Oh Thesis Question!!

I am in that time - that time of trying to survive and navigate the thesis proposal. I have a good idea of the arena I want to explore - value and money. Specifically the role that alternative currencies can play in promoting a broader spectrum of values - most notably issues of scarcity and competition.

These are two of the elements that I consider to be critical to the belief mechanisms that help to drive modern capitalism and the connected negative consequences of that system. The question then is how do you create a system that recognizes concepts of abundance and cooperation? My answer has come to rest on notions of money - and on ideas of creating alternative currencies that place or rather respond to values of abundance and cooperation in a positive way.

I believe that a currency that operates under the rules of 1) Zero Interest 2) A separation of medium-of-exchange and store-of-value 3) that has a demurrage, will bring us closer to meeting the goals of reducing environmental destruction, reducing growing inequalities (which is driven by hoarding of money) and of reducing the need for competition (and therefore commodification) while helping to promote the ability of communities that currently lack a medium-of-exchange to generate their local economies (and here I am referring to communities in Africa).

I place my energy behind the creation of alternative currencies because I believe this has two impacts on society 1) It allows us, as a society, to recognize our power over the economy and that money is our creation, not some God given right of the state or even a natural byproduct 2) It allows us to explore value systems and forces us to talk and debate about what are the most critical things that our money needs to value.

In this way I turn to the rise of mobile technology in Africa and the pioneering ideas of Michael Linton who talks about the value of technology in the spread and creation of alternative currencies. Much of his thinking is detailed by Keith Hart who talks about the changing subject/object relationship that is produced through the virtualization of money.

As I am sure, and hope you can see, I have built my thinking into a pretty cohesive flow. The big question is where do I ask my question and at what point do I place that question? I am not interested in the quantitative element of this discussion, I think Friedrich von Hayek said it best in his book "Denationalisation of Money",

"Though the popular tendency in economics is to accept only statistaically testable theories...they have acquired a quite undeserved reputation." (p. 48)

He then goes on to say,

"To introduce sharp distinctions which do not exist in the real world in order to make a subject susceptible to mathematical treatment is not to make it more scientific but "rather less so." (p 48)

It is with this in mind that I look to explore these questions through a much more philosophical and theoretical lens. I believe that these questions are not mathematical but are far more social and political.

I am trying to find a professor at University of Cape Town that is wiling to work with me in exploring these ideas and helping me to formulate my theoretical framework. I have, as of today, still not found that individual. I will continue to push forward.

Our Oceans are in Trouble

I have been reading a special report on the Oceans that was recently published in The Economist that has made me sick to my stomach.

It talks about how our fish stocks are almost wiped out, that the oceans are becoming acid changing the entire composition of the oceans behavior. The profusion of massive dead zones throughout the oceans with algae and red tides. The possibility of most shell fish dying off, nuclear waste, pesticides and other heavy metals flooding into the oceans. The destruction of almost all coral reefs.

This is not a singular issue. It is not just a problem of too much CO2 but is rather a product of the type of economic structure we have in place. An economy that truly places no value on the abundant natural resources. They are viewed as holding no value so therefore no cost is associated with their destruction until it is potentially too late.

It is time to rethink this economic structure. Not tomorrow. But TODAY!! It is time to create a value structure that recognizes the value held in our global common goods; that abundance is a valuable element in the economy and needs to be integrated into the pricing system. We can not ignore this any longer.

Or, within our lifetimes there will be no more sharks, tuna, coral reefs, whales or oceans safe to swim in. It brings tears to my eyes and we the people, the citizens and stewards of this system need to wake up and take responsibility. Change is hard but it is a necessary and constant part of life.

I believe the most important thing we can do is come up with an economic structure that places value on abundance over scarcity, on cooperation over competition, on flow over accumulation. This, people, is a task for our generation and we must, we have to, step up and take responsibility now!!

Shaping Tomorrow

I just re-read a post that I made on a online group that I belong to called Shaping Tomorrow which is a group of futurists. I thought it spoke to my passion and the overall image that I am getting of our economy and the points at which I think we need to put some pressure in the hope of effecting change.

I think the fundamental question is why is the system rewarding excessive consumption, massive flows of money and huge deficits and debts? How did this come about and what drove this process? American's are certainly the "largest" consumers but there are many other consumers in the world. I know I was shocked when I went to Asia and saw the massive malls and the huge desire to consume and posses stuff - it is not only an American phenomenon we are just the leaders.

The economy rewards the creation of useless products - trinkets, environmentally destructive extraction and production technologies, and "over-spending". Why?

Our economy grows when we "consume" and shrinks when we don't. It is what drives us - it is like having a constant carrot and stick scenario in our collective conscience. The reality is the economy is not something that operates without humans - however it can create and incentivize certain human behaviours leading often to problematic outcomes. This is why Stiglitz is one of my favorite economists because he realizes that the economy is actually part of us - rather then us as part of the economy.

We need to seriously reevaluate the values and behaviours our economic system incentivizes and work at changing that. I think it is pretty simple - value abundant clean resources, value industries and products that are zero waste and zero negative environmental costs, value human sustenance through cooperation, remove scarcity as the central driving factor of the pricing mechanism and create a pricing system that assigns increased value to increased abundance of life sustaining resources.

Just some thoughts!!