A Stable Economic Value Representation for All Agents and All Transactions

Three Steps to a Stable Economic Value Representation 

for All Agents and All Transactions.

''' Submitted by Marc Gauvin on behalf of the Passive BIBO Currency Board to FLOK Society Ecuador'''

www.bibocurrency.org

Alicante February 5th 2014

The first step, is to recognise that immediate access to a common stable means of representation of value for all entities is imperative for the health of any society and economy. It makes sense to say that an economy is not responsive because it lacks resources, key infrastructure or know-how, but in this day and age, it makes little sense to say that an economy is unresponsive for lack of access by its constituents to adequate means to represent whatever value they are capable of producing. The current (de facto) standard for such value representation, is of course money as it is currently conceived, understood and subsequently implemented and managed where money is expected to act both as an object of variable and even negotiable value as well as a unit of measure. Perhaps more than ever that current and historical conceptual model of money is under fire and increasingly a topic of debate with a myriad of initiatives and proposals for monetary reform, alternative currency, crypto currencies etc. being proposed now to the public at large.

In this regard, our work at www.bibocurrency.com is focussed on defining the generic technical and scientific requirements for value representation or money that on the one hand, satisfies the precise technical requirements for stability as defined and dictated by dynamic systems and stability theory applied in control theory for discrete Linear Time Invariant (LTI) systems (http://bibocurrency.com/index.php/stability-passivity, http://cnx.org/content/m34515/latest/ ) and on the other hand, satisfies the need for constituents of any community to maintain records of value in the course of the realisation of transactions. The objective being to provide a passive yet a useful form of “liquidity” that is stable, reliable and most importantly that users can have unfettered access to justly represent the value of what they trade.

The second step, is overcoming the profound and deeply ingrained logical misconceptions about what money is and does and the subsequent emotional ties, dependencies and even addictions that keep it encrusted as a pseudo rational construct in our minds. We can think of a definition as a sort of primitive system requirement, for example building stables must use a valid detailed definition of “horse”, get that wrong and the stable and adjunct services risk to become invalid for their intended purpose. Of the growing number of those that actively question money system design, few are aware that the very core definition of money used and commonly adopted is logically inconsistent, confused and rationally untenable. Our current and operative notion of money is simply assumed or historically adopted without question and then we go about trying to best “manage” it as if that definition were dictated or imposed by some natural law or principle yet to be understood but nonetheless obligatory.

However and by applying strict logical definitions such as those used in formal decidable logic (propositional and description logic), we quickly realise how absurd the common “industry standard” definition is and how it undermines the sine qua non function of measure of value without which money loses meaning. In the process, we also discover how in strict mathematical and engineering terms, we can define money so that it can function as a useful and dependable common standard of measure/record of value. Thus the challenge lies in developing and successfully communicating to society at large a new science of money that adheres to well established, sophisticated and mature dynamic systems and stability theory and practice, presently not exploited by current finance and economic theory. Although this approach provides rich and highly relevant objective knowledge, it is vulnerable because although simple, formal stability theory is nonetheless a subtle and unfamiliar domain. For example, to the uninitiated who may ignore or gloss over the formal definition of stability (http://cnx.org/content/m34515/latest/ ) clearly distinguishing between a stable system vs a stabilised system may not seem intuitive, leading to discourse based on vague and inconclusive definitions. Thus, standard financial and economic theory tends to confuse the functional scope of systems i.e. what exactly is the functional domain where a particular system is logically relevant. Confusing the functional domain of a system often leads to the imposition of unnecessary constraints. Step three below provides an example, where it becomes clear that it makes little sense to confuse the broad scope of social governance with that of recording measures of value, confusing these two functions undermines both, as we are experiencing today.

The third step is the prospect of a new paradigm for social governance, this seems overwhelming but if the previous step has been successful, it need not be so. The reason being that social governance already exists in useful forms where much of its dysfunction in large part is due to how our current illogical notion of money tends to skew and corrupt. Replacing the current notion of money with a truly coherent one that renders money auxiliary to social governance, can only vastly improve and simplify current social control mechanisms while making them more open and accessible to all. But this challenge is still significant because when “money” has been reduced to its mere and mundane function of measure, no longer a prize or artifice of power, it no longer becomes the simplistic and reductionist tool for decision making that we have become accustomed to. This means that where before, an individual’s notion of what is and isn’t possible was largely hacked by standard finance “control” and thus artificially delimited and simplified, freedom from such artificial restraints, implies a far more sophisticated, autonomous and integral relationship with one’s environment and social context, requiring far greater levels of responsibility, information and practical knowledge to and from all agents. In this regard two things present challenges, on the one hand there is the fear of loss of a familiar, habitual and expeditious “control” mechanism all have been conditioned to, and on the other hand, there is the resistance in anticipation of such an evolution by those who may feel threatened by the prospect of any change in their perceived privileges, social status etc. Since many such individuals are influential in today’s world and occupy key functional roles in government, industry, judiciary, academia and finance, this step would only seem possible if and when step two above has been successfully undertaken and the results well assimilated throughout society.

In any case, this issue can no longer be ignored as the current malaise regarding money is critically undermining all aspects of society in unprecedented and alarming ways. The logical contradictions and inconsistencies are now glaring, proving that the current de facto standard is simply not tenable making imminent change inevitable. The question then is, whether or not change will be undertaken according to rational and proven scientific criteria already well established in relevant domains of IT and engineering, beyond the confines of the so called “elite” community? Correct change is doable and we cannot in good conscience, pretend not to know what we already have learned and where that knowledge can lead us i.e. towards a more enriched, enlightened and meaningful existence for all.

Tres pasos hacia la representacion del valor económico estable para todo agente y transacción