Permaculturing Finance

Contextual Quote

“The credit commons can be understood as a permaculture landscape of diverse local models interacting with each other, analogous to a natural ecosystem. A variety of locally attuned credit modules interacting in dynamic non-equilibrium is a more resilient structure than the metaphorical monoculture of today’s prevailing monetary system.”

— Jamie Brown-Hansen [1]

Discussion

Katalin Hausel and Matthew Slater:

"The credit commons is proposed as a meta-level mutual credit system in which any type of currency could participate. All that is required of a candidate member is an account for import/export, and implicit trust from existing members that the candidate honour commitments while only deviating from zero within a previously defined limit. To use a metaphor from biology, this limit functions like a cell membrane protecting the organism while remaining permeable tovital exchange with its environment. Just as each cell has a unique way to balance its integration into its environment, the maximum extent of these limits for each member in the network can differ from each other according to the health of its economy. Each unit in a mutual credit system can monitor its economic health through immediate insight into its balance of trade. This allows a more flexible, more localised, adjustment of microeconomic needs and health, compared to the system of national currencies. Limits are set by local economy and by the higher order system, respecting the lowest limits, which gives local economies a level of protection against strong inflows or outflows of credit which would cause inflation/deflation and distort the value of their currency. Truly grassroot, and resilient due to their diversity, credit commons is consistent with many biological design patterns: it is bottom-up, locally attuned and adapted, diverse, decentralised, iterative, modular, and premised on quantitative stability over time."

— https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R1O9-OZPlFqUPbLxQ6xiUSmXABJEfGO8dRYbQ21jrPI/edit?ts=56620680#