Money Nutters

Bill Maurer put forth some ideas on alternative currencies that have been circulating around the world due to new technological advances and the fear of a systemic deflation. I for one really resonated with the ideas of the "time bankers" who use time as a unit of currency...accounting one hour of one's time used as one hour of another's time used, providing an equal platform for the use of one's labor. This made a lot of sense to me because it is true that as humans, our time is inevitably limited. Capitalism today alludes that one's lifetime is of higher value than another's based on the dollar-worth of one's hour over another...because the work they're doing is "better" or "harder". I don't like this idea because it diminishes the ontology of the individual; degrades the bond of humanism.

I was also enlightened in some sense to how Bitcoin and Air time payments operate, which were always vague ideas to me. I find that with such a seemingly open flow of ideas on alternative currencies, there is potential for more diverse economies. I was interested, though not surprised, to read of the lawsuit from paypal to google wallet. Essentially, there may be slight infringement of intellectual "property" (though my research paper is determined to dismantle the capitalist-centric assumptions surrounding property), but is it such a bad / punishable thing to view like-thinkers as your adversaries? If you ask me, this is against the advocate for change's interests.