Crowd Sourcing 2.0

Crowd sourcing has already become an interesting new social phenomena, but image if we had a system of currencies that was designed for this sort of thing.  One that was designed from the start to do big projects collaboratively.  Things that are hard to do in the monoculture of scarcity based moneys and the competitive landscapes that these systems of determine.  When our currency system makes visible the social capital represented by the participation in collective enterprise, a person doesn't necessarily need a job to participate in the webs of care that are the actual foundations of economic security.  A currency that recognizes what we do to care for others and to build community assets doesn't need to be issued from scarcity, and there doesn't have to be much friction in its creation.  When a person has contributed a lifetime of care and has accumulated a balance, then the care that they receive when they are in need can be counted against that balance.  Not that it needs to be, because we will already know inside the community how the balance stands.

Imagine currencies that encourage us to give rather than to hord.  Wouldn't you rather be secure based on a network of care than a hord of gold that might be covetted and plundered?  Although if we are lucky we have this within our close social networks where the need for tokens of exchage are not needed, but far too many end up isolated and alone.  For them, concrete exchange of tokens of care might be just what is needed to end the isolation and realize value that can never be monetized.

We might imagine a world where this new type of currency is what dominates, even in essentially transational flows of rival goods, but it is enough to have a hybrid system where new currencies are used to measure collective contribution whether of time and effort or scarce currencies.  That's why we can think of this as crowd sourcing that is more fully evolved.  With current crowd sourcing, you give to a project and maybe you share in some tangible expression of the results of the project.  You might get a digital copy of the music or video produced.  If I give money to Wikipedia, or contribute hundreds of hours stewarding some topic areas, and there is no currency exchanged as when I receive stock on investing in a private enterprise, then there is no further possibility that can come from the collective recognition of that flow.

If instead, a collaborative enterprise like Wikipedia were to issue a non-rival currency for both time and money given to their work, then third parties could offer to exchange something else of value for that currency.   If that offer is a gift to the givers, it would be a way to redeem the Wikipedia issued currency for something they need.  As a worker for the enterprise I would have turned time and work into something I needed, even cash if that is the offer.  These community issued currencies can be just as concrete as a marker of exchange value as cash.  The web and smartphone applications that accesses the new vaue network can be seemlessly integrated with automated banking functions.  It's just accounting.  Numbers internal to the gift-currency system can determine if the system can safely approve a transaction the moves cash.  These internal numbers will easily identify the free riders and the big givers as well as the hard cases who need a lot of help just to get by.  The cash transactions would need to be aligned with any banking and exchange law, and the solvency of that operation would need to be protected.  The analysis of the internal flows will give us many tools to protect our common assets.  Open processes give the opportunity for crowd sourced analysis and review and would likely be more secure than traditional banks as well as being better at appropriate privacy protections.

It may not be clear how recognition of gift flows relates to funding collective enterprise.  It has to do with changing our relationship to the production of a collective surplus.  Free enterpise is base on the idea of gaining a financial return from the operating surplus of some process.  That surplus can then be turned to more capital investments and additional surplus from new operations the capital makes possible.  If there is a surplus that can't be recognized in capital return (conventional money), then it just doesn't exist on the balance sheet.  Similarly, when there are costs that are externalized, they don't appear as negatives either.  It comes down to a question of how to direct the surplus.  If all surplusses are monetized and even moreso when economic stratification increases, the assets are concentrated as capital investments owned by the rich.  Public investment suffers unless more of the surplus is directed through government.

This is a matter of policy choices and being able to creatively devise new ways of doing things.  People have talked about letting the public have more choice in deciding where their taxes are directed.  Maybe instead of compulsary taxes, there is a suggested level computed from your income and it can be satisfied by your public investments through the new currencies.  I might work for a private company for cash and work on peer to peer democracy as well.  Someone might offer to pay me as a commons CIO, and I would exchange gift currency for a cash to live on and I could quit the day job and devote full time to commons projects.  They would get stock that they could hold to make capital available to the collective enterprise.  Later when the collective enterprise is self-sustaining and even generates an economic surplus, the investment currency could be redeemed.  Two things are a bit different than with conventional investments.  The stock really only has a face value and doesn't gain interest in most cases.  This means that by holding this kind of stock, you are making on onging contribution of your interest, so that even if you later sell that stock an ongoing relationship remains.  This is even more true with investments of time and creativity.  These investments are never fully repaid because the value contributed is ongoing.

Like knowledge, gratitude is not rival in value relization.  What I can expect for a lifetime of giving care and contributing value to the commons, is to keep receiving gratitude for my contributions of care and knowledge.  If we no longer feel insecure and have the impulse to hord, we are free to put our surplus to collective enterprise.  If I invest my time in a start up venture, I might end up with millions of dollars worth of stock that I can turn into money, diversify for retirment and all that.  If I invest in the commons, I might end up with acknowledgements with millions in equivalent exchange value.  Maybe I can't go to a market and trade that for cash, maybe I don't even need to because I live in a community of care that uses gift-exchange currencies.  In that economy, I am rich because I have everything I need and I am supported by a debt of gratitude represented in a large accumulation of gratitude.  It doesn't matter what my balance is, as I give away my gratitude as freely and it is given to me.  Nobody cares about balances, we are secure in a nest of giving.