Value Standard
Description
Explained by Chris Cook:
"Value Standards
First, there is a requirement for a Unit of Measure or "Value Standard", as I prefer to call it.
This is purely an abtract Unit (ie "One"), but in my opinion it must necessarily be something to which people can relate. ie the question is, One What? A metre is a Unit of measure of length: a kilogram is a Unit of measure of weight, and we need a Unit of measure of Value in order to enter into exchange transactions at a price measured in that Unit.
Value, like Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I think there are three universal sources of Value.
(a) Location (space) - which has a Value in use, and in fact over two thirds of money in existence is backed by the use value of land, since it was created as interest-bearing loans secured over land/location and the buildings built on it.
(b) Knowledge - also has a value in use, whether the inherent intellectual capital we accumulate over time (ie experience, training, knowledge) and which dies with us,or the timeless objectified Intellectual Property which we may leave behind us;
(c) Energy - has a value in use, and on the one hand, is routinely invested in Location/Land (often in very profligate ways eg cement/concrete) and is also the "Unqualified Labour" which an individual may bring to bear, and which he uses his "Intellectual Capital" to deploy to best advantage.
I believe that Energy is the Value Standard to which most people will be able to relate and by reference to which they will exchange Value objects aka "Currencies".
But of course, it's not a matter of "either/or": people always have used, and always will use, the Standard that makes most sense to them, and the evolution of a Standard will be an "emergent" process, I think. ie it's about "What Works".
Value Units
The Value Standard involves the relationship between Subject (me) and the Object - the Value or "Money's Worth" which I exchange by reference to the Value Standard.
A Currency is a Value Unit which people regard as acceptable in exchange ie it is "fungible". The question then is what is the extent of that fungibility."
Discussion
Proposal by Chris Cook
Chris Cook:
"I believe that the "Global Reserve Currency" will be a Unit redeemable in energy value - lets call it an "Energy Dollar".
Energy Dollars will be exchanged by reference to an Energy Standard I call the "Petro".
The platform on which this exchange takes place will the "International Energy Clearing Union", and transactions will take place on credit terms subject to a mutual guarantee.
Both holders of positive energy balances (energy creditors) and negative energy balances (energy debtors) will pay an amount into an "Energy Pool", and this Pool will constitute a fund available to make the necessary investment in energy savings and renewable energy production to rectify the imbalances. This is of course exactly parallel to Keynes' International Clearing Union, and his Gesellian approach to the (centrally issued "fiat" currency) Bancor.
The "Global Reserve" I am referring to will be an "Energy Pool", constituting the Pool of future global energy production, both renewable and non-renewable.
My strategy for Iran, and indeed other countries who are (temporarily) rich in non-renewables and are profligate in their use, is to monetise this energy and issue it as an Energy Dividend to the population. In this way they will have to pay the "Global market price" (in a new global market not dominated and manipulated by middlemen) but will be compensated with the issue of units redeemable for energy (denominated in Petros) which they will be able to exchange for something of value - from anywhere in the world.
Note that these fungible Energy units cover only a part of the value in circulation.
There is then a question of "National Reserve Currencies".
As I have outlined here
http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/equity-shares-a-solution-to-the-credit-crash-presentation
I believe that the only viable solution to the Credit Crunch is to "unitise" the rental value of property. The effect of this will be to create Currencies redeemable in land rental value and the creation of a "Land Rental Pool" which may be monetised in order to develop and maintain economies. These, of course, have "exchange control" built in, since while they may be acceptable in other countries because they may wish to use them to acquire godds and services form the issuing country in due course, they are redeemable only in the country of issue.
Finally, there is the individual as source of Value, and he (individually) or they (collectively within "enterprises" defined by a protocol) may also issue Units redeemable in Value, being a combination of unqualified Labour value (energy again), Intellectual Capital, and Intellectual Property.
So the future as I see it is of a network of networks of communities within which Units of Value are exchanged by reference to a Value Standard on a generic International Clearing Union platform (incorporating a "transaction engine" -an Apache Money messaging server if you will) and decentralised "shared transaction and title repositories" - Riegel's "Ledger of Ledgers" wherein is accounted who has what obligations to whom, and who has rights of use in what.
I believe that it is the Energy Standard to which most people will be able to relate. Moreover, I believe that the Energy Accounting implicit in the clearing of transactions using an Energy Standard will give us a simple route to transition from a carbon energy economy to an economy based on renewable energy.
Key to it all is the "Not for Loss" consensual partnership-based framework - the cross-border legal XML tying together semantically the disparate jurisdictions and enterprises instead of hardware and software - within which the platform and the participants will operate. There is no "profit" and no "loss" within a partnership -merely creation and exchange of value in all its forms." (via email, March 2009)