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ID-12 Yeah, but... January 8th, 1986
Yeah, but...
The only intelligent reason not to do something that looks good
is the possibility of getting hurt, or hurting someone or
something else.
The specific risk of participating in any currency system is that
of being left with worthless credit after giving value,
particularly if the giving of that value puts the giver at risk.
In this case, to be at risk means to lack something which is
needed.
The first guideline to safe participation in a LETSystem is thus
to never give for green dollars anything that you need, or which
you need to spend cash to replace.
Never give what you cannot afford.
If then you have a credit balance and cannot spend it as you
would like, at least you haven't lost anything essential.
This is not to say no one should take a risk.
Indeed, you will often find that it pays to do so.
This simply defines the safest way to use a LETSystem while you
are still uncertain of its value.
A personal money system that operates around a zero balance
provides for about half of the membership at any time to be in
committment.
These persons are entirely free of risk of loss if the system
should cease operating.
No other monetary systems offer any equivalent protection.
Thus it is entirely safe to use green dollars if you : -
a. never forego cash earnings in favour of green, and
b. either : -
maintain a negative balance, in committment to your
community, or
accept acknowledgement in green only when you are able
to write it off as worthless with no loss.
Landsman Community Services Ltd. ID-12 Page 1
ID-12 Yeah, but... January 8th, 1986
The way to gain value from a LETSystem is to mind your own
business.
When you pay green dollars you are spending your earnings.
If you don't pay more than you think something is worth, and
don't give away your own time and energy for less than it is
worth, how can you lose ?
It is best to become good at spending green money, and to thus
learn its value to yourself, as soon as possible.
Earning green dollars need never be a problem.
The concern that others might get hurt is difficult for me to
take seriously.
In the first place it is insufferably patronising.
Mind your own business.
Let others mind their own.
In the second, anyone who is that concerned for the safety of
others will have a hard time justifying their use of conventional
currency.
The only consideration that merits deeper analysis is the concern
that the whole thing is, in some strange way, dangerous.
This may be associated with an anticipation of retribution from
some particular quarter.
They won't like it, and they will stop it, and that will be bad.
It is useful to try to establish precisely who "they" are, why
"they" won't like it, and what "they" might do that would be a
problem.
When "you" have worked it out let "us" know.
You may be assured that "they" aren't big business or even the
banks, not the government and not the unions, and neither
organised religion nor organised crime.
Everybody who can use money and can use some more stands to gain.
It is left as an exercise to the diligent reader to derive the
precise reasons for this result.
Landsman Community Services Ltd. ID-12 Page 2
ID-12 Yeah, but... January 8th, 1986
A more realistic but equally unfounded anxiety lies in the
nameless dread that somehow using our own money might precipitate
some collapse of all that is essential to keeping us in the
manner to which we are accustomed.
It is entirely appropriate to be anxious about the way things are
these days.
Anyone who looks around without concern has every reason to be
worried.
Think of the cartoon character who steps off the cliff and
remains poised in midair, oblivious to the risk; and then, on
looking down, sees that he has no support and flies like brick.
It is surely by now clear to all that our money system has for
some time been supported by nothing more than our belief in it.
If we can indeed remain poised for so long without support, why
can we not do so consciously ?
Why should we be unable use a simple, self regulating system when
we have demonstrated our ability to manage with this monstrous
contraption ?
The establishment of LETSystems will in fact stabilise the very
institutions currently in the greatest danger of irrecoverable
collapse.
The relationship between personal and conventional currency
closely parallels biological symbiosis, where each organism
contributes positively to the development of the other, or the
marriage, where male and female become more than either alone
without losing their identity.
The concern that one must compete with or threaten the other is
based in a very simplistic perception of the way things actually
work, both in the natural world and in human society.
One response that I find particularly exasperating is the
plaintive bleat that a LETSystem isn't perfectly safe.
Neither is a bicycle.
Come to that, what is safe, or, more to the point, foolproof ?
Fritz Schumacher observes that " Ghandi once said scathingly,
Everybody is looking for a system so perfect that no one inside
has to be good."
Apart from being the ultimate trivial pursuit, since nothing can
account for the variety of human behaviour, such a Quest for a
Holy Grail is totally repugnant in its reduction of the person
from a responsible ethical being to a mere element in a system.
Landsman Community Services Ltd. ID-12 Page 3
ID-12 Yeah, but... January 8th, 1986
Anyone who argues the impropriety of LETSystems on the grounds
that a complete fool might be able to damage himself, is
logically bound to withdraw themselves immediately from their
current involvement with their conventional currency.
Wrap up all your unwanted money in a brown paper parcel and send
it, postpaid to ....
Or perhaps they think there is room for improvement, the LETSystem
isn't the best we can do.
Very likely.
But I don't see any better ideas in the field.
So, until the day that one comes along, ...
Indeed, I suggest that any who are interested in economics,
either theoretical or practical, particularly those engaged in
alternative currency development, ought to give some serious
consideration to these ideas.
While it may well prove that there are better ways to do this,
the best way to discover those improvements is to work from the
state of the art, particularly when simulations and explorations
are so accessible.
Landsman Community Services Ltd. ID-12 Page 4
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