Bernard Lietaer on alternative currencies

[jtimon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHhoWU_L2S4

[Boussac]

Lietaer's speech is very convincing, too bad he does not mention Bitcoin to support his examples of possible monetary diversity.
The swiss Wir looks old in comparison..

[netrin]

Ripple is a more apt analog. Thanks for posting.

[jtimon]

Lietaer's speech is very convincing, too bad he does not mention Bitcoin to support his examples of possible monetary diversity.
The swiss Wir looks old in comparison..

Yes. I've mailed him to talk about bitcoin (and freicoin, as he advocates for demurrage in some currencies) but he showed little interest.
I also talked him about ripple, but for some reason he doesn't thinks it is "local enough". Maybe villages.cc can make him change his mind.

Ripple is a more apt analog.

Sorry I don't understand what you mean here.

[netrin]

He probably doesn't understand digital. He had a nice slide presentation, but he doesn't come off as cutting edge. He's proposed global basket currencies himself (Terra), so his arguments against rippleor bitcoin are not consistent. Bitcoin is a single example of a global or local currency, whereas Ripple, OpenTransactions are meta currencies, or monetary protocols for transferring multiple credit monies.

I don't know what open source software he's referring to here if he's not talking about btc, ripple, ot, etc.

[jtimon]

He probably doesn't understand digital. He had a nice slide presentation, but he doesn't come off as cutting edge. He's proposed global basket currencies himself (Terra), so his arguments against rippleor bitcoin are not consistent. Bitcoin is a single example of a global or local currency, whereas Ripple, OpenTransactions are meta currencies, or monetary protocols for transferring multiple credit monies.

I don't know what open source software he's referring to here if he's not talking about btc, ripple, ot, etc.

I can't see the video at work, but he's probably talking about open source LETS implementations:

http://www.openmoney.org/
http://mutualcreditmodule.matslats.net/

About his critics. Well, he actually didn't answer me anything about bitcoin or freicoin, but here's what he said about ripple:

Interesting indeed. Congratulations to the team who pulled this together.
 However, I don't think that Ripple is a substitute for LETS.
 At least some LETS have as objective to increase geographically local exchanges.
 Ripple has as objective to feed through existing relationships independently of geography.

 Both models are useful, but I am not convinced that Ripple should be presented as an "upgrade" for all LETS.

But you can create your own LETS community within ripple and that may allow you to trade with other LETS communities in the ripple network (and also other people in the network but outside any LETS).
I don't see how that's not an upgrade. Also, Ripple indeed favors geographically local exchanges (since most of the people you trust will live near you).

Anyway, despite our differences, his promotion of alternative currencies is very valuable and I thank him for that.

[herzmeister]

He said somewhere that he is sceptical about Bitcoin in its current form as it is for the most part used as a speculation object, not as a currency. And he's right. Who would speculate with simple time-based tokens that he proposes?

He may or may not be a bit simplistic or idealistic in his views. I believe an aspect of Bitcoin that he might oversee is that Bitcoin is not idealistic, it acknowledges humans are greedy and handle out of self-interest and thus will spread the word. That's why Bitcoin might succeed in bringing real change to the world rather than LETS, Ripple, local currencies or what have you. Time will tell. It depends on how cleverly Bitcoin is being evangelized. So far, doesn't look too good imo.

[Boussac]

I don't buy everything that Lietaer says but I like his presentation of monetary diversity vs monoculture (so much so that I wrote a post on my blog about that: www.e-ducat.fr).
What he misses is the transforming power of bitcoin compared to LETS or other technologies or other virtual currencies.

People should be free to do their own banking and that's what bitcoin enables them to do.

Exactly in the same way as the web enables people to publish their opinion without going through the social and financial censorship of the mainstream media.
The web has not killed mainstream media but it has given us more freedom.

Bitcoin will not kill the banks but it will help people keep them under check.
Bitcoin will give people more monetary freedom.

[herzmeister]

I also talked him about ripple, but for some reason he doesn't thinks it is "local enough".

Locality is an important pillar in his concept, as he believes this will also result in more decentralization, i.e. local economic cycles. This is an important point for him in terms of cutting down wasteful global logistics, striving towards a future of better ecologic sustainability.

[jtimon]

I also talked him about ripple, but for some reason he doesn't thinks it is "local enough".

Locality is an important pillar in his concept, as he believes this will also result in more decentralization, i.e. local economic cycles. This is an important point for him in terms of cutting down wasteful global logistics, striving towards a future of better ecologic sustainability.

But the fact that unlike LETS, Ripple can scale to big networks doesn't make it less local. It is more decentralized than LETS, which relies on an "authority" for each community. Ripple is p2p credit. Credit suitable for payments by finding paths of trust.
I admire him anyway. He's making a great job researching and educating on money.
And I like LETS too. The beautiful thing is that they're not incompatible with ripple but complementary. In fact, a LETS community can be easily implemented inside a ripple network, making the LETS more useful.

[Boussac]

The more I think about local currencies the more obvious it becomes that their promoters like Lietaer are entangled in a fallacy: they end up opposing local circulation to liquidity.
Local circulation is supposed to favour local commerce so they become concerned with monetary leaks.
In fact, monetary leaks are simply the consequence of liquidity which is a desirable property of a currency.

The only defect of the monetary sytem that a local currency can correct is in money creation : local bottom-up money creation can correct the imbalance of the top-down money creation by the banks.

In other words, a successfull local currency is one that is created locally in volume but can flow gradually outside of the community.
That's why bitcoin fits in the big picture and why so many local currencies today are only marginally effective because of low volumes and/or no liquidity.

[benjamindees]

...

Spot-on.

[FreeMoney]

The more I think about local currencies the more obvious it becomes that their promoters like Lietaer are entangled in a fallacy: they end up opposing local circulation to liquidity.
Local circulation is supposed to favour local commerce so they become concerned with monetary leaks.
In fact, monetary leaks are simply the consequence of liquidity which is a desirable property of a currency.

The only defect of the monetary sytem that a local currency can correct is in money creation : local bottom-up money creation can correct the imbalance of the top-down money creation by the banks.

In other words, a successfull local currency is one that is created locally in volume but can flow gradually outside of the community.
That's why bitcoin fits in the big picture and why so many local currencies today are only marginally effective because of low volumes and/or no liquidity.

Local currencies are based on fallacy. "monetary leaks"! aka getting stuff into your community.

[jtimon]

The more I think about local currencies the more obvious it becomes that their promoters like Lietaer are entangled in a fallacy: they end up opposing local circulation to liquidity.
Local circulation is supposed to favour local commerce so they become concerned with monetary leaks.
In fact, monetary leaks are simply the consequence of liquidity which is a desirable property of a currency.

The only defect of the monetary sytem that a local currency can correct is in money creation : local bottom-up money creation can correct the imbalance of the top-down money creation by the banks.

In other words, a successfull local currency is one that is created locally in volume but can flow gradually outside of the community.
That's why bitcoin fits in the big picture and why so many local currencies today are only marginally effective because of low volumes and/or no liquidity.

Interesting point. First, note that Ripple shares the "creation from the bottom" property without limiting the currency to a certain place.

Local currencies are based on fallacy. "monetary leaks"! aka getting stuff into your community.

Second, I think local currencies are good for their purpose, which is favor local production and trade. I don't think they're based on any fallacy.
With a "monetary leak" sure they're getting stuff into their community. They're importing goods from outside, which is precisely what many of these transition towns want to discourage.
They lack some capabilities bitcoin has. I think that's the beauty of having a currency ecosystem instead of a monetary monopoly. More currencies also means more resilience.