Beyond Greed and Scarcity
by Bernard Lietaer
http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=895
I just wanted to know more about this issue from an Austrian perspective. I am not that experienced in economics, but I find the Austrian philosophy fascinating and I would like to know more about the feasibility and effectiveness of local currencies.
Any thoughts?
Maikol
local / competing currencies, as I understand, are the essence of liberty and will, inevitably, lead to the universal acceptance of a gold standard. I believe the usage of localized currencies will be fairly widespread within the next 10years. the past two days, I have become very interested in Bernard and am still doing my homework.
here is the article that ignited my interest
interview I’m in the middle of reading
hopefully someone has done hw on this guy and can chime in. otherwise, I hope to add more as I go.
What I’ve gotten so far is that he suggests we invert the investment utility of money as a medium of exchange. Rather than earning money for hoarding money (interest on savings), he evokes the thoughts of Silvio Gesell saying that
…money is a public good - like the telephone or bus transport - and that we should charge a small fee for using it.
For example, depositing 100$ on 1Jan09 will be worth 90$ on 1Jan10 (instead of 110$). This, of course, provides an incentive to keep money flowing into investments other than speculation.
He cites the investments of cathedral construction from the 10th to 13th centuries. I have seen Douglas Rushkoff use this same citation –I am excited about Rushkoff’s upcoming book.
so, how is inflation any different from a fee for hoarding the medium of exchange?
that’s the question, right?
He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Please stop reading this crackpot.
very well reasoned. kudos to the fifth.
Seriously. It’s absolute nonsense. No new value is created just by shuffling money around. Come to think of it, the current smoking crater where a lot of the US economy used to be is a good example of what happens when you de facto penalize savings. Where do you think capital comes from? Thin air?
That’s definitely true. Same goes for eliminating “greed” or “scarcity.”
Hopefully you will stop spamming this board about the crackpot. Here is a tip. Don’t tag the heck out of your posts when you are feigning ignorance about the subject matter. It’s a dead giveaway.
thank you for being patient with me.
I understand that capital comes from production. but production comes from investment and that seems to be what is encouraged with this structure.
what I am trying to reconcile is if this structure necessarily only penalizes savings or if it penalizes fractional reserve banking while encouraging a different kind of savings. granted, I don’t know what “a different kind of savings” means or whether such exists. thus, my previous question concerning (I guess) the definition of inflation. is penalizing the hoarding of the medium of exchange necessarily inflation? intuitively, it seems the answer is yes but the logic is not yet clear to me.
I am interested in this idea because it necessarily turns fractional reserve on its head.
All this would mean is that people would no longer use banks. They’d just keep the cash in vaults at home or loan it out themselves in order to earn interest.
This looks more like a solution in search of a problem than anything else. It seems to have the chimp in your avatar intrigued though.
as I am new to the forum, please forgive my ignorance of protocol. if I have mis-tagged, please enlighten me. lately, I have been very interested in alternative currencies. I did a few quick searches of the mises site for this “crackpot” (sweet repetitive use of ad hominems, guys) and this thread was all that I found. if nothing else, I was hoping to leave a steak in the ground with a skull on it so other interested parties could use this sight as a reference --something I, originally, was unable to do.
Devaluing the currency at large and making saving disadvantageous is the fee? Um…
wow, the fallacies just jump out.
if i dig in the ground and bury 5 gold pieces, i can hardly expect to dig it up later and find 6 gold pieces.
so this is obviously a solution in search of a problem. or just plain nonsense.
of course not but if you bury gold you do so bc you expect it to be worth the same or more when you dig it up.
sorry for my confusion of terms. I am not speaking of gold. I am speaking of a medium of exchange issued by a fractional reserve banking system.
actually you do it cause there are thieves about, and you dont want those inflationist to steal your wealth away.
why are you trying to find different ways for the federeal reserve to go about its evil statist business?
I have often told the people on Daily Paul that local currencies won’t solve anything if they are not fundamentally different from the ones we already have. In fact, it would hinder economy, rather than aiding it, with more activity devoted to speculation.
There is a somewhat common scenario where people stop “hoarding”, aka saving, money. It’s called hyperinflation. The speculative risk in money increases to the point where no one is willing to save it.
Low-risk speculation on the future marketability of a good is what allows a good to become money. This is why precious metals work as money. Their supplies are not subject to shocks due to consumption demand or supply increases.
Currencies tied to debt rather than equity in some highly marketable commodity are just as bad as US $'s. Why? Because (1) their supply is not fixed to any predictable growth rate, and (2) debts are not homogeneous goods, with a constant level of risk.