In the currency design discipline, we don’t use the words “money” and “currency” interchangeably.
- We use the term “Currency” to refer to any measure that a group makes visible. “Current-See”. Companies use currencies called KPIs to understand the health of the organization.
- People use different forms of currency every day to represent value and understand how to interact with other people and communities. Examples include online reviews, university degrees, “likes”, followers, infection rates, air quality indices etc.
Clarity about what money is and isn’t.
- Money is a form of communication that structurally enables a particular type of coordination for commerce.
- Money, as used today, almost always communicates a kind of extractive value rather than a generative or creative value.
- Money is an invention. Humans invented it. Humans could live without money (and did for most of human history). Humans could invent something completely different to coordinate their activity.
Money has allowed large-scale coordination and technological evolution. It also has stripped many of the earth’s resources and created huge inequalities. These are not “unfortunate externalities”, but results of how we define money.
If we want different results, it is essential that we invent alternatives to money and alternatives to market economics.
