Monetary Scarcity

If, the extension of the peer to peer mode is dependent on the creation of abundance, and if, in an age of distributed networks the power is located in the design of systems (protocollary power), then it matters hugely that the current monetary system is based on artificially creating scarcity.

The argument is made by Bernard Lietaer:

Bernard Lietaer on the artificial scarcity of the present money system

"For a bank-debt-based fiat currency system to function at all, scarcity must be artificially and systematically introduced and maintained." When a bank extends a loan, the borrower must pay it back with interest, which he competes with everyone else to procure from the limited amount of still-to-be-created money. Governments and their central banks must exercise careful control—through interest rates, margin reserve requirements, and, most important in the present era, purchase or sale of government securities on the open market—over the rate at which this new money is created, a difficult balancing act between tightness, which creates more scarcity, intensifies competition, and leads to bankruptcies, layoffs, concentration of wealth, and economic recession, and looseness, which creates less scarcity, higher inflation, and increased economic activity, but at the risk of runaway inflation and complete currency collapse. In order to prevent the latter eventuality, money must be kept scarce, consigning its users to perpetual competition and perpetual insecurity. (http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/book/4-09-Interest_and_Self-Interest.html)