[p2p-research] Fwd: Vow of Wealth

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Interesting vow, and I like the sentiment (especially rejecting artificial 
scarcity), as a transition towards a gift economy.

Still, maybe the problem with money, as a way to manage true current 
scarcities as part of a cybernetic production system built around exchange, 
is that a single unified currency is not precise enough as a rationing 
method? By this I don't mean every city should have a currency (though Jane 
Jacobs recommends that) but that every material or other aspect of 
production should have its own currency. If I was making a cybernetic 
production system, internally that is what it would need, anyway. I would 
need to know how much a drill bit gets worn down in making a hole in an 
engine block, or how much energy a drilling operation takes, in order to 
understand how to allocate resources and see if the pattern of production 
was maintaining the overall health of the physical infrastructure (for 
example, ultimately, the drill bit needs to be replaced if it wears down, so 
there has to be enough use of cars to move materials to make another drill 
bit to make engine blocks).

What if we had ration units for the copper content of things, or ration 
units for various pollution aspects of things, or ration units for embodied 
energy, or ration units for the suffering of various workers, or ration 
units for various sorts of tool wear, where when you bought something you 
turned in perhaps hundreds or thousands or even millions of different types 
of ration units all at once to buy it? Computers these days could pretty 
much just as easily keep track of a purchase requiring thousands of 
different types of ration units as a purchase requiring just one type of 
ration unit (like euros or dollars).

That notion of currencies might even fit within the vow, which includes: "I 
commit to use free currencies that liberate and catalyze wealth everywhere, 
in any community, for every being, in a universal manner."

Again, I like the sentiment in the vow, but, even a gift economy or local 
subsistence economy would need some sort of way of deciding how many new 
drill bits to make today. Still, it is possible that it could all happen 
informally. I don't want to say it can't. Or, we may reach the point of 
abundance of materials and ease of production (Star Trek matter replicators) 
where these decisions about rationing are made easily or trivially -- like 
if almost everything was made of one amazing kind of plastic and it was 
easily recycled, we would not have to worry much about other materials.

But I think we will probably have a mix of different approaches, like the 
list here, and I now realize I think I had alternative currencies on it once 
and it dropped off:
"[p2p-research] Fwd: Re: Growing the 21st Century Economy" 
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-September/004848.html

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/


Michel Bauwens wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jean-Francois Noubel <jf at thetransitioner.org>
> Date: Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 8:24 PM
> Subject: Vow of Wealth
> To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> Cc: Fernanda Ibarra <fernanda at thetransitioner.org>
> 
> 
>  Dear Michel,
> 
> I am returning home after one month retreat in Mexico.
> This retreat has brought me the Vow of Wealth <http://noubel.com/vow>, that
> is now open and public in my blog.
> 
> On the practical level, this Vow leads to leaving the conventional monetary
> system. In a few months I won't use any conventional money anymore. Most of
> my social life will rely on free currencies <http://flowplace.org> in a gift
> economy context.
> 
> This shift raises tons of questions. I am aggregating them here in this new
> Wagn site <http://noubel.com/vow_faq>. Please feel free to contribute, add,
> improve. Although its a personal Vow, its consequences can't be anything
> else than collective. You may also leave a comment in my blog.
> 
> With love, joy and gratitude,
> 
> Jean-François