on them as long as they are unavoidable realities. This being said, advocates of alternative currencies see it not necessarily as a measure to change the system at a macro level, but to protect local communities against dislocation, and it has historically played that role. I understand your preference for peer production, which I share, but how can you achieve a society or economy in which it is the core mode of being, while not also tackling the whole social environment, which includes modes of exchanges, gift economy logics and the like. You need to have an integrative strategy that sustains the further emergence of peer production within the existing reality, before a wished for phase transition can occur. Surely, you cannot sensible advocate a ‘wait and see’ attitude, waiting for the natural growth of peer production, oblivious of everything else that surrounds it.

I believe that in this context, it makes sense to tackle all other infrastructures, and to distribute them if possible, since that augments the chances of self-aggregation according to different logics than the dominant one, and that the capacity to mobilize resources can be greatly enhanced by different types of exchange.

That to me, is what this debate is about.

Nobody trying to achieve more sensible exchange mechanisms is saying that means capitalism is necessarily ‘good’. (though some may find it acceptable, reformable, etc …). This being said, I find it entirely legitimate that some social forces want to maintain the freedom to exchange, say ‘fair traders’, or ‘social enterpreneurs’ or ‘cooperative banks’.

Michel

I certainly didn’t say that your argument was antisemitic, I just pointed to the fact that making the dichotomic distinction “real productive sphere = good”, “fictional money sphere = bad” historically played a role in the growth of antisemitism. Certainly you don’t mean it this way, but all the same, it’s a dangerous distinction to make, and it’s also not correct, because the two belong closely together. Corporations need credit and thrive on it, money going freely around the world is not bad – INSIDE capitalism, it works better than having a lot of restrictions. And no, I’m neither from Oekonux “stable” nor “absolutist”, only someone who speaks his thoughts freely.

On the contrary, being open to the vision that capitalism can be moderated/changed tranformed through taxation/regulation, and that money is a design issue opens many avenues for positive social action.

Personally, I’m for going away from capitalism to peer production as dominant mode of production. That’s not to say that capitalism cannot take different forms (on the surface), but in my view, it is a system with a certain logic which cannot be basically changed. For example, if social measures are introduced, a minimum wage defined etc., the inherent laws of capitalism make it necessary that these are under constant pressure to be removed again. And they often are, i.e. since the 1980s a lot of social measures which were the result of long fights were removed very quickly and with little resistance, the argument being “they destroy jobs”. But jobs are necessarily scarce in capitalism (see again Marx, Capital I) and competition is always forcing the capitalists to lower wages. These basic tendencies make every social improvement of capitalism a fragile and often short-lived one. Wouldn’t you agree that since the 1990s, as socialism vanished as competition, capitalism converts back to what it was in the 19th century?

I also note another dangerous implication in your first paragraph, which is actually very perverse, since you seem to suggest that any attempt to improve or change society is actually antisemitic in nature (I wouldn’t have noticed it, but for the fact that some people in Oekonux use this argument again and again to discredit their opponents, a very sad and destructive practice, so I’m assuming you are coming from that stable?).

Putting market, exchange, finance, money, finance in a black bag called capitalism and putting a sticker on it, ‘do not touch’, is a really disastrous formula for political and social action.

On the contrary, being open to the vision that capitalism can be moderated/changed tranformed through taxation/regulation, and that money is a design issue opens many avenues for positive social action.