Re: [ox-en] Re: Open Money?
- From: "B. Fallenstein" <b.fallenstein gmx.de>
- Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 21:45:40 +0100
Hi Stefan and all!
Stefan Merten wrote:
When you create the money in your network or community, you issue a promise
to redeem that money at the rates you set. Your reputation in that circuit
of exchange is dependent upon you making good on the promise. Your money
is your word.
So my creation of money is limited by the amount of reputation I have.
And this reputation is scarce.
Um... huh? Calling reputation scarce makes about as much sense to me as
explaining Free Software through an "Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie" (economy
of attention?). Attention is not transferable-- neither is reputation.
Thus it cannot be "scarce," and there needn't be an economy to regulate
who gets how much of it etc.
I understand you're saying that to create useful money, you must have a
reputation; everybody has only so much reputation; and therefore money
is limited. In itself, I do not see that this argument in itself leads
to community money being scarce, if we define scarce as "there is not
enough to fulfill everybody's needs." I think it's an important basis of
Oekonux thinking that being limited is *not* the same as being scarce.
To me, the more interesting question is: Do we need money at all? If we
want a society based on exchange/trade, I can see that community money
could be better than central bank money. But at the same time, I think
I'd rather live in a society without exchange/trade.
The question of uni/bidirectional flow seems to be a central one: If I
get something, do I have to give something back? I think it's
interesting to look at money from this point of view: In barter, one
useful good is exchanged for another, forming a bidirectional flow. But
as societies develop, this becomes more and more of a hazzle: The people
I have to offer something to will usually not have most of the things I
desire. Therefore, we need money as an exchange medium. Now, the
bidirectional flow has different qualities: in one direction go the
useful goods (Warenstrom), in the other direction goes the money
(Geldstrom). So the useful goods form a unidirectional flow.
The idea of money is that with the money I get for selling something I
have (produce), I can elsewhere buy something I need. The idea of a GPL
society is that I give away what I have (produce), and because others do
so, too, I can elsewhere get what I need. Okay, so it's only going to
work if enough people participate. Big deal; money is only going to work
if enough people participate, too (money that isn't accepted does not
buy anything). Free software, and supposedly a GPL society, work because
if I can get what I need for free, I have to reason not to give away
what I have for free; and because my selbstentfaltung makes me create/do
useful things.
- Benja
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