ccc draft 2.3

uncategorized post

draft for text on community-created currency (ccc)
quick primer at http://www.banks-need-boundaries.net/ccc.php
German draft http://vollgeldspiegel.wordpress.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-101

To become actively involved in this…
(hint: that’s the only way it will happen)
…click here, if you’re from Austria.
…ponder the following text, share it, or tell us how you feel about it!

[fn = footnote]

Community-created currency (ccc) fn1 draft 2.3
The healthy alternative currency in any case fn2

Every day, we choose between countless products. But we cannot choose which currency to use. The best-case scenario is that this currency is imposed by the people as a whole. Worst case: from outside. To ensure stability, we need a second currency created from within: by citizens.
[note to self: so shouldn’t it be called “citizen-created currency”?]

1. Everyone can create money…
‘Legal persons’ (firms, corporations, associations, etc.) and human beings (‘natural persons’).
Restrictions: Property fn3 , minimum age fn4 , and expected human productivity.
The tax office is the ideal organisation to set an overdraft limit based on property, because no one will declare more than he has …especially if there’s a property tax. Because the state itself doesn’t create any, ccc cannot be used to enslave entire populations over generations. Money is created de-centrally and with personal responsibility. This system is old. It can be compared to the tally stick, which also helped avoid blood feuds. The highest aim of any monetary system should be for the numbers to approach real values. fn5

2. …receive money…
As the most efficient way to ensure the socio-economic human rights, a basic income is paid in ccc, financed by taxing legal persons with ‘formulary/profit apportionment’. If there is transparency regarding origin, production, and supply-chain, our purchasing decisions are a vote in the democratic sense of the word. The same applies to our choice between ccc and traditional money. As ccc is tied to existing goods, it helps us tax profits where they occur.
ccc itself is not taxed at all.*
ccc is a Wörgl-style depreciative currency (see wikipedia “demurrage charge“) to ensure circulation [possibly even to the point of “half life”*].
When Person A buys something from Person B (goods or services, labour), the free-market price is electronically removed from Account A, and added to Account B. fn6 A specific form of trade is when we buy securities. One can create revenue from ccc only through compensation for a temporary loss of access to real purchasing power. This would include Crowd Funding and the likes thereof.
[Redundant sentence from German omitted.]

3. …and spend money
By spending more that one received, one slips under zero and starts using one’s overdraft allowance.

4. Exchange
Other local and alternative currencies are permitted fn7 , and exchange should be as free as possible for citizens. Only when we pay taxes must one of the two official currencies be used. Debt that spiraled out of control in the current system should not infiltrate ccc. (Better: support for victims of easy credit) [Kreditopferhilfe.net]

5. Death
For the common good, the state can claim 100% of goods being used for overdrafts, as well as 100% of positive values (balance, intellectual property) of legal persons.

[*Translation: this means that humans who were especially useful, lived frugally, and accumulated ccc can leave some to the next generation. However, when a company becomes defunct (mergers for increased efficiency, or simply because their mission has been accomplished), client lists and patents, etc. can’t be kept in a black box. Reading this at a computer? – See our previous post “For the record” for just one simple example. This would extend to all human creativity. It seems necessary, alas, to point out that this has nothing to do with expropriation. It’s pure markets: just making sure the costs are managed properly. The alternative would be to work through horrendous backlogs, or to tax information. (Which incidentally the Swiss do in an attempt to help musicians by simply taxing storage capacity on mp3 players.) Personally, I don’t see why corporations should be allowed to keep secret client lists at all. At the very least, it should be a human right to have all our data deleted, with obvious exceptions. Also, to create own databases from the data corporations gather, but that’s another story, see c-a-i, Virtual Senate.]

FOOTNOTES
1 Full name: alternative currency created by citizens and recognised by the state (“staatlich anerkannte bürgergeschöpfte Parallelwährung” based on an idea by Banken-in-die-Schranken.org)

2 In any case = whether we stick to the current system, or reform how money is created* (See “How banks (don’t) work” and “Why it matters“)

3 Property = physically available goods that are not yet used as collateral elsewhere. Company stock (shares, etc.) and current bank-money are tricky for community-created money, because they are based on a value that is calculated theoretically (stock trading), and on fractional reserves, respectively*. In a system with 100%-money or Sovereign Money, these relationships would be clearer. Sovereign Money is a kind of ccc by all the citizens* together …created in our names, and which we vouch for collectively.

4 Minimum age requirement for ‘legal persons’ to help prevent crafty accountants cook the books.

5 N.B.: certain values can and should not be expressed, e.g. sunset on the horizon Others have untill now unfortunately only been expressed with lacking precision and justice, e.g. Deepwater Horizon.

6 See www.banken-in-die-schranken.org/docs/Buergergeschoepfte_Parallelwaehrung.pdf (German)

7 e.g. supermarket-points, frequent-flyer miles, WIR, Chiemgauer, Bitcoin, Brixton Pound, abc markets…

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* Changed the German