27 Comments

• 1nane May 21st, 2017

  Yes, and let’s get rid of the government too.

  
  

• 2Dave Darby May 21st, 2017

  Well, this system (in theory) removes the need for social security, due to the premiums payable to co-operative health and insurance companies. A problem to be overcome is negotiation of tax reduction if it can be shown that you don’t need their social security etc. Might be quite tricky; plus there would be no economic migration, because it works anywhere in the world, which removes the need for borders and passport control. Lots more research to do, but the legal system could be replaced by local arbitration committees for contract fulfillment (with the risk of loss of online reputation for bad behaviour. And the streets could be kept safe by local co-operative security companies. Long-term, you can imagine the winding down of the military and of taxes, and of the state.

  
  

• 3alexbayleaf May 21st, 2017

  I’m not clear on whether you’re making this a LETS type system (where people set the prices for their own stuff) or a timebank system (where 1 hour = 1 hour) but there are problems with both that I don’t think you’ve addressed.

  
  

  In a LETS system, where everyone sets their own prices for goods and services, what’s to stop someone renting property? “You can rent this apartment for 100 LETS a week.”

  
  

  In a timebank system, how do people cover the cost of tools and skills? For instance, digging ditches is worth the same as car mechanics, but a car mechanic had to serve an apprenticeship, learn skills, acquire all the tools in her workshop, and use more electricity to perform the work.

  
  

  An issue with both systems: some work is not seen as “work” in our society, and is unpaid, such as housekeeping, childcare, elder care, home maintenance, emotional labour, etc. How is this work remunerated in your system? If this work disproportionately falls to one part of the community, is there an inherent bias/lack of equality?

  
  

  How are people with permanent or long-term disabilities, or others who can’t earn for whatever reason (eg. small children without families to care for them, older people with depleted credits), cared for in this system?

  
  

  In all systems, you say credit couldn’t be stolen, but it could be fraudulently gained: “I have power over you. I demand that you pay me 100 credits a week for protection.” (Disguised as “fees” of any kind, or some spurious and invisible good/service.) Imagine an abusive relationship, or a cult-like community – you wouldn’t need an actual stick to beat people with, and a security service probably wouldn’t help prevent it. What prevents this?

  
  

  How are users authenticated in the system (passwords, biometrics, ???) and what prevents someone using someone else’s account?

  
  

• 4Dave Darby May 22nd, 2017

  Hi – very good questions, thanks for posting

  
  

  First, this isn’t me – I’m trying to flag up Matthew Slater and Jem Bendell’s work with community forge and the Community Exchange Network. They’re linking up any mutual exchange schemes, from timebanks, LETS, alternative currencies etc. They’re devising a system through which all the different local systems can intertrade. I don’t know about the tech part – but I’ll try to find out.

  
  

  But, as I understand it, it’s a free market, so (say) a plumber can ask for a certain number of credits to fit a new shower, and the buyer can accept or reject it, depending on whether they can find a better price from another plumber. In effect, prices are negotiated between participants in the transaction – nothing can be imposed, including prices.

  
  

  What are the problems with LETS / timebanks that you mentioned?

  
  

  The renting question is a good one. I’m in correspondence with Matthew, so I’ll ask him. There’s a limit on how far you can go into credit or debit, so no-one can rent out multiple properties because it would push them too far into credit. Maybe there would be mutualist principles attached to the whole project, so that you’re only allowed to obtain credits from work, not renting property.

  
  

  But for me, there has to be a set of principles underlying the entire scheme – in the same way that slavery is not (officially) allowed in capitalism (although sweatshop work is more-or-less slavery, but it doesn’t involve the direct sales of captured people), then obtaining credit for someone else’s work would not be allowed, only your own – so own your own home, but not anyone else’s, no private employment (except maybe you can apprentice yourself to someone to gain skills), no interest, or shares (obviously, because there’s no money). Credit where credit’s due, in other words.

  
  

• 5Dave Darby May 22nd, 2017

  ‘In a timebank system, how do people cover the cost of tools and skills? For instance, digging ditches is worth the same as car mechanics, but a car mechanic had to serve an apprenticeship, learn skills, acquire all the tools in her workshop, and use more electricity to perform the work.’

  
  

  As I understand it, credit commons is not timebanking. People obtain tools and skills by going into debit, then work to get credit and clear the debits. And it’s a free market, so ‘prices’ will reflect the scarcity of the skills. If you can’t find someone to fix your car for a price you’d like, then you’ll have to learn to fix it yourself.

  
  

  ‘An issue with both systems: some work is not seen as “work” in our society, and is unpaid, such as housekeeping, childcare, elder care, home maintenance, emotional labour, etc. How is this work remunerated in your system? If this work disproportionately falls to one part of the community, is there an inherent bias/lack of equality?’

  
  

  I think this is only an issue in a money economy, where money is concentrated in few hands, and therefore has to be scarce for others. Money gives some people power over others. In a mutual credit system, if you want credits, you have to find someone else who will go into an equal amount of debit. If you keep / maintain your own house, look after your own children or elders etc, then you’re not going to find anyone to go into debit, because it’s for you and yours. In the family, it’s a ‘gift’ economy. If you need looking after at some point, you won’t expect your family to charge you. As there won’t be concentration of wealth, there won’t be any privilege in terms of wealth, so no financial compulsion. If anyone, anywhere, any time, wants to use the system to do useful work for someone else for credits, they can, so nothing would fall to any particular part of the community unless there was compulsion, which amounts to slavery, and of course wouldn’t be allowed.

  
  

• 6Dave Darby May 22nd, 2017

  ‘How are people with permanent or long-term disabilities, or others who can’t earn for whatever reason (eg. small children without families to care for them, older people with depleted credits), cared for in this system?’

  
  

  It’s mentioned in the article – a small insurance premium on every transaction, to pay for ‘social security’, but administered by co-operative insurance companies rather than the state. This could be used to pay for social security generally, rather than linking premiums to individuals (which in a money economy means that more vulnerable people pay higher premiums). Doctor’s notes would still be required.

  
  

  ‘In all systems, you say credit couldn’t be stolen, but it could be fraudulently gained: “I have power over you. I demand that you pay me 100 credits a week for protection.” (Disguised as “fees” of any kind, or some spurious and invisible good/service.) Imagine an abusive relationship, or a cult-like community – you wouldn’t need an actual stick to beat people with, and a security service probably wouldn’t help prevent it. What prevents this?’

  
  

  When you say ‘power over’, what would that look like in this system? It wouldn’t be financial power, because there’s no money. So it would have to be an individual threatening another individual with violence. I think that could easily be rooted out in communities (especially stronger, resilient communities that I believe this system would produce), by local co-operative security services. There aren’t going to be individuals wealthy enough to hire gangs of thugs, and any fraudulent behaviour would carry a big risk – loss of online reputation making it difficult to trade.
  
  I think you’d still have abusive relationships or cult-like groups, but I actually think it would be more difficult and more easily exposed / escapable than in capitalism where money brings power.

  
  

• 7Dave Darby May 22nd, 2017

  ‘How are users authenticated in the system (passwords, biometrics, ???) and what prevents someone using someone else’s account?’

  
  

  Blockchain. I don’t understand the workings (I don’t think many do), but it validates cryptocurrency transactions, and it can validate this. I’ll find out more.

  
  

  Good questions. I’ll talk more with Matthew about rent and blockchain.

  
  

• 8Dave Darby May 22nd, 2017

  Having thought about your questions a bit more, I want to say that this kind of society wouldn’t be rapacious / dog-eat-dog to get to the ‘top’, and would give people the space to work out ways to help people who are struggling (but not if they’re just lazy). So for example, the insurance premiums that everyone pays could / would be used as a general social security system, to provide credits for anyone in genuine need. That could include single parents – for a maternity / paternity period of leave from the need to find work. When the child(ren) attend school, there should be plenty of time to work for enough credit. I don’t imagine that it would require anywhere near 40 hours work to live well. At the moment, a huge proportion of everyone’s work is siphoned off in the form of profits and interest payments, (as well as unemployment payments that would no longer be required) and is concentrated in the hands of very few people. Release this wealth and there’s more than enough for everyone.

  
  

• 9elspethc May 22nd, 2017

  Agree with what Alex says – especially I have immediate problem with notion of “work” as somehow equivalent to value to society without recognizing the history of blatant ism that definitions of work have always had. Never mind women’s work, emotional work etc, how does a depressed person (ill) manage his or her capable out and about days, where would their trajectory of recovery go? Similarly 10 year olds – do they work – I know some who do. This is a comment from someone who wants a start to these ideas, the notion of universal respect and rights needs to be more present in every phrase.

  
  

• 10Dave Darby May 22nd, 2017

  Hi

  
  

  (my interpretation): your first point is really interesting, because what you’re talking about is the labour theory of value. It states that all value comes ultimately from work – and if you think about it, it’s true. People make money from landlordism, stocks and shares, financial speculation, profit, interest etc. It’s a case of money making more money – but trace it back, and someone, somewhere has worked for that ‘value’ – they’ve just had a portion of it (and in the case of the hundreds of millions of people working in sweatshops or plantations, for example, a very large portion of it) taken away from them by ‘owners’, or shareholders, landlords etc.

  
  

  As I mentioned, co-op insurance companies would provide ‘social security’ rather than the state – but this would be a less rapacious system, with more real ‘wealth’ freed up to look after the vulnerable.

  
  

  We’d have to decide as a society whether we want 10-year-olds working. Personally, I wouldn’t mind them working for some of the time (bearing in mind that they can’t be exploited – no-one can steal their credits), and adults learning some of the time. Education and work can both be spread out over a lifetime. Children can be rewarded with credits by helping people in their community to do useful things. They can learn about different kinds of jobs, and it could help them decide what they want to do for a living.

  
  

  Universal respect and rights would be hard-wired into the system because of the labour theory of value. No-one else can take credit for your work. In the current system, interest payments, rents and profits suck value from individuals and communities to concentrate wealth in very few hands. That’s the opposite of universal respect and rights.

  
  

• 11Mark Advertise the Resource Based Economy May 23rd, 2017

  I think it’s a great progression from the present monetary system. If we also declared all planetary resources to be common heritage of all the worlds people, that would make economic inequality impossible as well as structural violence.

  
  

  Copiosis (https://copiosis.com/) is a step in between what you are proposing and a Resource Based Economy (resources shared by all). People don’t have to pay anything for basic needs in Copiosis. This allows them to be in a position to actually negotiate a free exchange. Credits are only spent on luxuries. They are not exchanged to the person who supplies the luxuries, they are simply erased. People gain credits by bettering the world with work they do according to an open algorithm which calculates the positive effect on society and the environment that people’s actions have.

  
  

• 12Dave Darby May 23rd, 2017

  That looks very interesting. I’ll give it a good look with a cuppa asap.

  
  

• 13Sam Ryan May 23rd, 2017

  Looking very good Dave. My previous questions have been well-answered, so here’s another:

  
  

  In this system, what role do you see technology playing?

  
  

  It seems to me that most technology is far too complex and would require far too much global trade to produce many of the things we take for granted. Are you on the same page as Mark Boyle in that most tech will cease to exist? Obviously lots of frivolous stuff is not important, but what about the internet and laptops, solar panels etc.

  
  

• 14Dave Darby May 24th, 2017

  I’ve argued with Mark that trying to sell a world with no internet, after people have had it, would be a very difficult sell indeed. So if we’re going to try to keep it (and I think we should – internet, wood stoves and local, organic food, let’s take the best of every age), it has to be powered, and the best way to do that in a non-corporate way would be via solar power.
  
  It can be provided via community energy, sold via the Energy Co-op, or it can be installed on individual roofs, depending on whether you’re a rugged individualist or a collectivist. Either way, it’s not corporate.
  
  We have individuals building wind turbines and solar thermal systems. I don’t know if it’s true of solar panels yet – probably not, although someone might correct me, but we already have perfectly viable software and operating systems, and in China and Indonesia, there are co-operatives making smartphones. See http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-a-cooperative-in-indonesia-is-bridging-the-digital-divide If we can persuade Fairphone to co-operativise, we’ll have one over here as well.

  
  

  It’s seems to be moving in the way Kevin Carson is predicting in ‘the Homebrew Industrial Revolution’ – he envisages 3-D printers and open source software revolutionising production, and inevitably away from corporations, who, let’s face it, would be hideously uncompetitive if they couldn’t employ sweatshop workers or avoid tax.

  
  

• 15spacemao May 31st, 2017

  Labour vouchers are an idea that go back to the 1800s and work in a similar way, the key for me with this is that

  
  

  ‘It’s a free market, but you can’t receive credits for anyone else’s work, only your own.’

  
  

  this is the same with labour vouchers – and economists such as Paul Cottrell mention that with computers we can exactingly track the amount of labour time needed to make a cup of coffee, in his work, he talks that those who ‘make’ things in this economy and upload the material requirements as web pages on an internet, using this, we can use machine learning to optimise and balance supply and demand.

  
  

  This is mostly existing technology used in major companies, and come the revolution, ? these are the tools we will inherit and, like it or not, have to build upon.

  
  

  Going back to this point about it being impossible to earn money from others, that’s ideal, not just from a communist perspective but also from that of many religions as well, in Islam for example, it’s a sin to hold debt against another person, and if you have an islamic bank account you can’t have a savings account!

  
  

  However, I don’t think this is going to satisfy the right. You have to bear in mind Dave that the right are not even satisfied with the current state of affairs where (in the UK) businesses are having 440bn of public money chucked at them, and all our public services (which we sweated blood and tears to build) are being opened up as ‘free’ markets for profitable exploitation by anyone, from collecting waste to regulating national exams. The whole point of the right is that they want to turn back the clock to the era of kings and queens, where wealth was considered a virtue from god.

  
  

  They may not realise that this is the reactionary argument they make when they say ‘rich people create jobs’ but the entire gravitas of society is about exploiting surplus labour – currently people get half of the value they create returned to them through wages, if capitalists were forced to pay the full value of their work, it would annihilate the profit motive, and you’d have to deal with capital flight on an epic scale as well as very probably a civil war. Subsequently I wouldn’t bother capitulating to the right, all the gains we have made as a society has been inspite of the right, not because of them.

  
  

  I am a leninist in the sense that I believe we have to recognise the value of tactical retreat, if we had state power, we could implement such a system, but without any alternative infrastructure to introduce labour vouchers (cooperative employers that people can move their work to) the capitalist classes would quickly move to boycott the economy, create infrastructure strikes to prevent essential goods being made or brought into the country, and do this for as long as they are able, or until you reintroduce capitalism and integrate this system back into the market. If you look at the example of Allende and even Chavez (who was barely a socialist) they rich will do far worse than ‘hire thugs’ and the transition of people into this alternative economy will not be instantaneous, meaning that you either prepare for violence or take smaller steps (whilst also defending the gains you have made – which will be violently attacked – every experience of progressive governments we have tells us this.)

  
  

  Additionally, you cannot leave the rich to have their wealth, they already have ALL the wealth and ALL the power, in britain they even hold all the land. This system has not accidentally ended up like this, it took the murder and slaughter of peasants in the enclosures and clearances only a couple of hundred years ago to produce the capital on which capitalism was initially developed. If you want to leave rich people with the wealth that they and they predecessors acquired through imperialist adventure and hundreds of years of violence and exploitation that’s your call, but they will absolutely use it against you and are not afraid to sink the whole ship to maintain their power.

  
  

  On a global scale, this is what they are already doing, by continuing to leverage environmentally destructive technologies to maintain their own capital – this is when they are only in competition against each other, when the currency (upon which their wealth is built) is debased, they will intensify the class war that they are already waging against us.

  
  

  Anyway, I have some videos that clarify some of the points I am making here, I think you might enjoy mr cottrells economic analysis, you will see how (in essence) this is a labour voucher system. Though there may be some key differences I have failed to identify.

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U4e6ALxOhk

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJbrn_42jA

  
  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id–ZFtjR5c

  
  

• 16Dave Darby May 31st, 2017

  The thing with the right (and we’re talking hypothetically of course – if, if, if this can get traction and be available anywhere, to anyone), if people in poor countries give it a go and it works, they’re not going to want to go back to working in sweatshops or plantations. If the idea goes viral, then boom – no more cheap labour for capitalists. What are they going to do then? They can’t outcompete small- or medium-sized businesses (co-ops) or the self-employed, they can’t use violence (what are they going to attack?), and they can’t buy their way out of it because their money will lose value the longer they try to hold on to it. They’re going to have to work themselves (shock horror), or sit on the streets and beg, wondering why God isn’t blessing them with riches any more.

  
  

  So yes, I sort of agree. Having said that, there are a lot on the right who are anti-corporate – there really are. They favour hard work, personal responsibility, independence and freedom – all fine things, I think. They’re more in favour of small businesses, self-employment, family farms, but not the corporate sector, and especially not the banks, because they can see that they compromise freedom. The right were more vocal than the left about NOT bailing out the banks. They’d have preferred the free market to reign – they fucked up, let them die. But of course the market can never be free in capitalism, because capitalists have the state to give them all the corporate welfare they need. So even though we don’t need to court them, there will still be many on the right who would give it a go, or at least not oppose it from the gut, because it doesn’t involve state power. Or a state at all, eventually, which could really interest the libertarian right. Surely they wouldn’t balk because there was no way to exploit people by stealing the value of their work? That would just be evil, and not many people are truly evil.

  
  

  But we’re back to our main difference again. Which state would introduce this? Why would they give away the power that they’d worked hard by climbing the greasy pole to achieve? No, the only way to introduce it is by the people directly. Your ideas about infrastructure strikes / damage are really interesting (and worrying), but they would be hurting themselves as much as the people. And what would they use violence on (and if the source of their cheap labour disappears, what would they pay soldiers)? The system would exist on decentralised nodes, with no centre to attack, and even if the internet crashes, it could revert to clay tablets and tally sticks, whereas if the internet falls over under capitalism, people in London (and Glasgow) would be eating each other within a week.

  
  

  I completely agree with the way capitalists have attained wealth and power, and what they’d do to keep it (as you know), but really, what would they attack? As I said, even if they take down the internet, their wealth is gone, but not the credit commons, because there’s no value in it. It’s just an account, and the total of all the credits and debits in it is zero, so there’s nothing to destroy. Meanwhile, we wouldn’t be leaving them with their wealth, because without cheap, exploited labour, their wealth would erode to nothing. Labour is where all value comes from. Those who say otherwise haven’t stopped to think what would happen if all workers stopped working. They’d have to work themselves or starve, because value isn’t going to come from anywhere else.

  
  

  And yes, a labour voucher scheme, but without the vouchers, just interweb credits, and you don’t have to pay anything for credit, vouchers, bitcoins or anything else.

  
  

  Right, cup of tea and those videos.

  
  

• 17Dave Darby May 31st, 2017

  I wonder what came first, labour vouchers or the credit commons model, which was first tried (albeit just in Ohio) in 1836. It was revived by Proudhon in the late 19th century, then by Clarence Lee Swartz in the 1920s (although with quite a complicated model – which I suppose it had to be before the internet), and again now. But the difference now is the internet and blockchain.

  
  

• 18Dave Darby June 1st, 2017

  I’ve seen the Chile / Venezuela vids before, many years ago. Cockshott is interesting. But there’s a difference between a free market and capitalism. In fact it’s impossible to have a free market in capitalism. There is so much corporate welfare provided by the state. I know you know this, so I won’t go into it. I’m a mutualist, and mutualism is free-market anti-capitalism. The crucial thing is that no-one gets to make money, or take credit, for anyone else’s work, only your own. When you say it like that, it sounds obvious. Taking from someone else’s work sounds a bit like slavery – and it is. But it rules out interest, stocks and shares, landlordism and private employment. Capitalists will say that people who work hard, build a company and provide jobs should be allowed to make profit – which is making money from other people’s work. But should they be allowed to do that forever, and pass the company onto their children, for them to continue making money from other people’s work? Or to sell shares so that shareholders can make money from other people’s work? I think that people who build businesses should be recompensed for the work they’ve put in. Entrepreneurs often spend years working for nothing, to build a business, and when the company is making money, they should be recompensed for that. But not by taking a percentage of other people’s work forever.

  
  

  I’m guessing we’re on the same page with that. But at one point he says that labour vouchers would be cancelled when spent, and that they wouldn’t have to be on paper – the system could be computerised. That sound pretty much the credit commons model – in which case, why the need for planning at all? The market will sort out prices and what’s produced. Why waste resources on bureaucracy? I might be missing something crucial, but I can’t see why it would be necessary. Just charge what you think is right (in credit, rather than money in the credit commons model), and if no-one wants your services, you’ve pitched it too high. If you’re swamped, you might want to think about raising your price. If you’re too greedy, there will be others willing to provide what you’re offering for less. What economic planning is needed in a free market?

  
  

  Compensation for work done would be perfectly acceptable in a mutualist society, and if that society was based on credit commons, the inability to make money from other people’s work would be built in. To try to impose it via the state would be logistically extremely difficult and resource-heavy, and keeping corruption and coercion out would be virtually impossible. No, I’d say impossible. I worked in Romania in the 90s, and everyone had horror stories. Planning is an unnecessary burden, that wouldn’t be required under mutualism / credit commons. The same with Albert’s Parecon or Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism – different, planning-heavy (albeit locally) versions of anarchism. Marx wanted the state to wither eventually. This is a way to wither it immediately.

  
  

  [one other point – we’ve been talking about a new economy, but there would also need to be a decision-making system that sits alongside it I think. Not one that plans the economy, but for example, about whether we should continue developing AI, genetic engineering or nanotechnology, or whether those technologies are just too dangerous because of the potential for them to spiral out of our control. He suggests referenda, but most people have no idea about those things. But that’s a whole new discussion.]

  
  

• 19james bate June 1st, 2017

  Hi Dave
  
  Read Paul Mason’s end of capitalism , good start but fizzled out to nothing, I’m afraid his chapter on labour theory did for me , what little I understood didn’t seem relevant today.
  
  Reading a much better take by Charles Hugh Smith a US blogger n author, was taken by the title – A Radically Beneficial World : Automation, Technology , and Creating Jobs for All.

  
  

  So far it’s lived up to its title full of interesting stuff much along the lines that have been discussed here but with some well thought out tweeks , LETS meet crypto really worth a read .
  
  He’s had a varied career including being a builder , I think we should all do a bit of that the same way Thais are monks for a while or the less enlightened do military service, it’s grounding and educational plus the banter of course.
  
  The sub title is “The future belongs to work that is meaningful ”

  
  

  His blog is oftwominds.com but sure you come across him.

  
  

• 20Dave Darby June 2nd, 2017

  Thanks, I’ll try to have a look. I wrote about Mason here – http://www.lowimpact.org/condensed-paul-masons-post-capitalism-a-guide-to-our-future/. I remember thinking that his ‘tending towards zero’ idea only works for information, and although I agree, someone has to work to produce real things, like food, housing, energy, clothes etc. If you trace anything of real value back far enough, someone, somewhere has worked to provide it. We don’t need bankers, advertising, PR, corporate lawyers, salespeople or politicians, (‘bullshit jobs’ as David Graeber calls them), but we do need people growing our food and building our homes.

  
  

• 21Peter Green July 23rd, 2017

  Does the proposed system permit anonymous “purchases” in the same way that cash does today? If not, it’s a grotesque invasion of privacy.

  
  

• 22Dave Darby July 23rd, 2017

  Yes. The front end is much the same as now, but with a) transactions secured (and anonymised)via blockhain (the mechanisms of which you’ll probably understand better than me); and b) a back end that doesn’t involve banks, interest and wealth/poverty.

  
  

• 23Matthew Moore July 24th, 2017

  I think its all a very good idea…but it would involve a complete revolution in our concept of nationhood, and how goods get distributed around the planet… which is all great, just something I dont think you can switch to without massive reprocussions, reproccisions which are both excactly what the planet needs, but also massively destabilising, as to the current situation, and therefore something that wouldnt be taken lightly…

  
  

  Right now, obviously, some areas of the world, and nations, create credit (as interest bearing debt) internally, via finanical apparatus which they have dominion over.. this credit, either directly, or indirectly can be used to buy wealth, materials, avacodos, coffee, etc from other areas of the world that dont have the situation to simply create their own credit (debt) and keep their own produce… basically because finance and credit rules, which at a subsequent level becomes ‘money’, to us everyday folk, is the backbone of the infrastructure, and only finance and credit from certain countries and currencies counts, on a global scale..

  
  

  And so we have a massive inequality of the flow of goods, due to this credit imbalance.. which is obviously very unfair and creates poverty, but also keeps the us westerners thinking we deserve everything we have, pineapples and metal, and whatever, as its paid for, with money (which is actually an unequal global credit exchange)

  
  

  So buy democratising credit, globally, we would essentially be vastly reducing the distribution of real wealth of the western world, through unequal credit, and rebalalancing it so that wealth is much more likely to remain spread out…

  
  

  obviously this is good thing, but i dont think many in the western world, would simply give up stealing the rest of the worlds wealth via the current credit system… ie the bit where poverty is irradicated is the bit where the realtive wealth of the western world decreases, and the available goods, drops…

  
  

  Im not arguing to keep it like that, just pointing out there would be a lot of resistance, and i dont think a magic bullet idea will have much traction effect until a lot more is unraveled as to how we are essentially screwing each other over… ie i dont think we would simply switch over, and all is good… the implications are vast and complex

  
  

• 24Matthew Moore July 24th, 2017

  In a nutshell i mean the current ‘neo liberal’ right (that may call itself the centre) relies on credit creation inequality at top level between nations, to distribute goods unevenly, and effectively plunder the rest of the world… this is the bedrock of the system.. i cant imagine they would be on board to create credit equality, because that means equality of wealth distribution globally, which is the nemisis of the neo liberal agenda..

  
  

  The genuine liberatarian right however im sure would be into it.. but i dont think they are the problem.

  
  

• 25Dave Darby July 24th, 2017

  I think you might be right – that the libertarian right (i.e. the ‘real’ right, supporting true independence and freedom, rather than corporate apologists) might support it. And I also think you’re right that there would be resistance from the corporate West. The system would be so dispersed though, that it’s difficult to see what they’d do about it. There would be no centre to bomb, and no leaders to put in jail. If people who have no money (i.e. most of the world) begin to realise that they can get things they need without money (or without having to work in sweatshops or plantations – or in the West, in supermarkets, telesales or on zero hours contracts), then it could really take off.
  
  But I like it because even if it doesn’t take off, or if it’s stopped – it makes you see that a different economy is possible, albeit with a difficult transition process.

  
  

• 26Kate Martignier January 5th, 2018

  Hi! love the article and the idea. Question: I can think of one thing I would want to “Save up” money for, and thats my kids future education expenses (we home school right now, so their education costs nothing, but I’m thinking of formal education they might choose to take on when they’re a bit older). How might the system you are talking about, provide or allow for this?

  
  

• 27Dave Darby January 5th, 2018

  Hi Kate. I’m learning more about mutual credit / credit commons. I’m relatively new to it, and there’s more to it than I first realised. Saving, for example. I believe that there can be a system of savings and borrowings (for houses, to start businesses etc.), but without interest (although there would need to be some sort of insurance premium to cover the risk of default).
  
  We’re hosting a webinar by the author of the white paper on credit commons, tomorrow morning, 11am GMT. Why don’t you join us – you can ask questions directly.
  
  More info here – https://www.lowimpact.org/webinar-can-we-change-the-world-without-changing-money/
  
  See you tomorrow?
  
  cheers
  
  Dave