Rhetorical Device: Competition in Currency as Open-Source Currency

[BarryDonegan]

I believe that Competition in Currency would lead to a technological improvement to the utility of the means of exchange in that there would be a demand for an intraconvertible retail-counter solution that instantly measures exchange units against one another for ease of use.

Furthermore, I think it would lead to a variety of types of banks, some with 1 to 1 gold-backed reserves and others with substantially riskier reserve-ratios backed by stock in new initiatives. The consumer can switch banks at will, instantly, in a digital manner.

Banks would be judged based on the strengths of their baskets of currencies, gold reserves, or whichever metric was most important to the consumer in question. A technological component would be developed to handle this (obviously, as nearly any online system of worth uses very effective algorithms that can make these kinds of judgments in milliseconds) almost immediately.

Since this is a technological improvement delivered by the market, I think we should sell Competition in Currency as "Open-source" Currency due to the advanced, modern association with open-sourcing. When you consider that a system of tort law is essentially the only necessary component of a monetary system, we are basically saying that each individual bank or free actor can make their own improvements to the means of exchange by competing in the efficiency of their algorithms.

Essentially, this would qualify as open-source since anyone would be allowed to establish a means of exchange as open-source licensing for the creation of a currency standard would be available to anyone willing to submit to court system for arbitration in cases of fraud. Open-source would refer to the nature of government licensing of currency provision, which would merely be a de facto license as a licensing program would bear costs in a way that is incompatible with open-source definitions.

[johngr]

http://www.celebritymorgue.com/jfk/kennedy-side.jpg

[AlexMerced]

I believe that Competition in Currency would lead to a technological improvement to the utility of the means of exchange in that there would be a demand for an intraconvertible retail-counter solution that instantly measures exchange units against one another for ease of use.

Furthermore, I think it would lead to a variety of types of banks, some with 1 to 1 gold-backed reserves and others with substantially riskier reserve-ratios backed by stock in new initiatives. The consumer can switch banks at will, instantly, in a digital manner.

Banks would be judged based on the strengths of their baskets of currencies, gold reserves, or whichever metric was most important to the consumer in question. A technological component would be developed to handle this (obviously, as nearly any online system of worth uses very effective algorithms that can make these kinds of judgments in milliseconds) almost immediately.

Since this is a technological improvement delivered by the market, I think we should sell Competition in Currency as "Open-source" Currency due to the advanced, modern association with open-sourcing. When you consider that a system of tort law is essentially the only necessary component of a monetary system, we are basically saying that each individual bank or free actor can make their own improvements to the means of exchange by competing in the efficiency of their algorithms.

Essentially, this would qualify as open-source since anyone would be allowed to establish a means of exchange as open-source licensing for the creation of a currency standard would be available to anyone willing to submit to court system for arbitration in cases of fraud. Open-source would refer to the nature of government licensing of currency provision, which would merely be a de facto license as a licensing program would bear costs in a way that is incompatible with open-source definitions.

I like that, Open Source Currency, I'll add that to my advocacy of Transparent Markets (Free Markets) and Competitive Regulation (free market regulation)

[fisharmor]

All true, but the thing that needs to be said is that your OP assumes facts about currency which would not necessarily be the case in a free society.

Unwind the historical progression in how money works. First people started using notes. The BS state-indoctrination-center reason we're given for this is that it allowed people not to have to carry coins around. Yet this is what allowed the first round of fractional reserve shenanigans.

Then come checks. Again touted as a convenience for consumers, only now the actual money never even changes hands between debtor and creditor - it's all done between banks. More shenanigans ensue.

Then come credit cards. The biggest convenience for consumers yet - only it's really making things convenient for banks, because they work pretty much like checks, only the bank is getting paid to process them.

Now everything is digital. The ultimate in consumer convenience - except all the real money is gone at this point. If banks have anything of objective value in their vaults, then at this point it's the contents of the safe deposit boxes.


Open Source has really come to fruition in the software world - but let me tell you how software development works, open source or not. There are a bunch of competing ideas on what happens after the first step, but the first step in solving a problem with computers is:

Define the problem.

Any good business analyst would take a look at this and realize that the primary reason we're using anything other than cash is because these "solutions" have been forced on us. If we lived in a free society, that analyst would call everything into question.

So when you say that consumers could switch banks instantly and digitally - this is not necessarily the case. I'm convinced that in a free society our current model is not viable: the model where all our money is thrown into the same digital trough and the pigs agree to toss pittances to each other in exchange for eating as much as they want.

You have the statists who realize that it permanently closes one of leviathan's spigots, but the main problem is you also have people who fundamentally don't trust the market to deliver goods and services, despite ample empirical evidence that it does.

Open source currency would be chaos. People like you and me like the idea, and realize that chaos is the only thing that produces new ideas - but there are plenty more (the vast majority) who don't want chaos anywhere near something as dear to them as their money.