Is it possible to create a new currency (such as 'citizen coupons') independent from extractive and predatory economy?

Good point. I'm wondering if the local council of churches within my local area might be a useful ally in getting ideas like mutual credit out to a wider audience? After all, their networks of compassionate care & mutual trust might be a powerful vehicle for getting such ideas a serious, respectful hearing.

I wrote something recently about money, trust and power that may be of interest here: https://digital-anthropology.me/2019/08/20/operationalised-trust/

and a more recent analysis:
Trust/faith: I have developed a particular approach to the words around this aspect of money (which is right at the heart of it).

• Money is a social promise - a promise, to be made good on by the society which recognises this particular kind of number (however instantiated - bags of barley, weight of gold, numbered token, accounting record) as money, in desirable Objects of Trade, at some point in the foreseeable future.

• A promise requires an understandable landscape of confidence. It’s a landscape because a promise is not a contract. Promises are made to be broken, as well as kept. It is implicit in our understanding of promise that there are circumstances in which it will be broken (sometimes we ask for promises of others in the full knowledge that they will be broken). We need to be sure of the landscape this promise exists in before we can have confidence that it is the sort of promise we wish to accept.

• The key qualities that shape this confidence landscape are described in terms of trust, power and inertia. Our confidence in the value of this social promise is composed prinicipally of some mix of these three (as used in this context).

  • Trust is the true social quality of the promise - it relates to personal knowledge of the character of the other members of the society. When trust is high enough, we may even dispense with money - experience something like a gift or care economy, or what Graeber calls ‘communism’. In a money context, this trust relates directly to scale - as the number of participants in the money society increases, our level of knowledge of the other members degrades, and so does our trust.

  • Power is our understanding of what level of promise enforcement can be expected within the society - what forces may be mobilised to ensure that the money number is accepted and retains its value. Again, when power is very high, money can be dispensed with - this happens in situations of strong hierarchy, (also inside businesses), when exchange is governed by power and patronage. In a money context, power is required as scale grows and lessens the possibility of strong trust. Traditionally, the only way power could be exerted was centrally - through kings and banks, but the recent rise of blockchain has offered another form of power - that of the inhuman algorithm (although, of course, it has become clear that as imperfections in the algorithm need correcting, the power lies with certain groups of nodes, leading to confusion and loss of confidence). Decentralised tech at last offers the possibility of developing high quality trust without centralisation - but only on the basis of strong social design which the tech serves.

  • Inertia is an interesting condition - it denotes the reification of a money system; the cultural ‘weight’ that accrues by virtue of usage of the system over long periods. The British people did not lose faith in the pound during the periods of enormous inflation in the 1970s - the loss of confidence that drives hyperinflation did not materialise, despite rates staying above 16% for four years (peaking at 25%). Arguably, the British people believed throughout this that somehow the situation would be sorted, and kept faith with the £. This factor cannot be ignored when introducing new money systems - technical ‘betterness’, lower cost-in-use, all may be in place, but most people have no idea at all about money theory, and take history as part of their confidence landscape - probably quite sensibly. New systems with no history are likely to have higher volatility and lower confidence levels than established systems.

Interesting, some brainy exercise to contemplate this, but yet somehow I tend to agree that we need first smaller "units of the trust" to build our day to day functioning economies, but that alone is not enough. I'll continue my learning, while I guess many bright minds have already contemplated these questions, thanks for the links!

Just some further thought...As individuals, we do belong to many different groups. How about in economy, if individuals are part of many of these human-scale "units of promise and confidence", then the units for economic transactions are already linked through individuals that belong to many different units. Is that enough to build a scale needed, a social network where individuals that connect the nodes (units of the trust) are acting as ties between the units?

Katja, I think you are completely right about these many, existing small 'units of promise and confidence'. Any proposition that imagines a single structure, with each individual having just one identity in it, is doomed to failure (or to cruel authoritarianism).
The Credit Commons Whitepaper sets out a protocol for federation of small groups into 'networks' of networks' in a tiered way - but crucially, with the governance and primary credit creation engine retained in the lower tiers - where real value production happens. The higher tiers are more about co-ordination and collaboration, but don't get 'rich' - so don't take all the power.
Key to this last condition is the multiplicity of identity/network participation that you mention. It must be possible to choose from a number of networks when making a trade. It must be possible to be in several networks with different identities - otherwise power could reassert itself at the interconnection layers.

In the Open Credit Network chats, we have a phrase 'many varieties of local' - an individual might be a short-story writer, involved in an international network of writers and publishers and critics and academics - while at the same time a member of a neighbourhood group doing last-mile deliveries and sharing gardens for local food production, at the same time as having a 'day job' as a team member in a TV station (and more). All these networks of trust would be different - have different shapes, flows, architecture, intensity. All would need to be connected to become economically viable - but through highly diverse and multiple routings.

There is another important angle here, too. We tend to talk about, and consider the realities of, individuals. Unsurprising, as we live in the most highly individualised society ever. Further, no matter how much we recognise and disparage the condition of the atomised consumer, with an unrequited need for authentic communion gnawing away, resorting to 'retail therapy' - no matter how much we hate this, we will not, in practice, give up on the freedoms that we have become used to.
So there is no way 'back' to an economy of mediaeval character - for a myriad reasons.
At the same time, we cannot base any 'new economy' on individuals - for a single reason: that capitalism has so suffused every aspect of our culture that individuals are almost completely estranged from 'value production'. Almost all economic value production** takes place within the context of a wage-slave employing business. Most of the officially self-employed are just contractually disadvantaged wage-salves. As individuals, we have been excluded from the value producing cycle - it all belongs to incorporated institutions - governed by non-human rules.
So as individuals, however we feel in our heads, and in our networks, we are not (permitted to be) economic actors, by and large. We are not capable of value production outside of the context of an institution in this culture. Individuals use money, yes - but we only buy and sell assets: consumer goods, our time.
What this means in the context of this conversation about a new economy, is that we must start with business, and establish an economy there - that has real roots in value production, but which has different structural implications (around growth, power, autonomy, impact on the biosphere). If we can make that sing (and I am confident that we can) - then it can extend to individuals (through co-ops, B2E networks, neighbourhood and communities of interest developing endogenous value production machinery, new Theory of the Firm, new investment models, commoning - plenty of approaches that I can speak to if needed).
But we can't start with individuals. Not in the developed nations, at least (see grassrootseconomics.org for a different approach in a different context).
** The issue of 'care' is crucially important here. Is 'care' an example of 'economic value production'? If it is, then I am completely wrong - this would mean that most value production is in the hands of individuals - for care is fundamental, while the products of economics are only useful to people who have been empowered by growing up in a society where care is at least sufficient.
The key word here is 'economic'. For me economy is primarily about co-ordination of resources, time and effort between 'out-groups'. By definition, 'care' is activated between members of 'in-groups'. So in that set of definitions, 'care' is not economic value production, but social value production, and I distinguish between the two. People talk about rebasing the economy on 'care' - for me this is a complete misreading of what economy is for. At present, 'economy' has invaded our social settings and demands that we value all our interactions in money. So the call to rebase economy on care is in fact a capitulation to a sick framing imho. Economy should serve care, empower care, but if we mix the two up, we end up dangerously confused and worse, prey to the commodification of care which is already eating at our sociality..

Wow, that is some mofo mountain, you're attempting to climb there, and as a younger man, without other commitments, I'd be sure to get on board with some open source golang API development, but I've barely done an hours research on that, max.

I've half way up a different mofo mountain - a consensus decision making platform - a WHAT? I hear you say. Well it's a platform that's somewhere between Twitter and Loomio - simple points (tweets) that are put together to make proposals and come to a consensus on action.

The idea is to have a very low bar for entry, but the sophistication to make complex decisions collectively - with anonymous voting so that we can stand up to our friends without losing their friendship.

But anyway, I'm digressing from @Katja Pellini's opening post so I'll stop there other than to say my other time commitment over the last few days was putting together a Declaration of Inter-dependence - you heard it first - (not published yet) https://www.change.org/p/uk-political-parties-unite-the-country-with-a-declaration-of-interdependence

And sincerely, may the OCN be a huge success and give the banking system and global megacorps a massive kick up the rear.

Alex.. can you drop the consensus tool you're using into the Design Democracy Action Forum?

Thanks, Alex for sharing a link, I particularly like the central principle here "You'll be free to think, believe speak and act as you wish so long as your words and actions do not lead to the harm of others." To me, this is a very valuable principle and moral guideline, but when I start to think about its "enforcement" I feel a bit scared. "Perverting the Course of Justice or Perverting the Course of Democracy will carry severe penalties", or "We will protect you from abuse and exploitation, and will prevent you from abusing and exploiting others".....How would you describe "we" in this declaration? Who is "we"?

Hi @Katja Pellini thanks for the response... the "we" in the declaration is "society", all of us, but particularly those we have entrusted to represent us, our politicians and political parties, who quite often do a better job of dividing us, rather than uniting us.

Working for the common good should be number one priority at all times, not just in times of crisis and we need to reset our thinking, our communication and the way we do politics.

The declaration is just a soft statement of intent, not a set of hard and fast rules that must be adhered to.

I didn't seek to define the penalties that would be imposed for Perverting The Course of Democracy for example. It will be up to others to define exactly what that means and how transgressions are dealt with, but as a principle, I think it's sound, and something that I don't think our leaders should have a problem agreeing to.

Nobody is above the law. Bribing, Bullying or Blackmailing our law keepers and law makers undermines basic principles of equality and fairness. We are entering times where money speaks louder than ever in the media, in business, in politics and in the way elections are won.

We need to halt that trend, and re-assert ordinary people power. (don't you think? 🙂)

Posted now ... https://www.loomio.org/d/Pdo62wFD/a-simple-online-platform-for-consensus-decision-making

I wonder whether Bernard Lietaer's ideas have any relevance here?

see http://www.lietaer.com/category/proposals/ on Currency Solutions for a Wider World

Yes, Lietaer's ideas have huge relevance here. His website and his books are a fantastic reservoir of wisdom and practical suggestions. He was a great supporter of mutual credit systems. He was also a great supporter of the Bancor Protocol, which facilitates "the ability for different user-generated currencies to easily convert with each other, such a system can be used to promote a more even distribution of global wealth and stimulate individual economies": https://about.bancor.network/foundation/

I think the idea of creating a Universal Basic Income based on the blockchain is a project that is worth looking at and supporting. Here's one example: https://joincircles.net/

Here's another example that's been running for some time already: https://www.mannabase.com/