Category: Money

Civilisational Wealth, Democracy 2.0, Economy 2.0, Money, Thinking Money

Transactional Logic

Steve Kelsey 39 mins read

An Exploration of Imaginary Transactions

Steve Kelsey.  London.. 19th January 2022

Introduction

The transactional logic that determines the efficiency of wealth creation and the growth of our civilisation emerged at an early point in human history and has evolved into the complex system we see today. This model has evolved over time, becoming more complex and increasingly abstract as it has been applied to global scale activity, and now runs our world. There is nothing natural or inevitable about the transactional logic that controls wealth creation, it is the product of human thought just like any other invention. It has been very successful, but there is scant evidence throughout its long history its logical foundations have ever been put to the test. That there is a need for experimentation in transactional logic is certain. The current transactional logic artificially limits the efficiency of wealth creation and therefore limits the survivability of our civilisation at a time when we are facing major challenges. In this thought experiment I explore the logic of transactional models and the alternatives that might challenge this singular paradigm. read more

Civilisational Wealth, Currency, Economy 2.0, Money, Thinking Money

Community Coin – a thought experiment

Steve Kelsey 10 mins read

In this thought experiment let’s speculate on what a civilisational wealth based economy might look like.

Civilisational Wealth is intelligence applied to base matter. Physics doesn’t have a definition of intelligence yet, nor a means of measuring intelligence as a physical quantity, and so we need to use an analogue. Although we can’t measure intelligence as a physical property we can measure energy intelligently applied to base matter. A unit of Civilisational Wealth is X energy intelligently applied to Y matter and is measured in Joules per Kg.

Work is the process of embedding intelligence in base matter. Work produces Civilisational Wealth. read more

Civilisational Wealth, Economics, Economy 2.0, Money, Thinking Money

Economics for a civilised world – Part 3

Steve Kelsey 2 mins read

Money = Imaginary Wealth

Money is potential or imaginary wealth (iW). Money is variously described as a credit or an IOU for resources or the labour that converts resources into wealth. Note that the terms ‘resources’ and ‘labour’ are a convention and are colloquial synonyms for matter and energy intelligently directed by the labourer.  

Money is an invention and has no objective reality. it cannot be assigned a value until until it is converted to real wealth. This is counter to the convention where money is believed to denote value, but money has value only in relationship to real wealth. Money was reinvented many times all over the world. Money is a form of virtual wealth that can be traded for the real thing  at a future date. In this sense money is future wealth, but to be realised the virtual wealth has to be accepted by any provider of real wealth. The acceptability is governed by the wealth provider being able to repeat this process with a third party. Elaborate systems have evolved to ensure that virtual wealth maintains its value over time relative to real wealth.  read more

Civilisational Wealth, Economy 2.0, Money

Economics for a civilised world – Part 2

Steve Kelsey 2 mins read

Wealth and Work

Energy over time is work. 

E x t = Wk

The amount of wealth created in an hour depends upon the context the work is done. 

As we have seen, the wealth created by hour of work by a brick plant is less than that of an ICU fabricator because the amount of Applied Energy, our analogy for intelligence, involved in the fabrication of a brick is much lower than the energy required to produce an ICU. 

Productivity

Before industrialisation the amount of intelligence that could be applied to base matter in an hour was limited to the activity of one person. Industrialisation has increased the amount of intelligence that can be applied to base matter many times over. We call this measure productivity. A highly optimised system would seek to maximise the productivity per person to increase the wealth that one person could create. Assuming equitable distribution of wealth, if everyone had a productivity ten times greater than a single person is capable of we would all be ten times wealthier. It is this increase in productivity that has allowed us to enjoy far greater wealth than our ancestors. read more

Currency, Economy 2.0, Money

Community Money

Steve Kelsey 10 mins read

We are used to conventional money being issued and backed by authorities, banks and governments. However, banks are relatively new institutions historically, evolving from earlier methods of money creation. Banks as we understand them today are evolved from Lombards. Invented in Florence in the 13th Century, Lombards were a form of pawn brokerage where assets were deposited as collateral for loans (and where the assets were too large or immovable, e.g. property or land, promissory notes were lodged with the Lombard allowing the Lombard to take ownership in the event of failure to repay the loan). Private banks were prone to failure until the invention of the Central Bank in 1694 as lender of last resort.  But until very recently banks only existed for the wealthy. The common community had many alternative forms of debt and credit, many different forms of money based on community trust which operated successfully well before the invention of modern banking. read more

Civilisational Wealth, Money, Thinking Money

A Physics based Economics

Steve Kelsey 11 mins read

The search for a physics based economic model, a thought experiment.

We start by defining wealth as intelligence applied to base matter. There is no physics-based way of measuring intelligence, so we use an analogue, the amount of intelligently directed energy applied to base matter.

W = M+E

We can therefore define a unit of wealth with a fixed physical definition. e.g. I Joule/kg is one kilogram of matter embedded with one joule of intelligently directed energy. 1000 Joule/kg is one kilogram of matter embedded with 1000 Joules of intelligently directed energy.

The energy intelligently applied to base matter ranges from the hand manufacture of a single item to the intelligently directed energy used in mass manufacture. read more

Civilisational Wealth, Currency, Economy 2.0, Money, Thinking Money

Thinking Money

Steve Kelsey 19 mins read

What’s wrong with money?

Just because something is working it doesn’t mean you can’t fix it.
The following is a record of my current thoughts on what money might look like in the 21st century if we leverage the profound evolutionary change money experienced in 2009.

I believe existing digital currencies are just the first step in the evolution of digital currencies that could follow many functional branches, a ‘Cambrian explosion’ of new forms and uses. Once the paradigm shift has been made from ‘money as a database entry’ to money as a piece of software, money can become an active agent in transactions. That paradigm shift occurred in 2009 with release of Bitcoin’s Genesis block, we are just playing conceptual catch up. read more