Lowimpact is partnering with (and sharing some personnel with) the newly-launched Credit Commons Society, formed to promote and oversee the development of a global ‘Credit Commons’ – a network of mutual credit, complementary currency and other groups all over the world that can trade with each other seamlessly, without money.

Mutual credit is a rapidly-developing family of ideas that can form the basis of (moneyless) trade within a new, ‘commons’ economy, that doesn’t require banks or interest, and that can be owned in communites, by all of us, rather than by a tiny, super-wealthy minority.

Over the coming months, we’ll be providing much more information on the new ‘commons economy’ ideas that are emerging, and how you can use them.

The Credit Commons protocol was written by Matthew Slater. It’s the ‘language’ that allows groups all over the world to connect and interact. It’s a bit like the rules of chess – it doesn’t matter what kind of chess pieces or board people are using, as long as they abide by the universally-accepted rules of chess, they can play together.

We’ve been working with Matthew for a long time. He’s blogged with us here and here, and we’ve interviewed him here and here. I’ll be interviewing him again soon for a Credit Commons topic introduction for Lowimpact, as part of a range of new ‘commons economy’ topics.

For a while now, Matthew has been sending out a review of developments in the monetary world (and especially monetary alternatives) twice a year, to a mailing list of friends and colleagues. With his permission, I’d like to start making those reviews available to our visitors.

Ideas around money can get very complex very quickly, so do feel free to put queries to Matthew in the comments section below.

Over to Matthew:

Dear Money-philes,

Before we get to the last month’s news, here is my own recent output:

• On the weakness of the tokenomics underlying almost all blockchain projects.
• Also on crypto, a collaborative piece about Automated Market Makers, with Jeff Emmett.
• The Blockchain Socialist interviewed me.
• New audiobook Inadequate Equilibria – (actually, not about money).
• Don’t forget I’ve made several audiobooks now.

Europe’s policy of freezing itself to death, and US policy of weapons-before-food means that the Atlanticist monetary system is shifting eastwards very quickly as the majority world seems to have finally attained critical mass to exit the dollar hegemony. Russia and India no longer need the dollar. Russian foreign minister Lavrov warns the world that dollar accounts can simply be blocked for political reasons. To which end, the BRICS nations are thinking more about building their own payment system. Finally, this goldbug piece alleges that China and Russia have much more gold than they have declared and that this can be the basis of a replacement Bretton Woods system.

I frequently mention Keynes’s stream-rollered ‘Bancor’ proposal at Bretton Woods. Interestingly it seems it was originally the brainchild of Fritz Schumacher, author of Small is Beautiful.

Ethereum guru Vinay Gupta explains why his blockchain Mattereum can help fix the global economy because it links NFTs to real-world objects using the actual law-of-the-land.

I enjoyed this lecture about how the British twisted the notion of ‘exchange’ to exploit India. Part of a larger series called Currency and Empire (which was quite dry on the whole).

Loved this documentary based on Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century.

Brett Scott’s new book Cloud Money about the War on Cash is very informative and accessible, although if you’ve been following him as long as I have, there’s not much actually new in it. [NB: here’s my review of the book – Dave.]

Note if Russia Today is blocked in your area you can access it directly with its IP address click and bookmark https://89.191.237.192

That’s all folks,

Matthew