Graham Barnes — Ideologies Of Credit Creation

The Individual

Anyone tin do their ain credit notes – it’s getting them accepted that is the problem. As individuals nosotros tin solely dorsum credit issued amongst our ain personal capabilities to create. So a banknote from an artisan bakery who lives nearby is in all probability a practiced bet. But inwards belatedly phase capitalism virtually of our personal contributions to value-added are selected/ combined/ subsumed into the capitalist value-creation function. In fact this alternative as well as combination is the substance rationale for capitalism – the might to do something bigger than the total of its parts as well as cash inwards the resulting surplus value [extraction of economical rent].

The appeal of this person-as-primary-credit-creator ideology derives to a large extent from the cult of the heroic individual. It represents an atomistic sentiment of gild informed yesteryear the rampant competition/ evolutionary schoolhouse of economical thought. It is interesting solely inwards the sense that all value creation is grounded inwards private contributions as well as that recognising those contributions inwards about agency is important.

Community/ Mutual Credit

Here the ideology is i of communal support. No homo is an isle ; nosotros all demand back upwards at dissimilar stages of our lives as well as careers. So the community manages inwards about agency its collective resources inwards monastic say to smoothen the path. Note that this may endure to a greater extent than or less socialist inwards its nature; as well as the community may endure of individuals or of businesses or both.
We tin characterise this approach every bit a credit commons [3]. And for a sustainable green a fundamental success component is to specify boundaries – who is inwards as well as who is out (and so nether what circumstances a political party tin bring together or endure asked to leave). This turns out to endure a non-trivial governance work as well as leads into consideration of wider ‘digital democracy’ issues.

Much of the thinking behind mutual credit dates dorsum centuries simply to a greater extent than recent instantiations withdraw keep been reinvigorated yesteryear emerging seductive digital ‘solutions’. At their best they tin facilitate data as well as sense sharing; at their worst they relegate determination making to algorithms amongst no room for flexibility or sentence every bit circumstances change.

Mutual credit all the same remains the purest shape of credit creation because it satisfies the substance exam laid upwards out yesteryear Douthwaite inwards The Ecology of Money – that a currency should endure controlled yesteryear its users [4]

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Ideologies of credit creation

Graham Barnes