The Free Currency Project

Let's talk about solutions, for a change.

I'm in the process of putting one of mine up at the Free Currency wiki. Here's an excerpt, to whet your appetite:

For the past few hundred years, ever since the establishment of the first central bank, the creation of money has come with a price attached: an interest fee, which must be paid to the issuer. In the end, such money is nothing but debt, and it's ending now in the only way it could: everything, all the real wealth in the world, is being sucked to the top of a pyramid billions of people broad and hundreds of years old. This end was inherent in the way our money works, but it is not inherent in money per se. Our modern monetary system is, when you get right down to it, nothing but a game that we play. On this page, you'll find the rules of a new game. One that just might be more fun to play than the one we're all sitting at the table for now.

This isn't just some bullshit idea I came up with on my own (although certain details of the implementation are, so far as I know, unique.) The basic concept was brought to my attention in a series of articles (Money: A New Beginning Part 1, Part 2, Money and the Crisis of Civilization) by Charles Eisenstein, a thinker whose thoughts are deep in that way that many philosophers aspire to but few are able to pull off with such grace (his book, Ascent of Humanity, is online, free to all, and highly recommended.) The key idea is that of demurrage, which is very simply the opposite of interest: whereas the money we use now gains value over time simply by virtue of being money, free currency loses value until eventually it just dries up and vanishes. This is odd, until you consider that in the real world, actual physical goods and, yes, services, also decay and must eventually be replaced. Use money that the same principle applies to, and the potential changes are enourmous.

Now, I'm not going to explain all the ins and outs here. That's what the wiki is for, so if you're interested, go there and check it out. What I'm really interested in, is help (that's why it's a wiki.) Reformatting our currency is one of those things that, by definition, cannot by done alone. It's a big project, and it requires more than just me (good for big ideas, and not much else.) The project needs web designers, programmers, graphic artists ... and that's just the initial stage. Later on, when it's time to go live, it'll need people on the streets marketing the currency, talking to businesses, getting the word out to the man on the street. I've got ideas on how to do all of this; no doubt others out there have their own. The project needs them all.

If you want to help, drop your name in the comment string and I'll give you edit permission on the wiki (it's closed to the public until I've got everything up.) And even if you don't, don't be afraid to mention this at whatever forums you hang out on.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to take our economy back.