Complementary Currency - Open Source Exchanges

Complementary Currency Open Source Exchanges

Types of Economy – Gift Economy – National Money – Barter – Complementary Currency

Gift Economy There is a trust in the community • Woolly Mammoth – positive-selfish vs. negative-generous interest

• Glynn Isaac - “Home Base”

National Money • Not value-neutral (all economics assumes value-neutral) • Taxes must be paid back • Legal right to enforce an obligation • Who has the trust?

Barter • One to one • Inefficient: startup cost for each relationship

Complementary Currency • Add value to community, not just individual • Improves scalability beyond bartering

Considerations – What changes in the community?

• • • •

Scalability Symptoms Trust World View

Rivalrous vs. Non-rivalrous • Benkler: "we consider a good to be nonrival when its consumption by one person does not make it any less available for consumption by another." (wealth of networks, p.36) • Lessig "Future of Ideas"

Keeping Open Currency OpenSourceCurrency.org – Integrity – Transparency – Interoperability – Consensus Decision-making (Commons) – Quick fixes to bugs • Imagine the cost of a bug in the NYSE

Jibberish – Can you change the world with a closed world view?

– “If you have understood me, then I must not have made myself clear.” – Alan Greenspan

Currency Systems • Ithaca Hours, Fureai Kippu, Swiss WIR

Houston Hope TimeBank

Presenters • OpenSourceCurrency.org – For details on Austin efforts

• Tom Brown – herestomwiththeweather@gmail.com • Rich Vázquez – Rich.vazquez@gmail.com – AustinTimeExchange.org