Money is a Permaculture Sector in all Designs

• Permaculture works on everything and at every level
• We can design and redesign our money systems
  • it is legal and everyone is now doing it!
  • this presentation is NOT about capitalism nor its alternatives.
  • but it will very much involve "capital"

What do we mean by Capital?

• Let's avoid misunderstandings: when you hear "Capital" that is what I mean
• Thanks to Roland Ethan and Greg Landua - Appleseed Permaculture Farm
  • Physical Address in New York: 9 Old State Route 213,High Falls, NY 12440
• older version is: Financial, Social and Environmental
• You are encouraged to make your own list of forms of capital

What is your map of money?

• Everyone has their own definition of money (which can be confusing)
  • Let's apply Permaculture thinking to this!

Observe and Interact with Money:

• Money's core dimension is Transactions: Past, Present and Future:
  • Past: transaction trends (stats, accounting): the trend is the designer's friend
  • Present: current transactions: designer needs a matchmaker as catalyst
  • Future: capital (potential for future transactions): obtain a yield
• Transactions happen in the context of Circles:
  • Transactions: agreements between members of a circle
    • circle: neighbourhood community, nation, firm, csa, club, church, municipality, etc.
  • using Currency:
    • abstract idea, placebo symbol: a shared belief among members of a circle
  • to yield up to 8 forms of Capital:
    • accumulate treasures claimed by members of a circle (or for the circle itself)

Observe and Interact with Money:

Money is:

* agreements betweem members of a circle,
* using currency lube
* to transform their capital into forms
* more aligned with the circle's mission

What is currency?

• Currency = flow (goods and services in one direction, symbolic currency in the other).
  • invoices in one direction and receipts in the other
  • the currency itself can be destroyed (or forgotten) after it has accomplished its job
  • sometimes currency is embedded in capital and that complicates things greatly
  • national governments usually want to be a party to all significant transactions

What is currency?

• Currency is an invisible structure
  • it does not exist; a useful figment of our collective imagination
  • nonetheless very efficient for getting things moving or happening (good or bad)
  • origin of mathematics, contract law, and cities
  • the currencies that gave rise to New York are long forgotten. NY remains.

Examples of Currency:

Currency is the grease that allows goods and services to circulate WITHIN a Circle

• Some Types of Currencies and their circles:
  • National Currency: USD (USA++), CAD (Canada), EUR (Europe+), etc
  • Love (healthy families and circles of friends)
  • Time Currency (Timebanks groups, LETS groups)
  • Municipal or Regional govt Currency (local citizens)
  • Global Currencies: love, carbon credits, gold, USD, euro, karma, IMF SDR (Special Drawing Rights)
  • Loyalty Currencies: air miles, Canadian Tire bills, gift cards, transit tickets
  • Capital Raising Currencies: crowdfunding, shares, stock, CSA, micro-ownership-real-estate
  • GHG reducing Currencies: carbon offsets

The Yin-Yang Spectrum of Currencies

The gender of Currencies

DaVinci TaiChi

Currency Swales:

• Swale

  • national currency can take a very long time to complete the circle
  • we can design swales to capture and hold it longer to irrigate our projects
  • this is the same idea as "buy local" campaigns

A more realistic picture of Currencies

• the key to success is to keep the flow moving in circles (aka Circular Economy)
  • but some areas flow out to other areas and never come back, or come back too slowly
  • ethical economics is the art of keeping the flow as circular as possible, irrigating all members of the interconnected circles
  • wealth only comes from healthy circular flow of currency
  • decline comes from blocked flow (ex: rulers that force people to pay taxes in a currency they do not have)

Example of Currency Circle

• Walmart -> China Factory -> China Bank -> US Bonds -> US govt spending -> US people -> Walmart

Stories can be a Currency

• story: an account of events describing changes in or exchanges between characters
• accounting journal: a revealing story deducted from a bunch of exchanges measured in some currencies
  • first written stories (ancient mesopotamia)
• PROTO-SUMERIAN TABLET (3000BC) recording the rations allotted to a total of 40 men in the course of a five-day week. The signs farthest to the left in the top three rows indicate «Day 1», «Day 2» and «Day 3». Each of the men received rations equivalent in value to 2 minor units of barley per day. Barley was the currency of the period.

My Autobiography

• Our biographies can be written as an accounting journal

  • born and raised by Mom+Dad in exchange for regular gratitude and insurance against abandonment in old age
  • studied hard (17 yrs) in exchange for marks, grades and credit leading to greater variety of opportunities
  • volunteered (time) for non-profits in exchange for references, goodwill, karma and experience
  • worked (35 yrs) giving grades in exchange for national currency (infinite spending opportunities) and respect
  • raised children in exchange for regular gratitude and insurance against abandonment in old age
  • retired in exchange for free time to explore non-measurable pleasures of life

Timebank using Time as Currency

* entirely legal * note: legal tender is a currency that has to be accepted for payment * Tax collectors want their share of transactions beyond neighbour giving occasional hand to neighbour

Seedstock Story

• to join the seedstock community market, Homesteader's Emporium and Yummyyards gave IOUs to Agorabora (in seedstock currency)
• Agorabora's Jordan and Paola used it to take Delvin's Permaculture Design Course
• I gave presentations on community currencies at Delvin's PDCs in exchange for seedstock
• I spent them at the Homesteaders' Emporium (for tools) and yummyyards' CSA box program (25% seedstock, 75% CDN)

Sweet Digz Farm - SDZ Bucks currency

• growing food is like printing money
• earlier this year, SDZ created a loyalty card called SweetDigZ bucks:
  • farm customers bought the cards for $200 and got $220 worth of food throughout the season (ongoing, no time limit)
  • uses a refreshingly "super luddite sticky dot" accounting system
    
  • SDZ farmers also use smaller denomination cards as gifts (wedding, birthdays, donations to striking teachers etc)
  • SDZ farmers offer SDZ bucks as work-trade arrangements (ex. currently mostly striking teachers)
  • Sweet Digz was able to purchase tools and compost to double their produce compared to last year
  • SDZ farmers report average purchases jumping from $13/visit for pre-card users to SDZ 30/visit
  • they also report a big increase in community feeling and fraternity (and an unexpected Farmer's Market effect)

Irish Bank Strike story 1

• 1970 Ireland everybody had a local pub for watching sports or meeting after church
• Banks went on strike for almost a year
• paycheques became the currency then cheques in general
• The pubs un-intentionally became bankers (endorsing good cheques)
  • but not cheques from risky clients (to avoid loss of reputation)
• cheques circulated fast (hot potato game)
• when banks reopened: few cheques bounced; hardly anyone had suffered from strike

Egyptian Ostracas story

• Ostracon (pottery sherd with writing)
• 
• from the Chief Baker of the Temple of Amun at Thebes acknowledging the receipt of wheat.
• The Holy Grail: paying local taxes in local currency
  • national taxes in interest-free national currency

High Middle Ages - Bracteates story

Michael Linton: Original Guru of Community Currencies

• launched the modern community currencies movement 35 years ago with LETS (when Comox airforce base closed down)
• story of the dentist
• invented the "community way" model used by seedstock/agorabora in Vancouver and now in Victoria too

Michael Linton's Message:

• make deals in multiple currencies
• bypass banks: co-vest rather than in-vest (crowdfunding in CC)
• use multi-currency apps for exchanges http://openmoney.cc

What about Counterfeit?

Now lets Review:

• Money is:
  • agreements betweem members of a circle,
  • using currency lube
  • to transform their capital into forms
  • more aligned with the circle's mission
• Permaculture Designers need to:
  • identify which circles (and stakeholders) are involved in the Design
  • identify or design appropriate initial currency
  • identify existing capital with ongoing ECOFIMAP 8-forms of capital inventory
  • continuously remind stakeholders of mission statement (or modify it consensually)
  • continuously measure yields and degree of alignment to mission statement
  • refine habits, rituals and routines to improve yields
  • find at least one matchmaker
  • if necessary, modify the currencies+matchmakers to improve yields

Matchmakers are a human or robotic form of currency

• Transactions require a matchmaker + appropriate habits and rituals (rules)
• Matchmaker operates a stake exchange so members can find their permacultural niche
• Medieval Fair ; extension of Farmer’s market and CSAs

Exercise: Design a medieval fair to help one of your circles obtain yields in a dry part of their mission

• Pick a Circle (or combination of circles): what are their real mission statements (compare with their transaction trends)
• setup a permanent ECOFIMAP system of their 8 forms of capital
• tune the (perma)metrics that measure alignment of their ECOFIMAP with their mission
• organize a fair to improve the (perma)metrics and engage at least one matchmaker

Mnemonic Inventory of Treasures: ECOFIMAP

• E = Experiential Capital
• C = Cultural Capital
• O = Social Capital *second letter of sOcial (i.e. circle)
• F = Financial Capital
• I = Intellectual Capital
• M = Material Capital
• A = NAtural Capital *second letter of nAtural (i.e. All living things)
• P = SPiritual Capital *second letter of sPiritual (i.e. Power)

for more: http://permametrics.org

stop here

Now : go and permaculturally design everything!

Problems with Canadian Dollar

• fewer Canadians are able to make a living using it
• It is encouraging rape of Nature (tar sands)
• It is encouraging un-ethical trade (sweat shops)

How all currencies are created

• fiat: just print it (only 3% of CDN money + all of QE)
• create currency with IOUs (new debts, pledges, promises)
  • credit card loans, mortgages
  • crowdfunding, fundraising pledges
  • work contracts, future farm/factory production
• use currency to pay for goods and services up front
• destroy currency by paying off debts, fulfilling promises
• how do we win? zero balance, all needs met, all offers fulfilled

Example of Ponzi currency creation in $CDN

• go to bank and offer an IOU in exchange for national currency
• bank verifies our ability to redeem the IOU (calculated risk) in exchange for "interest"
• interest has to be paid first
  • paying interest is a game of musical chairs
  • must generate ever more NEW goods + services, often by ripping off nature or people
  • massive debt, GHG, Tar Sands, pipelines, wars, mafias and tons of cool new stuff every year

the solution is:

• 
• interest-free currencies
• bucket-list requests and offers

My angle:

• The map is not the territory
  • adjust our money maps and make real change
  • Godel's Theorem: all maps are incomplete or contradictory
  • stories are just maps
• Within the problems lie the solutions
  • when money is problem; multiple community currencies is solution
  • Tons of experiments going on, none mainstream yet
  • 80% experiments fail but we are learning so much

Recent Experiments around the World

• Chiralkines: Left and Right money ; measuring complete circularity of currency flow
• Ripple: reducing the cost of (multi-currency) transactions to the bare minimum
• ApplePay: multi-currencies (incl. loyalty currencies) but only those approved by apple
• everyone will pay w/ their own promises & vote by accepting others'

Bitcoin

• short movie explaining Bitcoin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5JGQXCTe3c
• website showing Bitcoin activity https://blockchain.info
• government can see all the trades but it is much harder to block or force exchanges
• much much cheaper cost of transactions

Other Crypto-Currencies

• Dogecoin: fun and useful variant of bitcoin
• Ecuador launches digital currency based on bitcoin after banning Bitcoin
• Ethereum: smart contracts using Bitcoin Protocol

Types of UOM and IOUs

Guillaume Lebleu's Aphorisms

• One day, everyone will pay w/ their own promises and will vote by accepting others'.
• If we all could express what we need/want and when, we wouldn't need any money. Just a good matching engine.
• Money is the matching engine of our wants. It requires everything to be a multiple of a politically convenient object.
• Economists owe ecology an apology
• money is best described as an adjective, not a noun
• reminder that 'money in the bank' is not 'your money', but a loan you made to the bank
• Borrowing in someone else's currency is slavery. Freedom is borrowing in your own.

7 insights

• 1: All currencies are imaginary: Create them as needed!
• 2: with enough appropriate currencies, we live better lives
• 3: the community and ecosystem are involved in every exchange (barter seems selfish)
  
• 4: our currencies define us better than how we vote
• 5: the more our currency is circular: the wealthier we are
• 6: beware paradox of "measuring into existence" gift currencies
• 7: clearly communicate requests + offers to our communities

What is your problem that community currencies are the solution for?

• Money = agreements betweem members of a circle, using currency lube to transform their capital into forms more aligned with the circle's mission

• Thank You
  • CC creative commons 2018 by Bruno Vernier
  • http://permametrics.org