[wsfii-discuss] Worldchanging article on Complementary currencies

Wed Oct 5 16:14:45 UTC 2005

It's pretty clear to me that cash as we know it will cease to exist in
a few years and any remaining economic anonymity will go with it. Bear
in mind, as I'm sure you're aware, that the use of cash in the UK and
many other countries is already severely limited by money-laundering
regulations.

It's a problem that needs to be solved but it's not a problem that
needs to be solved by every CC system and as many have pointed out,
may well be antithetical to some of them.

The great thing about alternative currencies (note the term) is that
they are additional to the national currency. We destroy the idea that
most people, most of the time have to use a single currency, whatever
it may be. When you're using multiple currencies, you can choose the
ones that are fit for your purpose from the currency toolbox. Those
that are useful to people will thrive and those that are useless will
die.

It's important to be clear about your intentions when designing a
system and stick to them. That implies that you also know what your
system is not. Trying to be all things to all people tends to lead to
a mess. A diversity of projects, each with a specific focus, will
enable the wide currency scene to innovate and constantly come up with
better solutions. But not every system will succeed, in fact, most
will fail.

In more specific terms, I've been trying to address the line between
disclosure and privacy in my own software. It's tricky and it's always
going to come down to a value judgement. There seem to be three
approaches:

1. Everything is as private as possible on principle.
2. Everything is as public as possible on principle.
3. Work out which questions in specific circumstances a member might
legitimately want to ask about another member and provide as little
information in that context as they need to answer those questions.

I'm going with number 3 for this specific system but I can see how
both 1 and 2 will appeal to many people. There would be nothing to
stop someone being a member of many systems, each with different
policies.

To give a specific example, it's taken as read in most LETS that
members know the other members balances? Why? Because it appears to
show whether they're in good standing and therefore are trusted to
trade with. However, it's quite meaningless and can lead to wrong
conclusions in almost every situation (large positive balance, large
negative balance, balance near zero.) The trading volume, length of
membership and average trading volume over a specific period is highly
relevant to answering that question, though. Therefore, I will not be
disclosing members' balances to protect them from misinformation,
rather than in the interests of privacy.

I'm quite relaxed about aggregate system-wide statistics and I think
most people are, with the exception of trying to avoid presenting them
in a way (ie. in real time) where they might inadvertently reveal
information about specific members.

Let a thousand currencies bloom!