Assignment 3

Option 1 - Imagine an elite anarchist hacker cell created a virus which overnight wiped out all electronic records of currency of all types, including deposits, loans, and many derivative contracts stored electronically. Imagine one year later, you are cycling around near your home. What would things look like? What would people be doing? Write no more than 400 words describing the scene, with some comments at the end of your description on why you think this would be the situation. Be as creative, descriptive and poetic in your prose as you wish.

Option 2 – Choose one of the many problems we described as arising from the current monetary system and in no more than 400 words make your argument about why our analysis is limited, or unhelpful or just plain wrong. In making your case, reference all your sources.

ANSWER:

Option 1: Trusted Society

Keywords: Society,trust,hourmoney

It is a bright morning with smell of spring in the air. I feel good as I cycle on my new bike to the village center. I recently got the bike in exchange for my vintage smartphone that had served me well until I got my new Visall cranial implant. I needed the Visall to replace a damaged right eye retina. Without depth vision, cycling was hazard, so I had preferred walking and jogging for twenty years. The Visall includes communication over the entire electromagnetic spectrum and can be tuned to specific frequency bands like visual light and radio.

My mood gets even better, thinking of the financial breakdown that saved people, society and earth in a miraculous way. With no debt or money problems, people are enjoying work and life. I pass the market with numerous stalls where everything can be bought or exchanged. You find all kind of food, clothing and shoes, appliances, materials and tools. People are getting rid of what they do not need, possibly in exchange for something else, like I had swapped my stupid "smartphone" for a useful bicycle. I pick some fruit and vegetables from a local booth, and I pay the price I want to, two lokaltimes. Lokaltime is the new, local currency, estimated to one hour work (time is the local term for "hour"). Lokaltime come in denominations representing one hour, one day, one week, one month and one year of work, and the small denominations of quarter, ten, five and minute.

Later I go by tram to a nearby town. I pay with my half-year ticketpass which cost a week. Many people earn ticketpasses at fitness studios where tread-mills and various weight-lifting apparatus are generators for electric power so people are paid for their work-outs.

In the town I pass several people in queue, in front of the employment office. Almost all in queue are former bank- and finance workers, administrators and bureaucrats whose work were never in demand, and not at all now. They are all in distrust, so they do also have trouble to get any social or voluntary work.

To cash in my monhtly salary, I visit our interest-free Mutual Bank. The bank is run by Muslims who are thriving in the new society.

The main shift in society has been from distrust to trust between honest people working at what they are best at.