Arthur referred to the comments made by Verdon to my post on alternative money. Somehow I lost this post and didn't properly acknowledge it. It is reproduced in full below, and I apologise to Verdon.
Arthur is entirely correct. Verdon does much which is useful in his exploration the role and nature of money. He correctly suggests that money began as something which was intrinsically valuable in its own right. Notwithstanding this, however, money was always a measure against which the value of one item could be compared with another (ie wheat compared with shoes, not wheat compared with the particular unit which comprised money in that society and then shoes compared with the money unit). The reason this is important, as Verdon goes on to imply, is that anything can represent money - so long as those who use it as money agree that it is valuable and will exchange it for whatever they have or want. Verdon then goes on to point out the inherent subjectivity of any human measurement - and that applies to money whether the unit of money is intrinsically valuable or not. In the modern world of money we pretend that this subjectivity doesn't exist by quoting official looking exchange rates on the evening news (much as Verdon points out that we pretend objectivity in Olympic diving by having multiple judges). However, all decisions about money are subjective - ie they are about trust. Hence, Verdon and Arthur are right, anything can be money - but the key issue is what is it about anything which is chosen as money which might make people believe in its value. The reason why I go on about this is simply that most of us most of the time forget the criticality of the trust which underpins our entire monetary system. Or at least, we choose to forget it because otherwise we would have to deal with it. Those in control of our current money systems are hell bent on making a profit from them (ergo the Zimbabwe experience in which the despot is attempting to manipulate money to his advantage, and seems to be failing). Many of us feel dissatisfied by the current system (though usually for different reasons, which is why it is so hard to get a real discussion going) - I have long concluded that it can't be reformed short of the sort of disastrous revolution which I have devoted the past twelve years of my live to avoiding. Hence, I am interested in how small groups of people might come together to agree that something outside the conventional dollar might be their 'currency' and how a multiplicity of such decisions might increase the likelihood that 'currency' was put to a better use. Ultimately, this is all because I despair that the current economic system is capable of providing work for all who want it - and I hope (and believe) that this issue might be successfully tackled through the creation of a network of community currencies which operate 'below the radar' of the conventional system. Thanks to Arthur and Verdon for encouraging me to think this through. Charles Brass Chairman futures foundation phone:1300 727328 (International 61 3 9459 0244) fax: 61 3 9459 0344 PO Box 122 Fairfield 3078 www.futuresfoundation.org.au the mission of the futures foundation is: "...to engage all Australians in creating a better future..." I thought the contribution by Verdon was of interest. If I have it right he seemed to be saying: To have a trial project where contributions are valued and rewarded with money. Not a strict wage for labour system but, rather, payment for contributions that are valued by the broader community. This could be part of a guaranteed annual income trial as well. The trick will be to get consensus on what is valued and gets to define it. Verdon Said: I have spent sometime thinking about this. In many ways I don't think money is the root of the problem, rather it is the particular economic system that we have created in the last few hundred years that is the problem - specifically the structure by which we can gain access to money - which is generally selling our labour. My theory of money - a story of value, a medium of exchange, a number system. Money used to be a concrete intrinsically valuable thing - gold, silver (other metals). There were cultures/societies that had a form of money that was not intrinsically valuable (wampum, shells, even Gengis Khan developed/extended the use of paper money, etc). But for the sake of brevity this first proposition is accurate enough. At some point money became a concrete symbol for something intrinsically valuable - coins (worth more than the metal they contained), paper, etc. Later money became a concrete symbol for a promise of value (e.g. paper and coin no longer backed by gold). Now the majority of money is no longer concrete, rather the majority of money is epheral and electronic bits. The subjective perception of Value A beanie babe at $5.99 is the same beanie baby even if it sells for $14.99. What makes the difference? An Olympic judge holding a score of 7.9 versus one holding up a scoreof 9.8. We don't actually know if the score of 7.9 is actually a higher score because the judge is a better and more experienced judge, we overcome the inaccessible assessment of the subjective perception of value by accepting the illusion of precision that a number system provides. The number system becomes a means of exchange. Money is theoretically meant to be a store of value (which is really meant to represent a quantity/quality of labour/work). But since all value inevitably is context dependent - relative to its own niche in its own ecology, it is impossible to fix a particular quantity of anything as a standard measure of value. So we rely on the precision that the number systems provides, which works well enough when scores, values are aggragated. So seven Olympic judges all have different subjective perceptions of value which they choose to represent as a numerical score on a range of 1-10 (or 1-100) and by aggregating/averaging we end up with a good enough measure. It strikes my that if enough people become assessor than anything can be given a number representing their subjective perceptions of value and in turn those perceptions can be aggregated/average for good-enough measure of the value of the thing(s) perceived. Anything can be translated (good-enough translated) into a monetary value. Now the problem is how to people access the means of exchange - the task is to create an economy where there are more way to access the means of exchange than selling one's labour to an employer. If any contribution to society, local or global, can be assess by enough subjective perceivers than a good enough measure of the value of their contribution can be made. Developing a type of stock market where contributions (art, the invisible work of homemakers and community builders, volunteers, etc) are valued than creating a tax/redistribution systems based on full-cost accounting of commercial activities is possible. This would create a type of guaranteed income structure. The above is just a concept, meant to move outside of the box. Any society/culture of significant size and complexity needs an economy. A market system does not need to be synonymous with capitalism, or completely dominated by an imbalance priviledge of any one or two of the 'three factors of land, labour and capital'. One can conceive of market socialism. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
