[liberationtech] Bitcoin and The Public Function of Money

[Douglas Lucas]

Anthropologist and Occupier @DavidGraeber's book The History of Debt
might well be worthwhile.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/08/what-is-debt-%E2%80%93-an-interview-with-economic-anthropologist-david-graeber.html
In addition to assessing the history of debt-based financial systems, it
talks about gift economy. (I haven't yet read it myself.)

On 10/30/2012 06:59 PM, elham gheytanchi wrote:
> I remember reading a fine book in grad school titled "social meaning
> of Money" that served like a reference book on these issues from a
> sociological point of view. Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my
> BlackBerry®
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> Date:
> Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:42:51 To: <liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu> 
> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Bitcoin and The Public Function of
> Money
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 30, 2012, at 2:10 PM, Dmytri Kleiner <dk at telekommunisten.net>
> wrote:
>> The critical feature required of public money is that we can
>> socially determine how much of it there is, and how much of we want
>> to apply to public purpose. We need ways to create and destroy
>> public money so that we can can have a counter-balance to private
>> activity, to manage cycles, to counter-balance economic sectors,
>> and to socially pursue public objectives. -- Dmytri Kleiner Venture
>> Communist
> 
> 
> Something I've noted about both Bitcoin and bullion-backed
> currencies, that might hold true of some other currencies as well, is
> that they're the product of the consumption of labor.  With bitcoin,
> you can waste CPU cycles on a task with no intrinsic value, and the
> result is bitcoin.  With bullion-backed currencies, you can send
> miners into one hole in the ground to consume calories, and
> construction workers into another hole in the ground to consume
> calories and construction materials, and move metal from one hole to
> the other, and the result is money.
> 
> Potlatch economies have always resonated a little more
> sympathetically for me.
> 
> -Bill "Vladimir Ilyich Perkins" Woodcok
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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