[p2p-research] [ox-en] The question of transition and the role of money (was: money jugglers)

[marc fawzi]

I think it's an issue of speaking from two different belief systems so
I don't think agreement or consensus is the goal here.

Having said that, and having blasted my views to this list before, I
still feel a need to express a certain "fact" about "free" software.

The most popular free software is supported heavily by corporations
like Google and IBM. Examples, include Firefox, Linux (the entire
Linux ecosystem is heavily supported by IBM's investment in Linux and
that ecosystem brings in revenue to companies and individuals who
contribute to Linux) It's not a direct reciprocal exchange but it's
still an exchange. If you work for a project that I depend on and I
turn around and point my customers to buy from you or to hire you then
I am paying you, just not directly. With respect to Firefox, it's
clear that it had been paid for by Google's money, which they
apparently have so much of they don't know what to do with, but if
they didn't have it and did not have indirect means of recouping their
energy spent (the lead developers) the project would have stalled and
crumbled as it reached a certain threshold of complexity.

I, too, as you may know, attempted to design a new monetary system
that is efficient, scalable and also kind to the people, and resilient
to --not intolerant of-- bad behavior.  It's documented in its final
form here: http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Energy_Economy

But then I realized that it had been designed with physical goods in
mind and unfortunately it seems that the universe makes it a very
complicated task to design "kind money" In other words, the way nature
works is almost as if struggle and strife is a fact and that extends
to everything physical (a subject that deserves its own thread.) So in
moving the focus to digital goods and services such as open software
and open software production (development) I realized that the
trajectory of increasing complexity the P2P Energy Economy mode was on
needed to be departed from and a new model catering specifically to
sustainable abundance (read: no reliance on major corporate supported
ecosystems or direct corporate funding) in open software and open
software production. The current thinking is on a much simpler model
that is based on cpu and man hour currency (where currency does not
ration the good or service for the sake of rationing but for the sake
of enabling it's sustained abundance) You can see more about that in
the discussion tab at:
http://p2pfoundation.net/Talk:P2P_Energy_Economy

But like I said, it's a matter of not being able to comprehend each
others logic as we come to this debate with two different belief
systems.

I do believe ultimately that the meaning of life (isn't that what it's
all about?) is to open up more and more not close in more and more.
Open up to pain, suffering, randomness, strife, and injustice and take
that in, while being resilient in our spirit and in our systems.
Shutting out pain and suffering and trying to come up with social
systems that avoid pain and suffering is a path towards spiritual
obsolescence not a path toward compassion.

Marc


On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 8:51 PM, magius <gmagius at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/2/24 Stefan Meretz <stefan at meretz.de>:
>
>> Then you would say, that "alternative money" is not that bad as
>> "capitalist money". This is a theoretical question. And my answer, which
>> I explained earlier here, is, that "money" is only the symbol for the
>> underlying mechanism of "equivalent exchange". Equivalent exchange is
>> only necessary in a society, where separated producers have to exchange
>> their products on markets and find a way to make this exchange just.
>
> Imho this approach simplifies too much the problem.
>
> On 2003 I was a participant to an italian group of work that tried to
> define a different monetary system. Our goal was to solve not only the
> problem of how the exchange works but also the access for individuals
> to wealth produced by society. Basicly we designed a system in which
> wealth production is integrated with social redistribution of it.
>
> We adopted a kind of money invented by Silvio Gesell in twenties
> called "free money". Free money is money issued with a negative rate,
> a money that constantly loose value. If money loose value, you have a
> way to automatically decrease the monetary mass and so to not generate
> inflation if you inflate constantly this mass.
>
> In our system the monetary mass is inflated issuing money to give to
> all system participants a "social dividend" that someone calls
> universal citizenship income. Each participant receives a basic
> income, issued in a negative rate money, to fund their basic needs,
> not related to work.
>
> When the monetary mass provided for the distribution of the "social
> dividend" is put in the system, a mass of the same value is issued for
> a "social lend", that is available to everyone ask for it. Each
> participant infact can ask to the "people's bank" (similar to one
> defined by Proudhon) a lend to fund a project that creates wealth
> within the system.
>
> In this way wealth creation (and its monetary mass issued for "social
> lend") is strictly connected with wealth redistribution (and its
> monetary mass issued for "social dividend").
>
> Personally I agree with you positions about free software as a
> non-exchange system, that's the real commonism germ form, but I really
> don't know how to define, using the range you prospect, our system.
> Is our alternative money system a way for  transition? Imho yes,
> because in our system capitalist accumulation is abolished and
> negative value is a sort of "practical education" to value abolition,
> using a "hacked" value!
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