[ox-en] Open Money?
- From: Keith Hart <HART_KEITH compuserve.com>
- Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 08:55:25 -0500
Some short answers to Stefan's questions and comments.
Here comes my first question: Is this all limited to a community? How
big (i.e. number of people) may a community be?<
'Community' is society conceived of as people sharing a common purpose.
It can refer to almost anything and often does. LETS is no different. In
practice it usually refers to a local network of up to a few hundreds of
people.
I'd add that our biggest problem lies in our general inability to
think outside the box of exchange systems at all.<
It is entirely possible to think of economic activities not based on exchange.
Sharing comes to mind. Free gifts have been seen by some as a disguised form of
exchange. And of course there is exchange without money, sometimes called
barter. Sharing, gift exchange and barter exist as alternatives to community
currencies.
There is a natural link between states and currencies...
This reflects the coercion potential inherent in any sort of money.
Money is nothing but a structural mean to coerce someone to do
something which s/he would rather not to without being paid for it.<
Or, as Adam Smith suggested, money is a way of persuading someone to part
with their property, without having to talk them into it (it's quicker).
I would suggest that you do some reading on the history of money (especially
banking), Stefan, or qualify your assertions about what is 'natural'. Your
discourse is full of generalisations that have no historical or anthropological
basis. Perhaps you prefer to be 'free' to make things up to suit yourself.
How do you think your system can stop these
mechanisms, this invisible hand?<
Most people think the idea of an invisible hand of the market is a pseudo-
religious fiction. Our system is meant to complement capitalist markets at
this time.
Actually I don't know what you are proposing:
Open money as a aid for people in (a declining) capitalism (unable to
provide things on a regular basis) or whether you're proposing a
society based on open money.<
We propose a non-capitalist form of exchange in a capitalist world. We
reject the idea of society as being based on any one idea or system.
Your definitons of money, interest and capital are entirely self-serving.
There is no argument with someone says money must be scarce or it is not
money.
Why for instance is wage labor impossible with LETS / open money?<
It is not impossible that someone working for wages might be paid partly in
open money. Most people in a LETS system perform labour as a self-employed
service for an agreed fee, which again can be in a mixture of antional and
community money.
This pops up the question what capitalist means to you.<
Capitalism is an economic system where the owners of scarce commodity money
control the bulk of production, trade and finance.
Keith Hart
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/