Democratic Emancipatory Economy Platform

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= DEEP is an "open source software to build and boost economically fair, democratic and emancipatory communities through resource sharing, collaborative production and alternative exchange system (mutual credit)". [1]

URL = https://github.com/gopacifia/DEEP]http://www.gopacifia.org

Fork from Freedom Coop's Open Collaborative Platform.


Discussion

"It is an open source software to build and boost economically fair, democratic and emancipatory communities.

Why? Because the capitalist economic system generates inequality, exploitation, poverty, marginalization and ecological destruction, we need to build alternative systems.

What's wrong with capitalism? We don't argue the rich are the bad guys. We argue that mechanisms are inappropriate for an adequate organization of society:

money creation is centralized and accessible only to capitalistsproductive resources are accessible only to capitalistswork retribution is a result of unequal power relationshipsunemployment and economic crisis are embedded in the systemmarket prices work in favor of company owners, not in favor of consumers and workersthe state has to take responsibility of the market where it is inefficient (where real needs are!)artifially needed economic growth generates a whole superficial production/work/consumption system that is alienating and destructive.

How to change this? Decentralizing money creation: In a neighborhood with high unemployment, people have no money so they dont' consume. Local businesses close and unemployment keep rising, affecting the broader economy which in turn slows, entering a vicious circle. But if neighbors create a local exchange system or a time bank with mutual credits they can reactivate their economy. Pedro couldn't get a haircut from Nadia because he had no money. Nadia couldn't pay Agy for taking care of her children since she had no client and thus no money. With the mutual credit system, Pedro can have a haircut, his virtual account goes in negative (credit) to -30 (for the 30 minutes worth haircut) and Nadia sees her account raise to +30. Nadia can easily pay Agy for her work (180) and her account goes to - 150. Agy can now get a medical consultation with her positive account. The economy is reactivated.

The same goes for businesses. In economic turn downs, businesses face cash issues. They sometimes can't pay their suppliers in time, putting them in dangerous situations. If they can't get input supplies they won't be able to produce anymore, and will have to close business. Which would put their workers and their supplier's workers out of work. With the credit system, they could still get supplies and pay their workers in credit as well. So they can continue business and sell to consumers (who are other workers that have been paid in credit). The economic activity is maintained.

Democratic access to productive resources (reducing inequalities): Since businesses can access input supplies through credit, you don't have to be a capitalist to borrow money from the bank in order to improve your productive capacity. This will only depend on your business scale, so you won't need investors to fund you and to take the benefits of your and the workers' work.

Autonomous retribution (further reducing inequalities): Since people do not depend on employers anymore to receive a salary (they can work autonomously since they can access productive resources), they will have more powers in negotiating retribution. In a time bank, this is even easier since everyone earns 60 minutes for one hour work (apart from special cases)." {https://github.com/gopacifia/DEEP)


Status

"This version of valuenetwork is a fork of the FreedomCoop version, itself a fork of the original NRP software by Mikorizal in collaboration with Sensorica.

This fork is to develop DEEP, the Democratic Emancipatory Economy Platform, that will enable a full internal exchange network with mutual credit system, in addition to the existing comons-based collaborative production and value equation system." (https://github.com/gopacifia/DEEP)

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