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Via the blog Transition Culture an interview with Paul Mobbs, known for his involvement with the electro hippie collective www.transitionculture.org/ The interviewer posed an interesting question:
"So you could argue that LETS schemes have become a reflection of how useless we have become?"
Mobbs had pointed out that every LETS scheme seems to fail because "there are 2 gardeners and 50 shiatsu consultants, and that just can’t work." There hast to be a balance between services people want and services provided. It's very difficult to do within small communities. And the in the context of the interview, the point that collectively we may probably don't have the set of skills necessary for surviving some sort of systems disruption.
IMHO alternative currencies are particularly attractive for the sort of social production which happens online. People write entries for Wikipedia just for the heck of it, but it seems similar contributions could be rewarded in some alternative currency. One big advantage for using a currency to keep track of this sort of social production might be to enable people to provide incentives for applying their particular skills to a common effort. In some ways the problem that Mobbs points to for community LETS is mitigated in many online contexts.
"So you could argue that LETS schemes have become a reflection of how useless we have become?"
Mobbs had pointed out that every LETS scheme seems to fail because "there are 2 gardeners and 50 shiatsu consultants, and that just can’t work." There hast to be a balance between services people want and services provided. It's very difficult to do within small communities. And the in the context of the interview, the point that collectively we may probably don't have the set of skills necessary for surviving some sort of systems disruption.
IMHO alternative currencies are particularly attractive for the sort of social production which happens online. People write entries for Wikipedia just for the heck of it, but it seems similar contributions could be rewarded in some alternative currency. One big advantage for using a currency to keep track of this sort of social production might be to enable people to provide incentives for applying their particular skills to a common effort. In some ways the problem that Mobbs points to for community LETS is mitigated in many online contexts.
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Re: The Problem with LETS
Tue, October 31, 2006 - 9:49 AMThe correction to this problem seems relatively simple (though a bit painful if you need a gardener), where everyone is a consultant and no one a gardener, the rewards for being a gardener have to increase to the point where there is a balance between gardener's and consultants. Though this goes against custom, I suppose this is really a free market type correction, isn't it?
Very interesting read, thank you for posting the link.
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Re: The Problem with LETS
Fri, November 3, 2006 - 1:02 PMThis remark about LETS is a cheap cop-out. As many who have become involved in LETS he probably doesn't understand it's inner workings and principles. This unfortunately is also true of many who do or used to run and administer LETS exchanges. The fact that there are 2 gardeners and 50 shiatsu consultants says more about the people who participate than about the viability of a system like LETS itself.
- It tells me that LETS was marketed to the new-age crowd only, but not to a wider public, the administrators of this particular LETS never made the effort to balance their system in terms of attracting a variety of members and getting the vide variety of constituencies involved that can profit from membership.
- It tells me that this new-age crowd is as far from being connected to the planet as any sub-urbanite average consumer.
Like it or not, the basic principles behind LETS - a 'mutual credit system' is sound, and is the way of the future. It does, however, need a certain maturity of consciousness to be in a balanced 'give and take' relationship within a community of people. We are still way too habituated live individualistic lifes, without taking responsibility for the whole, competing with each other rather than cooperating ( a main result of our present money system!)
