Tag: commons

New article: Digital CCS in Brazil

IJCCR

Mumbuca e-dinheiro and the challenges of requirements, codes and data digital community currency governance

Luiz Arthur S. Faria*, Fernando G. Severo**, Henrique L. Cukierman***, Eduardo H. Diniz****

*Fundação Getúlio Vargas and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, luizart@gmail.com

** Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, severo@cos.ufrj.br

*** Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hcukier@cos.ufrj.br

****Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil, eduardo.diniz@fgv.br

Abstract

This paper discusses the governance process of digital complementary currencies (DCCs). Our reflections are based on contributions from fields such as the anthropology of economy and currencies, especially from the perspective of monetary plurality and governance of commons, and also on concepts developed in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The research effort accompanies the material changes of the Mumbuca DCC (Maricá, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), connected to the Brazilian Network of Community Development Banks (CDBs), which has accumulated more than one hundred experiences since 1998. We use three different approaches to investigate the Mumbuca digital platform: the processes related to the requirements of the digital platforms adopted, the tensions concerning its closed architecture model and finally the currency circulation data – now digital, and relatively traceable. The paper explores the impossibility to dissociate, on the one hand, the ‘social practices’ enunciated by the communities related to the local currency proposals (and connected to the idea of money as a commons) and, on the other, the materialities present in digitalization processes. Finally, calling for a sociotechnical approach, it outlines some of the challenges faced by the CDBs Network, towards treating the DCC as a commons.

Keywords

Digital community currencies; Social currencies; Commons; Governance

Article Faria et al.

To cite this article: Faria, L., Severo, F., Cukierman, H. and Diniz, E. (2020) ‘Mumbuca E-dinheiro and the challenges of a digital community currency governance: requirements, codes and data’ International Journal of Community Currency Research Volume 24 (Summer 2020) 77-88; http://www.ijccr.net; ISSN 1325-9547; DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2020.013

Forms of money power and measure of economic value. The alternative currencies coping with care of commons

IJCCR

Maurizio Ruzzene

Associazione Decrescita; RetiCS (www.retics.org); Email: ruzzene@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Among the main causes of the current crisis, there is certainly a lack of adequate criteria to measure economic value, and this is linked to the way official currency value is designed, imbued with intrinsic and anonymous economic value. Official currencies perform their function of economic accounting only because they offer a general equivalent of all value (Marx), i.e. because they have an abstract and internal value, but this prevents them from being effective instruments of economic measure, making them unstable and relatively inexpressive of any concrete value.

Despite its importance in the current systemic crisis, the lack of instruments for measuring economic value has not warranted special attention in prevailing alternative currency schemes. This is partly related to a prevalence of approaches that limit attention to the social integration functions of alternative currencies and/or the exchange functions for reviving economic growth and full employment of resources. However, in order to restore the wider emancipative potential of alternative currencies and better address the current systemic crisis, we have to reconsider the economic measure problems mainly from the viewpoint of the links between human activities and the common conditions of existence, or life contexts, in which the flow of time has a fundamental influence.

Article Ruzzene

To cite this article: Ruzzene, M. (2018) ‘Forms of money power and measure of economic value. Time based credit for care and commons economies’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 2018 Volume 22 (Summer) 39-55 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN 1325-9547. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2018.015

The District Currency: a new currency design for managing the commons

IJCCR

Jens Martignoni

University of Cologne, Germany. Email: jens@nethood.org

ABSTRACT

Most schemes of complementary currencies developed in the last 50 years are based on the “money as a means of exchange”- concept, which means exchange of individual agents based on their individual needs and offers. The individual person or the individual company is an actor in a network and by establishing a market it is possible to exchange goods and services. Mutual Credit systems LETS or Timebanks e.g. do support mostly this market case and many of them limit common activities to the sole operation of the system itself. Therefore, community currencies today are often currencies operating within a community but not necessary for the community. Interestingly the case of a commons is mostly not recognized as a completely different kind of exchange where needs of a whole group have to be satisfied through offers of individuals and offers of the whole (commons) have to be shared justly among the individual members. Such an exchange asks for different features from a community currency. This was the starting point of a project in Zurich, Switzerland to develop a more suitable and effective currency. The resulting new currency model, called district currency is proposed and analysed in this paper. The district currency is therefore an advanced currency type, which is designed upon the commons idea. It is the needs and tasks of the community, the public (community) goods and common tasks based on the commons, which are the core and drivers of the currency. As a secondary element the traditional individual market-based system complements this commons layer and strengthen its impact. Therefore, it could be seen as a two tiers model.

The paper describes basics, premises and functions of the idea including some historical background and more specifically the case of Wörgel in Austria which has some interesting aspects have that still not widely taken into consideration.  The main features of the district currency model are including the intended and controllable circulation, the democratic decision of the spending and budgeting and the commons-based value system. The currency was developed along a case study in a housing co-operative in Zurich. Experiences with the planning district-currency-game give some important hints for the feasibility and the functioning of such an improved currency model and the open questions remaining to be answered. The development of this model has been a long-term process driven through empirical research and action and the goal of the paper is to engage more researchers and practitioners to contribute towards the needed theoretical foundation and feasibility studies.

Article Martignoni

To cite this article: Martignoni, Jens (2018) ‘The district currency: a new currency design for managing the commons” International Journal of Community Currency Research 2018 Volume 22 (Summer) 16-38 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN 1325-9547. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2018.014

Editorial: Building community, promoting the commons, and surfing the digital wave

Editor

Filipe Moreira Alves

Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, NOVA School of Sciences and Technology – NOVA University Lisbon (CENSE – FCT-UNL), Email: fmalves@fc.ul.pt

Editorial Alves

To cite this article: Alves, Filipe M. (2018) ‘Editorial: Building community, promoting the commons, and surfing the digital wave’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 2018 Volume 22 (Summer) 1-3 <www.ijccr.net> ISSN 1325-9547. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2018.012