Commons on Open Source Currency

Ellen Hodgson Brown

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:31:00 +0100

Update 12/2: Here is the website (with blog) for the book.

A week ago, I ordered Ellen Hodgson Brown’s new book Web of Debt. Since I’m still waiting for it (alas, the order is bundled with Toni Price’s yet-to-be released cd), a podcast announced on the IJCCR mailing list is a welcome gift in the meantime.

She notes that money is just a receipt (or as Thomas Greco often says credit) that the community agrees on, so there’s no need for a private issuer. She clarifies that silver versus gold wasn’t William Jennings Bryan’s main issue. The main issue was that the government and not a private bank create the money.

Software and patents

Fri, 11 May 2007 13:40:00 +0100

A lot of people who understand and enjoy Open Source Software don’t necessarily realize one of the main problems with the way the Software industry entrenches itself in a way to remove the ability to innovate form the general public and society as whole..

Software is a mutant in the sense that it can be both copyrighted and patented. The article Software ain’t patentable, damn it! (2) points out the difference fairly well while discussing a legal case putting junk patents at risk.

Consensus and the Commons

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:14:00 +0100

In the Future of Ideas and Money and Lessig and Lietaer posts, a community currency is compared to the Internet. Both of them form an innovation commons.

Associated with community currency design is protocol. Contrast this with national money where laws generally regulate use.

Protocols on the Internet are generally established by the IETF. Jeanette Hofmann describes this process:

The IETF is open to anyone who is interested, provided they have the necessary technical competence and practical engineering skills. The exclusionary effect of this prerequisite should not be underestimated. The IETF has traditionally understood itself as an elite in the technical development of communication networks. Gestures of superiority and a dim view of other standardisation committees are matched by unmistakable impatience with incompetence in their own ranks.

Tangled Up in the Future - Lessig and Lietaer

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:14:00 +0100

This is a followup to The Future of Ideas and Money.

Bernard Lietaer reveals the difference between money and currency. What a central authority requires in payment of taxes, thereby imposing it as legal tender, is money. Taxes lock us into money. Money is the Yang. It promotes competition and scarcity created through hierarchy. Currency is whatever a community chooses as a means of payment, thereby accepting it as common tender. Social currency is the Yin.

The Future of Ideas and Money

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 05:55:00 +0100

Kellan suggested that some books are read better together and asks “Do you have favorite pairings?” Following Rich’s post on the Creative Commons, I’ve been thinking about Lessig’s The Future of Ideas and ever since the Naropa Workshop on Intentional Economics, I have thought it would be great to pair Lessig with Bernard Lietaer, author of The Future of Money.

I talked to Bernard about Lessig’s code/architecture as the fourth category of ways to regulate. When a complementary currency is introduced, does it merely fall in the economic incentive category or is it a lower level change to code and architecture?