If Kings and Queens had figured out the fiat money thing,
we’d still be Her or His Majesty’s subjects.
Matt Perez
Hoarding Is Violence
Today, national fiat money is the canonical medium of exchange and that is what we assumed in our book, RADICAL COMPANIES: Without Bosses or Employees. ∇ After all, we need money to pay our bills and buy stuff. Unfortunately, money also supports hoarding as a way to accumulate financial wealth and power over everything, including people.
National fiat money is coined power, canned violence. This is problematic and leads to the most serious problems we face today.
Instead of national money, we need to have a universal medium of exchange. instead of fiat money, the universal coins need to be transparent. rCoins are universal and transparent, they don’t have the national fiat money baggage and can help us transform to a people-centered economy. ∇
Like today’s money, rCoins function as,
- A unit of measure
- A store of value
- A medium of exchange
In addition, and this is critical, rCoins are transparent in the sense that an integral part of each rCoin is its log of information from which potential risks and benefits can be calculated by your mobile device.
rCoins are also decentralized. Companies will be the guarantors of rCoins: not banks, not governments, and not international accords. This will make the costs of all transactions negligible.
A decentralized and transparent rCoin will make possible a world-wide market that we can participate in without intermediaries.
Terminology
| Money |
This is a concept of money,
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|---|---|
| National Fiat Coin |
Throughout the rest of this document, you will notice that I stubbornly use “national fiat coin,” instead of “money” or “currency.” This is mostly to remind myself of a few key distinctions,
As a unit of measure, a national fiat coin works like a “meter” or a “minute” and serves as a stable denominator for transactions. However, while the “meter” and the “minute” are world-wide units, fiat coins are a national thing. This makes them very unstable and fragile as a unit of measure (e.g., imagine a minute being “devalued” or something being measured in 仪表). ∇ National governments talk about this as the best thing since sliced bread, and international accords have tried to cobble together a market out of them, but the whole arrangement is very fragile and under constant threat. National fiat coins serve as a medium of exchange. This is the prevailing message that governments, banks, and the whole financial industry repeats over and over. At one point the exchange was based on the value of gold, but since the 1970s the system is based on each country’s say so plus or minus what investors say. National governments talk about this as the best thing since sliced bread, and international accords have tried to cobble together a market out of them, but the whole arrangement is very fragile and under constant threat. |
| Not Currency |
Another common name for national fiat coins is “currency.” It means to indicate that money flows from one person to the next to facilitate the exchange of goods. But they key thing about national fiat coin is that they can be hoarded to accumulate financial wealth in bank accounts or under the proverbial mattress. Their value never fluctuates Given this, national fiat coins do not deserve to be called “currency.” |
To avoid confusion, in this document I use,
- “money” to refer to the concept,
- “national fiat coin” to refer to what we normally mean by money,
- and “currency” not at all.
A Historical Perspective
rCoins are not to be confused or conflated with local currencies, complementary currencies, demurrage money, or any such. The point of rCoins is to make it possible to,
- Have a world-wide market
- Free of intermediaries
- With negligible costs.
rCoins are very similar to national fiat coins. They are a unit of measure, a store of value, and a medium of exchange, but with these differences,
- They represent value at its broadest. In addition to financial value, they account for wellbeing, contributions, acts of kindness, and all the other things that are important to people.
- They spread risks and benefits through society. We all share in the adventure: the burden of risk and the joys of gains.
- rCoins bypass the complications and costs brought about by banks, exchanges, national politics,
- rCoins have the potential to enable a world-wide market. This will help us break out of our national silos and create a world-wide economy that’s decentralized and transparent.
About the Radical Framework
It may be worth repeating here a few words about the Radical framework and how it’s different from our current Fiat world. Probably the most confusing thing about it is that a Radical world would be very similar to our current world. People will be the same with all our jealousies, overreactions, and habits. They will be embarrassed by overpromising and want to sweep things under the proverbial rug.
Our current system is based on separating us: countries, towns, good and bad neighborhoods; political parties and their vastly different realities; need to know, secrecy, protection. This leaves us disconnected and drives us to isolation. This works for a world where money comes first, ahead of everything else.
A Radical world prioritizes what’s important to people first, ahead of everything else, including money. We’ll still be individuals, with our own needs, rights, and idiosyncrasies. We are not going to become a number or angels. But we will trust each other from collaborating and creating wealth together.
The Radical Model
We are used to companies being governed by Fiat hierarchies, with an owner at the top telling us what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.
In the Radical model a company is a group of people coming together to create something bigger than each of them. Other labels abound, but we chose the word “company” because it has an interesting origin. The word company comes from Latin con- and pan. The prefix con- means “together” and pan means ”bread.” Company, then, means “people who break bread together.” In the Radical model a company is a community of people who come together to contribute broad value to society and make an impact on the world.
Rather than having an owner and a hierarchy of bosses, a Radical company has co-owners and co-managers to co-own and operate it. These people align themselves according to the impact they want to make, why they are doing so, and then they embark on many experiments to get there.
Radical companies do this starting from a simple Foundation,
| people | Meaning & Belonging |
|---|---|
| commitments | Decentralization & Transparency |
| practices | Experimentation |
rCoins as Collaboration
As I see it, the Radical model of co-ownership and co-management is the next stage in collaboration. Everything humanity has accomplished has been based on collaboration, but we have acted as if dominance by a few is the only way to achieve progress. ∇
Competition has become an obstacle to real progress and it is now getting in the way of the next surge of human accomplishments. Now it’s time to move on and build on the foundation of collaboration.
rCoins for a World-Wide Market
A world-wide market would bring us together rather than staying siloed by the Rube Goldberg markets we have today.
We could have a single world government create and enforce a single currency. But even if it were politically feasible, it is unnecessary and a move in the direction of centralization. To wit, we didn’t need a single world government for minutes, meters, or the Internet, some of the most useful world-wide tools of all time.
Instead, rCoins are minted by companies, not any national government or central banks. It would take national and international politics out of it and to eliminate the influence of transnational corporations.
A decentralized, transparent rCoin is fundamental to such a unified market.
rCoins for a Truly Decentralized Market
We need a decentralized market to nurture the next stage of innovation and accomplishment. Unfortunately, national fiat coins are an obstacle to this. They are not very stable and are subject to cyclical crises. ∇ They make international markets very complex, very opaque, and very expensive.
Today’s international markets have been cobbled together by agreements that are fraught with weaknesses. National and international politics make transaction costs very expensive. Worst of all, these international markets are unduly influenced by transnational businesses seeking to profit no matter the harm to society.
A decentralized market, free of interference and manipulation, is the ultimate pricing engine.
We need decentralized minting of rCoins to take national and international politics out of it and to eliminate the influence of transnational corporations.
rCoins are minted by companies, not any national government or central banks.
rCoins Are Transparent
National fiat coins are opaque. In theory that’s good because it reduces transaction costs. But this “reduction of costs” also disables human choice.
In any case, the big transaction costs are those that banks, exchanges, and political manipulation bring in. And opaqueness does not reduce any of those.
rCoins are transparent. An integral part of each rCoin is the log that comes along with them. This will restore people’s ability to make choices based on that information.
RADs as a Trusted Measure
A measure can be “trusted” because it means the same thing to people anywhere. So, if you believe that people are pretty much the same anywhere, you can trust RADs as a measure.
In a rural setting somebody will get RADs for milking a goat, while in an urban setting someone else will get RADs for stopping cars so children can cross the street. The same human feeling that recognized the generosity of these acts was present in the rural case as well as in the urban setting. RADs capture that recognition in a tangible way, regardless of its numeric accuracy. RADs, and the rCoins that they factor, can be trusted because people decide what is a contribution that deserves to be recognized.
RADs Represent Contributions
This idea originated with entrepreneur and pioneer Philip Rosedale, ∇
- As the company grows, every month an equal amount of cash and shares of the company are earmarked for distribution.
- Every member gets an equal portion of this cash and shares which represent the wealth the company generated.
- Rather than keeping them for themselves, people give this money and shares out to anybody they feel has contributed during the month.
- There is no set criteria and each person decides who should be recognized, what should be recognized as a contribution, and how much of this wealth to give to others.
Radical Distributions are very similar, but instead of cash or stocks, it uses RADs, a dimensionless unit. At the end of each Distribution the total number of RADs allocated to each person represents their (dynamic) percentage of ownership (see Appendix VARYING BUYING POWER) of the broad value created by a company.
Because this broad value accounts for things other than financial value, RADs account for the uncountable. ∇ And because rCoins are factored through RADs, they represent broad value as well. In other words, each person’s share of rCoins is a function of their contributions and reflects the full spectrum of human values, not just financial value.
rCoin Qualities
These are, in no particular order, a few of the qualities that a rCoin must have,
Decentralized Minting ofCoins
rCoins are minted by companies, not a national government.
For example, BenCO mints 30,000 rCoin and promises to repay them in three years. All this information goes on a transparent digital store that would include, at a minimum,
- The amount of rCoin (30,000),
- The name of the company which minted them (BenCO),
- The retiring terms (three years),
- The repayment terms (10,000 rCoin/year).
This can result in any of these scenarios,
| Happy Ending | BenCO retires the 30,000 rCoins within three years, as promised. |
|---|---|
| Not so Happy Ending | BenCO has retired only two thirds of the minted rCoins by the third year; it retires all 30,000 rCoins a quarter later. |
| Unhappy Ending | BenCO disbands and never creates enough value for society to pay the 30,000 rCoins. |
A seller’s app can calculate a risk factor based on the BenCO rCoin’s log and her particular preset parameters. We can let the apps do the calculations and, based on that, decide whether or not to take the BenCO rCoins as payment.
rCoins Are Stable
In today’s system of exchange, “reserve currencies” are used for international transactions. This makes these transactions very expensive.
As of this writing, the four most widely held “reserve currencies” are the US dollar ($), the European Euro (€), the Japanese Yen (¥), and the UK Pound Sterling (£). These national fiat coinage are backed up by strong, stable economies. At least, that’s how the story goes.
Companies as Guarantors of rCoins
National economies are not as stable as all that and financial crises happen on a cyclical basis in our current Fiat system. ∇ For another, people invariably find ways to exploit some aspect of the financial system for private gain. Politicians are very good at this and manipulate national economies shamelessly. For example, in 1971 then President Nixon renounced gold as a standard and blamed it mostly on De Gaulle’s policies, but he really did to maintain “global economic dominance and to improve economic conditions at home.” ∇
By comparison, companies are extremely stable, even the unstable ones, because their reputation depends solely on how effective they are at creating value for society. That’s it. The worst that can happen is that a company mints rCoins and then it is not able, or willing, to retire the debt. The financial impact of this would be insignificant; to wit, this is what happens today.
rCoins Are (Not) Fungible
In today’s financial model, to be effective as a medium of exchange, money must be fungible—one coin is indistinguishable from all others. “Trying to use a non-fungible good as money results in transaction costs of individually evaluating each unit of the good before an exchange can take place.” ∇
Thankfully, rCoins are fungible throughout the world as a class. Their transaction costs, nationally and internationally, are negligible.
But, also thankfully, they are not fungible individually. Each rCoin carries information about its genesis and history and this translates to a different level of risk associated with each one. Their only transaction cost is that of “evaluating” whether or not to accept the risk associated with it. But this can be automated and it is insignificant. To decide whether to accept a given mix of rCoins as payment carries no financial cost since most transactions would be driven by the app’s results and the few exceptions to it would be driven by people to people relationships.
rCoins Represent Broad Value
To be robust, a rCoin needs to be tied to value creation, and rCoins are. In fact they represent more than financial value. Their value also represents wellbeing, acts of kindness, and whatever else people consider important. And since rCoins are factored through RADs they represent broad value contributions as well.
For example, if the RADs that have been allocated to me in the company amount to 10% of the total and yours to 20%, it means that our fellow co-owners decided that you contributed twice as much as I did. As a result you get twice as many rCoins freom revenue as I do.
rCoins Are Transparent
National fiat coins are opaque. We make do with things like GDP, but GDP and others like it don’t measure anything besides financial value. They don’t take into account society-wide costs. What’s more, these indices can be very misleading, and “GDP can increase after a car accident or a major flood. GDP can grow rapidly during a war or after a terrorist attack.” ∇
rCoins are transparent and we need them to be. Each rCoin carries with it a log of all the information necessary to calculate the potential risks and benefits associated with it. Given that information, each of us can then decide whether or not to accept a particular rCoin as payment.
rCoin Value
The face value of national fiat coins is fixed forever. At least, that is true for reserve currencies. Other national fiat coins are not so lucky: their face value stays put, but their purchasing power fluctuates, sometimes wildly.
rCoins have a face value of one. It is backed by people who come together as Radical Companies to create broad value for society. It is free from national and international politics and manipulation.
The face value of rCoins never changes but the information in its log may. Based on all of that, each of us gets to decide whether or not to accept the rCoins given the risks and benefits indicated in its log.
Different Companies, Different Values
As it is today, different companies will end up with different values and their co-owners will have more or less purchasing power. For example,
- Company BenCO earns 100 rCoins.
- Company JerryCo earns 1,000 rCoins.
- JerryCo’s value is higher than BenCO.
- JerryCO people earn more rCoins than those at BenCO.
Companies as Guarantors
rCoins are backed up by the RADICAL COMPANIES, not national governments. This means that the rCoin’s “value” is determined by what each company brings to society and by its co-owners’ sensitivities.
This last bit is really important.
In today’s businesses, the owners can do whatever they want. Although the same is technically true for a RADICAL COMPANY it will be a lot more unlikely that all co-owners would agree to do something that goes against their own values, health, and communities.
For example, if a community feels harmed by the actions of CarelessCO they can make their case to a few of CarelessCO co-owners to at least get a conversation going. If the harm affects many such communities and all CarelessCO co-owners refuse to engage, they can simply record the failed discussion to CarelessCO’s rCoins. Some people may interpret this as a high risk (to society) while others may see it differently. We all get to decide.
rCoin Risks and Benefits
There is plenty of evidence that shows that a currency, one that actually actually flows, can benefit a society, ∇ while money stuffed under a mattress only benefits the hoarder.
People have figured out that, in the Fiat world, one way to keep money flowing is by having it lose its value over time (i.e., there is no point in hoarding it because it will “rot”). This can be done by inflation or demurrage. Inflation, the decline of purchasing power, has been the preferred method of national governments. Governments can do this by several means, including by tweaking interest rates, which impacts the supply of national fiat coins. We all know that “inflation is bad,” but we cannot do anything about it.
The other approach is by demurrage, where coins lose their value over time. There’s been a number of local deployments of demurrage coins and they are generally beneficial to the local economy. However, as far as I know, demurrage has never been used outside local levels. The poster child of demurrage is the Miracle of Wörgl." ∇
During the Great Depression, the town of Wörgl, Austria, was quickly running out of money, like most of the world. The mayor issued Wörgls to pay people for doing local jobs and the local shops agreed to accept them. The bills had to be stamped every week in order to keep them valid, and every stamp reduced the value of these coins. This kept the notes in circulation. So much so, that people even paid taxes earlier rather than let their currency “rot.”
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| The bills had 52 spaces on the reverse side, one for each week of the year. ∇ This meant that the script kept its face value only for one week. |
One problem with demurrage is that the rate of decay is not tied to value creation or anything like it. The Wörgl, and others like it, kept its face value for a week and went down in value every week thereafter. The Wära, another demurrage coin, lost 1% of its value every month. The thing to notice is that these rates of decay were picked out of thin air.
rCoins, on the other hand, are always the same value. What changes is the potential risks and benefits associated with the company that engendered it. Every rCoin carries a log of all the information and people need to decide whether or not to accept it at face value or at a lower value.
Calculating Risk
A rCoin’s log may include, for example, the number of co-owners that agree to its mint, the company’s revenue history, how many rCoins the company has minted, and the company’s debt performance. Given the rCoin’s log, we can calculate the risk associated with every rCoin and decide whether or not to accept a particular rCoin as payment.
One side-effect of this, is that people will want to dilute what risk they hold by paying with a combination of low and high risk rCoins, enough of each to make the risk acceptable to the seller.
Calculating Benefits
Over time, companies will go up in value because they get very efficient, benefit from high demand, or both. People will likely hold on to their rCoins. It may be that they are more comfortable with risk and may not mind taking higher risk rCoins from fledgling companies. It may also be that even the more conservative folks may be tempted to take high risk rCoins from high potential companies.
Other Value Factors
Other things that may affect company value,
- As a company creates more value, it gets more revenue, and it generates more rCoins. The revenue rCoins are allocated according to each person’s broad contributions. Co-owners decide what is a broad contribution according to the value they perceive.
- If a company walks away from debt, ∇ it’s reputation goes down, and its rCoins go down in value.
- As a company retires debt, its reputation goes up, and its rCoins go up in value.
- If the reputation and value of a company goes up, its rCoins go down in risk. Those who took its rCoins when they were high risk now have more desirable rCoins. The upside spreads throughout society.
- Companies that are constantly creating debt and not retiring it, will find themselves isolated. Their rCoins will get riskier and riskier and they will be acceptable to fewer and fewer people. Hopefully, they will see guidance and help from others.
TA-DAAAA!
RADs account for what so far has been unaccountable. People get to decide what a contribution is and by doing so they “measure” what has been unmeasurable: an act of kindness, spontaneous help. Co-owners get rCoins according to the percentage of RADs they have and that makes rCoins a much broader measure than just financial value.
Companies mint rCoins. This means that rCoins are decentralized and free of interference by national and international politics, financial institutions, and too-big-to-fail transnationals. rCoins will make it possible to create a world-wide market that Adam Smith might be happy with.
The whole system is transparent and each of us can decide to accept a payment or not. It is not mysterious or left to robed experts to figure things out. Each of us can do it because each of us is an expert on our own sensitivities and how we interpret the world.
Appendix: Bad Actors
There may not be as many bad actors as we think. We probably have a preponderance of them today because 1) they make the news, and 2) we live in a system that is meant to reward bad behaviorreward bad behavior. Gaming is part and parcel of the system. As we find out, we patch it to prevent other bad actors from exploiting the same weakness. But then the next batch of bad actors become wealthy by discovering and exploiting new weaknesses.
We don’t normally think of these, below, as bad actors. But they are. They fall back on their Fiat world habits and are a drag on moving forward to a Radical world.
| Going Along |
One type of “bad actor” is people who “go along.” We normally don’t think of them as bad actors, “they’re just nice people.” In any case, Shui is one of them. He notices that Namir is taking more than he contributed, but he doesn’t say anything when talks to Namir. Shui turns a blind eye towards Namir’s bad behavior and may tell himself that, Namir is a nice guy and maybe he needs a little bit more than me. In any case, Shui is encouraging Namir’s behavior which will eventually hurt everybody around. |
|---|---|
| Assuming Instead of Asking |
The other type of bad actor is the one who gets pulled into behavior that he normally would not condone. For example, Anita, a BenCO co-owner, wants to buy potatoes. The potato seller, Shui, looks at the rCoins coming from her, but declines to accept them. It turns out that all of Anita’s rCoins come from BenCO and the company has not lived up to its promises. Shui is a very conservative type and he refuses to exchange her rCoins for his potatoes. She explains the reasons why they had not made the first year payment on time, “and we will, by the end of this week.” Nevertheless, Shui is unmoved and puts the potatoes back in their bin. Further down the road, Namir sees the same log that Shui got, but he, nevertheless, accepts Anita’s rCoins in exchange for his potatoes. It turns out that Namir knows Anita and what they are doing at BenCO and he trusts that they will retire their debts. Shui sees the exchange, misinterprets it, and instead of talking with Namir he goes on to accept higher risk rCoins that he is comfortable with. Instead of talking to Namir and figuring out what’s going on, he falls into his own trap of assuming Namir is out to take business away from him. |
| Convenience? |
Other Bad Actors may act out of convenience. This is how Seth Godin breaks it down,
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Appendix: FAQ
| VARYING BUYING POWER |
I am selling potatoes at 40 rCoins per dozen. After the first month, Ⓐ below, and his co-owners don’t have enough rCoins to buy my potatoes, but Ⓔ and his co-owners do. It may be that JerryCO is more efficient or maybe its products or services are more valuable. Either way, BenCO’s co-owners end up with less buying power than JerryCO’s co-owners. 
Within each company, the buying power of an individual co-owner, too, can change every cycle. For example, in the illustration above, by the third cycle Ⓔ, a JerryCO co-owner who started with 100 rCoins, now has 1,200 which are enough to buy 30 dozen of my potatoes. Other other hand, JerryCO co-owner Ⓗ didn’t get any rCoins this cycle and he only has 600 rCoins and has to settle for 15 dozen of my potatoes. 
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|---|---|
| Companies minting rCoins without any rules sounds really, really crazy! |
If that sounds “crazy,” then the financial system we have today is crazier. And it is business hostile, on top. rCoins minted by BenCO carry a log which includes all the information related to their creation and the behavior of the backers. The co-owners are motivated to retire the rCoins they minted in the time promised. If they don’t do that, fewer and fewer sellers will accept their rCoins. Their buying power will go down the drain in a hurry. The “rules” required to keep national fiat coins in line are needed only because they are easy to cheat with. National fiat coins always have the same value, whether it comes from criminal or legit business. A dollar that came from an illegal transaction looks and it is worth the same as a dollar that came from selling candy. rCoins, on the other hand, carry their history in their logs and today we carry supercomputers in our pockets that can figure the difference in an instant and figure out what is their worth. And there is no way to hide or screw with the information. |
| What prevents a company from continuously taking on new debt to retire old debt? |
Co-owners could decide to do this, but it goes on the log for everyone to see. As sellers detect that pattern, they would shy away from the company’s rCoins. |
| What if co-owners pay themselves a huge amount of rCoins and keep taking new debt to paper over it? Wouldn’t this create massive inflation? |
Co-owners could decide to do this, but it goes on the record, so to speak, for everyone to see. As sellers detect that pattern, they would shy away from the company’s rCoins. They may have lots and lots of rCoins, but they would not be welcome by most people. |
| The potato grower uses the rCoins he got from selling her potatoes to buy a shovel. But then she discovers that the town’s shovel-maker raised his prices so that he can buy metal and wood to make more shovels. |
Yes, that could happen. Like it does today. Eventually, another shovel-maker would appear and make shovels that people can afford. If the expensive shovel maker is stubborn, too, he would go out of business. Or it could happen that the stubborn shovel maker is not so stubborn after all and would ask the new kind in town and the kid would tell him. They are not competing. |
| PotatoCO mints rCoins to pay for the now higher priced shovel. |
If PotatoCO’s co-owners figure that the new price is a fair price and there’s no other supplier around, it would have to do that. They would have to make sure that they can get enough rCoins from future potatoes to retire the debt as promised. Otherwise, they are going to pay with a lower reputation and value and less buying power for the co-owners. People will continue to make mistakes and miss estimates. rCoins won’t change human nature. But co-owners can mint the rCoins they need to run their companies without worrying about the color of their skin, or their gender, or church affiliation. |
| But this means that another potato grower buys a tractor and grows even more potatoes! |
Yes. This means that people can experiment more. The tractor can be a great option. Or maybe the tractor turns out to be a lemon and doesn’t help him produce more or better potatoes. He probably won’t be able to retire the debt he took on to buy it. |
| What if JerryCO, a brand new startup with no revenue, needs rCoins to get started, can it just mint them? |
In this case, most vendors would likely not accept JerryCO’s rCoins as payments because its rCoins would have very high risk. Other companies may want to help out JerryCO by giving them rCoins. One or more companies could mint enough rCoins for JerryCO to get to revenue or to build its minimum viable product. This could include vendors of equipment that JerryCO needs to succeed and the quid pro quo is that they will become JerryCO’s preferred vendors. Alternatively, the investment may come from a group of adjacent companies. They believe that JerryCO’s product is complementary to theirs and will help the market grow. Or JerryCO promises to “repay” twice the original amount of this investment. In any case, as JerryCO starts to show results and a pattern of doing as promised, the risk of its own rCoins will go down and will be able to pay with a mix of its own rCoins and co-investment rCoins. Oh, and those JerryCO’sCoins that were taken at less than face value, would be up as well. And, yes, those who took them early would benefit. |
| What if a BenCO co-owner wants to buy the latest electric, self-driving car, but she doesn’t get enough rCoins? Can’t she convince the other co-owners to pay themselves more rCoins? |
For BenCO co-owners to pay themselves a lot more rCoins than they actually receive in revenue, they would have to mint the extra rCoins. These newly minted rCoins would show a lot of risks and sellers would likely not accept them as payment, particularly for luxury items. |
| Do you mean that there is no possible way to defraud the system? |
It simply means that I can’t think of a way of doing that. Every time I think of something, the system manages to protect itself. And it is all because of the transparency built into it. I can imagine that there could be a way to falsify a rCoin’s log, but I’ll leave that to smarter people. e newly minted rCoins would show a lot of risks and sellers would likely not accept them as payment, particularly for luxury items. |
| Why can’t people mint rCoins? Why is it limited to companies? |
In the RADICAL model, a company is a community of people who come together to contribute broad value to society and make an impact in the world. This means that co-owners may be motivated to mind rCoins, but the risks of doing so may hold them back. Do we believe that we can retire the debt? Can we do as we are promising? Maybe individuals can weigh all those considerations by themselves, but I know I couldn’t, at least not in a balanced way. When the pros and cons are weighed by the broader consideration of a community, the final decision is more balanced. Having said all that, indivduals could mintCoins to their heart’s content. The question is if anybody will take them. e newly minted rCoins would show a lot of risks and sellers would likely not accept them as payment, particularly for luxury items. |
| What if a company mints rCoins and then is not able to retire the debt? |
Yes, this kind of thing will happen. And, in case you’re asking, there is no punishment for the people involved in this. The overall costs will be negligible. It happens all the time today and nobody notices. Yes, the people involved in a bankruptcy get punished, ruthlessly so. But the system absorbs the losses, magically. e newly minted rCoins would show a lot of risks and sellers would likely not accept them as payment, particularly for luxury items. |
| What about people who retired on their CarelessCO’s rCoins? |
Retirement as it is today, is a Fiat thing and I think that in a Radical world, “retiring” will go obsolete. People “retire” today because they’ve been putting up with their job for many years and they are burned out in more ways than one. In a Radical world, the more likely scenario is that people may decide to not join another company for a while and live instead off their portfolio of RADs from their past companies. This type of “retiring” will not be a function of age or tiresomeness, it will be of choice. So, let’s say that I decide to travel the world on a sailboat, paying for it with CarelessCO’s rCoins and CarelessCO disbands. There could be three cases,
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| What if lots of companies disband at the same time? |
Then you adjust your app to raise the risk of similar companies. |
| What about people who cannot work? |
Some people will be unable to contribute to a company, for whatever reason. But they still can contribute to their family, etc. |
| Is risk associated with companies or with rCoins? |
A rCoins log includes all the information needed to calculate the rCoin’s potential risk and benefits. But, this date comes from the company behind the minted rCoins. In all likelihood, it would include the number of co-owners who agreed to the mint and its how well they’ve kept to their promises. It would also include that a case has been made by several communities that the company is harming them and whether or not the situation has been resolved to the communities’ satisfaction. For each rCoins, the log holds facts, not judgements and each of us gets to decide what to do with them. |
ENDNOTES
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Matt Perez, Adrian Perez, Jose Leal. RADICAL COMPANIES: Without Bosses or Employees. Pradera Media. 2021.
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I am taking inspiration from two books, Debt by David Graeber. <https://a.co/cd9vVHk> and Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne. Rethinking Money
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Meter in Mandarin.
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David Graeber. Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Updated and Expanded. <https://a.co/cd9vVHk> Douglas McGregor. Theory X. The Human Side of Enterprise, p 1. 1975 <https://radicals.world/McCTGD> (alt, <https://www.diigo.com/item/pdf/zk1n/juhm>).
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List of economic crises. <https://radicals.world/2Y1Kqb>
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Philip Rosedale introduced the tool in 2005. <https://radicals.world/ny8xy3>
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For more, see RADICAL COMPANIES for the Impatient <https://radicalcompanies.com/2022/05/03/radical-companies-for-the-impatient> and RADICAL COMPANIES: Without Boss or Employees (alt., <https://radicals.world/AS7Ofo>).
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List of economic crises <https://radicals.world/2Y1Kqb>
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Michael J. Graetz and Olivia Briffault. A “Barbarous Relic”: The French, Gold, and the Demise of Bretton Woods. <https://radicals.world/rxLQd8> Aug, 2016
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Money Definition. <https://radicals.world/EsIF0M> Investopedia
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Lisa Smith. Does High GDP Mean Economic Prosperity? Investopedia. 2021. <https://radicals.world/qfxbR0>
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Bernard Lerner, Jacqui Dune. Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity. 2013.
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For more information, see Wörgl <https://radicals.world/sYcjKW>
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Freigeld: FreeMoney for reacting to the Great Depression. <https://radicals.world/dzjaIU> DYNDY. 2011.
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Money laundering will be easier to detect if they retire debt, even when their revenue stays flat or goes down.
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Seth Godin. Choice vs. convenience. <https://radicals.world/sqTIaq> Dec 28, 2021.
