[p2p-research] anti-microfinance movement in nicaragua protests usury

[Michel Bauwens]

This is a really interesting debate.

Would someone volunteer to report on it on our blog?

Michel

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/19/09, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Default risk is everything with credit.  Since the day money was founded,
> > people have lent it and others have defaulted.  The only way to monetize
> > labor is the risk of effective slavery.
>
> I don't think default risk would be that significant in one of Greco's
> mutual credit-clearing systems.  In his system, members are permitted
> to run negative balances on a regular basis, up to whatever limit the
> local membership decides to impose (he suggests the equivalent of two
> month's services or sales).  If a member continues to run a negative
> balance close to the equivalent of two months' wages for his labor,
> but the account continues to turn over, that's fine under the terms of
> the system.  And if he simply stops selling goods and services, and
> his balance ceases to turn over, it's no great loss to the system.
> Also:  in a society following the collapse of the official currency
> and the capitalist credit system, where such credit-clearing systems
> were the main source of liquidity and credit, there would be strong
> incentives to maintain good standing as a necessity for being able to
> participate in the local economy.  So the incentives would be much
> like those against "skipping out on obs" in Russell's "And Then There
> Were None."
>
> > For now, value, collateral, interest and money just seem too elegant,
> simple
> > and obvious to not continue.
>
> But local currency and credit systems tend to proliferate in times of
> severe economic downturn, when there's a shortage of conventional
> money from the larger economy.  When people with productive
> capabilities to exchange but no money in hand need some source of
> liquidity, a credit-clearing system would be made to order.
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
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