abundance: More than enough, plenty. Hated and feared by economists, who call it glut. They make money from scarcity, so their economy produces lots of it. If we want abundance, we need a different kind of economics.
academic: 1. A type of credit, awarded for hours of attendance and other indicators of learning. An old established form of win-win credit, a credit to the teacher and school as well as the student. If the school's credits are validated, the student may transfer them to another school. 2. The world of teaching and learning, prerequisite to building a new economy. Maybe we can study and teach win-win economics for win-win credit.
accept: Key concept and regulator of new credits and currencies. They are good to the extent that people and institutions accept them. That extent may be very local.
accounting: The bottom line. Whatever's not accounted literally doesn't count. We need a new accounting system for what we want in the nonprofit, noncommercial world. Accounting makes things happen, builds an economy. Computers love it. Money loves it. Accounting is power. Without it, we're rioting in the street.
backed: One way to make money good is to back it with good money, or make it convertible into good money. Once upon a time paper money was backed by gold and people could convert back and forth. Volunteer credits are good if a volunteer can transfer them to another organization, which means converting them into the other organization's credits. The credits may be backed by goodwill and reputation alone, by belief in the issuing organization. In some cases, where a group has no reputation, the credits come back for exchange into known good credits. If the group has enough good credits to exchange, then its unknown credits are backed by good credits.
bank: Once upon a time, banks were strong buildings to store your money. Now they deal with global flows of computer bits, but they act as if it's money, and it works! Nonprofits are the banks of the volunteer credit economy, crediting each volunteer's hours as in a bank account. Treat those hours as money, and an economy becomes possible, with the nonprofit banks in a very advantageous position.
bankrupt: Banks, businesses and individuals can go bankrupt when they owe more than they have. The volunteer credit economy has a form of bankruptcy also, when volunteer credits cease to be convertible. Normally a nonprofit's credits are accepted based on goodwill and reputation. If there's any doubt, the credits can be returned for exchange into good credits. If the nonprofit runs out of good credits it can no longer exchange its credits and is bankrupt as far as the volunteer credit economy is concerned. It may continue to use its volunteer credits internally, but will no longer participate in the wider economy. The bankruptcy mechanism keeps credit issue in check and maintains the integrity of the volunteer credit economy.
barter: An equal exchange of goods or services, extended nowadays with dollar credits as a medium of exchange, since direct trades are hard to arrange. Includes commercial barter networks and Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). Barter systems recreate traditional win-lose money systems, and differ fundamentally from win-win systems like volunteer credits. Win-win credits can build up indefinitely as capital, but barter credits are a debt to someone else and must be paid off. Another important difference is that barter credits are taxable. Still, barter has much to teach us about creating local currency, establishing trust, giving people credit, and building community.
bottom-up: An efficient and elegant organizing principle associated with win-win systems and other new paradigms. For example, bottom-up currency creation by the people could replace top-down welfare distributions and trickle-down money supply.
capital: Originally head of cattle, capital has grown to include land, buildings, productive capacity, materials, stocks, bonds, bank accounts and paper money. Capital is an essential part of the existing economy, and those without access to capital tend to be disadvantaged. The volunteer credit economy has capital, giving it an advantage over other alternative currency systems. Each nonprofit may capitalize its volunteer hours, by taking an inventory of hours earned going back a number of years. Generally it depends on the nonprofit's reputation, how many hours it can capitalize in this way. Since volunteer hours are win-win credits, both volunteer and organization enjoy this capital wealth and put it to work in the volunteer credit economy.
Catch-22: A paradox or double-bind. From Joseph Heller's novel of the same name, about fliers in World War II who could be grounded if insane, but had to be crazy to fly in the prevailing conditions. Applying to be grounded was proof of sanity, so they couldn't be grounded.
charity: Originally a synonym for love, charity is now more narrowly defined as voluntary donations or service to others, usually through churches and nonprofit organizations. Volunteer credits can be given value through this charitable inflow, and charity resources can be distributed more effectively and equitably. The tax authorities helpfully draw the lines between charitable service credits such as Time Dollars, and barter credits (LETS, Ithaca Hours).
check: If volunteer credits are like money in the bank, the next step is to write checks on it. Checkbook power gives volunteers an understanding of both ownership and transferability of their credits, and lets clients shop around for their services. Checks go a long way to turning volunteer credit systems into an economy.
choice: The volunteer credit economy is voluntary at every step. We make choices rather than following plans. We have freedom. We are in charge of our economy. We shape it with our choices -- of jobs, benefits, investments, values -- whose credits we accept, what rules we play by.
client: The dictionary makes much of the dependent nature of the client role, but there's also the definition of a customer purchasing services, a position fostered by the volunteer credit economy. Clients are given opportunities to earn credits, and participate in an economy to meet their needs like anybody else.
collapse: The money bubble may burst at any time, since it's supported by nothing but hot air. Economic collapse would be no fun, so there's a need for alternative forms of money supported by new values.
communication: An economy is nominally about the exchange of goods, services and money, but it's actually a communication system. On an abstract level it sends numerical signals on what to produce. More directly it involves advertising so that people can get together for transactions. On another level we communicate values and the nature of our relationships, in how much we pay to whom. A volunteer economy may enable us to communicate a different set of values and relationships. An information economy makes communication the content as well as the structure. Communication is also the basis for community (next).
community: A group or network of people with some common interest or identification. Often the term is used broadly to denote everybody in a geographic area, but it makes more sense when referring to people who are in close communication with one another. Building an alternative economy of any type will tend to build community, since it involves communication, shared values and understanding, and negotiated transactions.
compatible: On the face of it, win-win and win-lose accounting are incompatible, and indeed they describe radically different economies and value systems. However, we can create mental and mathematical transforms for relating these two worlds and conducting transactions between them. Within the win-win world we may also find incompatibilities between various games and systems, and often we will choose to maintain boundaries between them rather than seeking transforms and integration.
convertible: The ability to change one currency into another, which ensures its value as a currency. In the case of volunteer hours, transferable has almost the same meaning. Volunteer hours have to be transferable from agency to agency and person to person if we are to run an economy on them. The agencies have to ensure that their credits are convertible, or acceptable for exchange at least in a local area. If an imbalance occurs, and some of their credits are refused or rejected, then they are no longer convertible and no longer currency in the volunteer credit economy.
credibility: From the Latin for belief, this is the challenge for any new currency or credit system (there's that word again). Groups have more credibility than individuals, which is why we look to nonprofits to create and anchor the win-win economy.
credit: Formal credit is an IOU measured in money. Informal credit is a heartfelt valuing of another person. From the Latin credo, we believe in them. To create credit, we have to give it away, and this is the source of wealth creation in the win-win economy. Credits are usually recorded in books or computers. They can be transferred, but don't go wandering around independently and anonymously like currency.
currency: Whatever is in current use as a medium of exchange. That fits the win-lose economy, where currency is also known as money. It's a stretch to apply these terms to the win-win economy, where credit fits better. But we need to use the concepts we're familiar with while we learn the win-win economy. We may create currency and play games with it. We may refer to Time Dollars and personal currency to convey the sense of value we place on them. Eventually we'll turn our currency back into credit in the bank or in our hearts, where our true values lie.
Databrain: A search engine and associative database containing all of Derek Brownlee's writings on volunteer credit economy and other topics. It is capable of ranked retrievals, sequencing, remembering individual study histories, assembling subsets of the database, organizing tables of contents and running an information game economy.
debt: An IOU which, if we write it, is a source of worry for ourselves and our creditors. If the government writes it, we call it money. All the money in circulation is government debts which have never been repaid. If they were ever repaid we wouldn't like it because we wouldn't have any money. That's one of the pillars of nonsense holding up the win-lose economy. Win-win doesn't generate any debt. We won't miss it.
decentralized: The shape of the future. The old centralized, authoritarian, top-down model of government, management and religion is crumbling, but we still hang on to it where money is concerned. Decentralized, bottom-up money creation is a radical notion that may take a while to get used to. Even Time Dollars systems tend to use central accounting in an area that obscures the origin of these credits, and gives false authority to the accountants. Small groups form the natural unit for creating credits, and ultimately individuals may do it.
declare: A powerful act of creation. In creating a new currency or economy, we don't base it on the old. Instead we declare its validity on its own terms. Volunteer hours are obscure records. We declare them to be money and issue bank statements. Then we declare them to be the reserve currency, the gold standard of the win-win economy, on which other currencies are based. Or we declare our game currency to be dollars, and henceforth treat it as valuable. In the spiritual realm, declaring our divinity can produce a shift of consciousness.
deserve: If our money is not based on anything, then its issuers enjoy a windfall, creating money out of nothing. Who deserves this privilege? At present we give it to the government and banks. A win-win currency based on volunteer hours would be created jointly by volunteers and nonprofit organizations, and we could make a case that these bodies are most deserving. Some might say that currency creation should be divided equally among all of us, but if we look at the mechanics of personal currency, again we find the concept of deserving, where we accept only the currency of those we feel deserve to create it, such as people in need, people who serve, people we trust.
Desire Menu: See wish list.
economy: Originally good housekeeping, making the best use of scarce resources, the economy has expanded to a vast array of inputs and outputs, uniformly accounted in money. Its zero-sum accounting system is still based on scarcity, so an economics of abundance calls for some new concepts and accounting. A win-win accounting system produces a different kind of economy, oriented more to consumers of abundance than to producers, who are being replaced by machines.
energy: Human energy, spirit, chi, motivation, life energy... This is not the ergs and watts of physics, but a closely parallel phenomenon that we experience in our lives. Spirit is observed not just in religion but in sports and business and war, where it motivates participants to put out their best efforts. That's energy in motion, or power, a word that is applied both in physics and in human affairs. Once aroused, energy must usually be released, either constructively or destructively. We may, if we're lucky, find energy as a source, an infinite reservoir that we may draw upon. Money may be seen as stored energy, since it can motivate people to work. We may see human energy as the driving force of an economy.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. A document composed of frequently asked questions on a topic or technology, and their answers.
Federal Reserve: Somebody has to make the money we use, and in the U.S. it is the Federal Reserve system, which is not federal and has no reserves. The U.S. Treasury is not allowed to create money, but it creates debt in the form of Treasury bonds, which it sells to the Federal Reserve for money which the Federal Reserve creates. Thus the two bodies create the two top forms of wealth and exchange them in a classic win-win process. The Federal Reserve also creates money to lend to the banks, and by setting the interest rate it controls the quantity of money in the economy.
fiat: Latin for "let it be". Applied to currency by Nero 2000 years ago, substituting his word for precious metals, after which the Roman Empire went downhill. We are again in an era of fiat currency, supported by nothing but law and custom.
formal: The roots of win-win economics can be found in the informal economy of friendship and the heart. But to deal with the world, and especially the highly formal and structured world of money, we need the most formal win-win economy we can devise. The volunteer credit economy meets this standard, with a measurable currency unit, rules for creation and exchange, fixed accounting principles and practices. Other win-win economies, such as economic games and personal currency systems, may occupy an intermediate position in the spectrum of formality.
foundation: A source of charitable funds, usually the annual interest on a permanent endowment. Community foundations address local needs. Private foundations administer estates according to the will of deceased wealthy donors.
fraud: First cousin of waste and abuse, fraud is reduced in a volunteer economy. Fraud #1: welfare recipients who work on the side. If they also have to work for their welfare check they won't bother. Fraud #2: applicants for free charitable services who could afford to pay. If they have to work for the benefits they may decide to pay or forgo the services. Fraud #3: agencies which misdirect their funds or fail to fulfil their mission. Volunteers will move their credits elsewhere, thus reducing matching funds, sending a signal to the funding agencies, and maybe precipitating bankruptcy of the agency's credits.
friendship: Source of informal win-win credit. Good times together yield win-win benefits at the time, and also create permanent informal credit or capital, which may be drawn on in time of need.
fun: A prime product of the win-win economy. Related to funny -- humor. Opposite: serious, characteristic of the existing win-lose economy, where fun and humor are scarce. They are more likely to be produced in win-win transactions, such as people playing together. Both are an inflow of pure life energy. Which economy prevails in the future, win-win or win-lose, could be answered by the question, which is more fun?
game: An occasion of fun, and also a way to play with money. Playing is a win-win activity, which all players can enjoy regardless of who wins. A game can also be educational, and is a good way of learning something new like win-win accounting or volunteer economy.
game economy, economic game: A simulation of an economic system, that can be played with play money to see how it works. Of course, the world economy is also an economic game, since all the money is worthless game tokens, but we take it seriously. If we start a new game, could believing make it real?
grail: Mythical source of abundance. Earliest appearance of the win-win principle: "A two-fold chance is often theirs; They both give and receive profit." --(Wolfram's Parzival). The accompanying body of work on the win-win economy is, in fact, derived from a successful grail quest and the long-sought secret of the grail.
heart credit: The ultimate basis of the win-win economy. Whatever credit people have in our hearts, whatever credit we have in theirs, unrecorded, informal. It trumps any games or recorded credits we can devise, but we may do that anyway for educational purposes and to bring heart values into the formal accounting of the world.
heresy game: An information game in the grail tradition. Heresy originally meant free choice. Players create or copy information currency pages to distribute, to represent the truth, rules, stories, entertainment etc. that populates their game universe. They may also adopt an Inquisition role and buy up offensive heresies to return to their source for exchange.
idea mill: An information brainstorming game where players invest in ideas or projects, and the most popular proposals get group time, attract more ideas and undergo development. Typically ideas are written on notecards and players place poker chips on them.
informal: The win-win economy exists already in the unmeasured accounting of friendship and the heart. This informal economy is our model for understanding win-win accounting and for creating personal currency games. Informal credit and the values of the heart are always greater than any formal credits we can devise, and remind us that any formal accounting, including the money economy, is only a game.
information currency: A form of win-win currency with perhaps the greatest potential. The information economy needs its own currency. Information is not material, does not follow win-lose rules, is hard to charge for in traditional currency. We play with win-win information currency in the form of Kids' Currency pages, but it has the potential to be very big business indeed.
information economy: Already half the economy, and growing fast. The information economy could see even greater growth if it had a win-win currency, which would involve grassroots participation.
LETS (Local Employment and Trading System): Founded by Michael Linton in Canada, and now popular in hundreds of communities all over the world. A barter-based system like Ithaca Hours, but uses centralized credit accounting like Time Dollars rather than a local currency.
lose-lose: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a city exchange. The economy of violence, threat and war is all too familiar. This is what we fall back on if our win-lose money economy fails, unless we develop a win-win economy first.
material: Basis of win-lose, zero-sum accounting and currency. Physical materials like gold, silver and copper provided a precise and stable basis for exchange in what was a largely material economy. Today the material basis or backing for currency is long gone, and our economy is shifting towards immaterial goods like information and entertainment, but we still cling to the material accounting system whether it fits reality or not.
measure: Basis of all science, technology and accounting. We can't count what we can't measure. Money used to be measured in weight of precious metals, but now we fudge it and just compare price tags. A win-win currency needs a unit of measurement, first to define it, second to equalize the currency created from the bottom up by millions of people. This is why the volunteer hour is so appealing as the basis for a global win-win currency.
millennium: Time for something new, and if money gets tied up in the millennium bug, maybe we'll need an alternative in a hurry. The volunteer economy could get a boost as the calendar turns over.
money: Much the same as currency, maybe a little broader, a bit more emotional in impact. But just as abstract, imaginary.
money supply: The money in common use has no inherent value, so its value is kept up by making it scarce. The money supply is regulated by the Federal Reserve, which resists popular pressure to make enough to go around. So we need an alternative money supply for the rest of us. It too needs to be regulated: enough but not too much, or it would be worthless. Volunteer hours can be created by everybody, but only at the rate of one per hour.
network currency: Any commonly acceptable currency used as a medium of exchange for local currencies. Volunteer credits are created at the grassroots by local groups, and may be acceptable for exchange only within the community. For wider exchange we need credits issued by national or global organizations which also have a local presence, such as Salvation Army or the Catholic Church. It is also possible that new networks could arise for the purpose of exchanging information and credits. Such networking organizations could issue their own currency, good for information and banking services, and also useful as a network currency.
nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations (NGO): The backbone of the proposed volunteer credit economy. Their names declare them to be a third economic sector, separate from business and government. NGOs operate globally as a safety net where business and government have failed to provide for the basic needs of the people, and could provide the infrastructure for a global alternative currency and economy.
personal currency: A form of win-win currency or credit issued by individuals. Not as stable as volunteer credits, issued by institutions, but useful for educational purposes. Example, Kids' Currency, to be taught in schools, giving children some experience on the nature of money and credit. Personal currency also carries deep lessons on values and relationships.
potlatch: A custom among the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, where you gain status and credit by giving your possessions away. Whoever gives the most, wins. Seen also in competitive gift-giving at Christmas, birthdays and weddings.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF): Provided grants to service credit banking projects from 1987 to 1990, which helped establish the Time Dollars model.
seigniorage: The windfall profit enjoyed by whoever issues the currency. This now goes to the Federal Reserve and other private banks. There is a good case that it belongs to all the people, or those most in need. In a volunteer credit economy, the currency is created by everybody who works an hour.
sink: Win-win systems generate abundance, gains on both sides of a transaction. But gains in human energy must go somewhere. We need energy sinks to provide balance and maintain the flow. Sinks may be major construction projects (building pyramids) or major social projects (battling poverty, disease, ignorance and war). Fortunately the nonprofit sector has a world of want to address, and the volunteer credit economy brings win-win abundance to the right place.
spirit: Usually identified with the life energy or chi which animates us, and which seems to come from a higher, non-physical dimension. This spirit is recognized in secular as well as religious belief systems, as in sales spirit, fighting spirit and sports.
spiritual: Spirit bound into a belief system or practice.
spiritual currency: A currency or credit system based on spiritual energy or values.
spiritual economy: An economy based on win-win accounting, whose logic requires the insertion of energy or value from our inner resources. Such an economy focuses our attention on these resources and leads to a more spiritual life and society.
Time Dollar: A volunteer hour that is recorded, banked and spendable on services. Time Dollars systems, initiated by Edgar Cahn, are the closest thing to a volunteer credit economy, but have not been widely adopted. The name timedollar has become generic, and many systems use their own names, such as Neighbor-to-Neighbor, Fremont Time, Care Credits.
volunteer credit, volunteer hour: These terms are used almost interchangeably, though volunteer hour better describes what is done and what the unit of measurement is. Volunteer credit suggests the financial and economic purpose of recording these units. Alternating between the two terms conveys a good sense of what they mean.
volunteer economy: An economy based on volunteer credits. An economy results when these credits are made transferable and spendable on support and services. Credits may also be saved and invested in organizations and projects. The volunteer credit economy does not stand alone, but performs an important accounting function in managing matching flows of funds in the nonprofit and social services sector.
win-lose: Zero-sum or balanced-books accounting. My gain equals your loss. Based on material exchange and gold and silver currency. We still run the world economy on this accounting, which does not match the nature of information exchange or human values. Still, win-lose is engrained in our thinking. We evan apply it to the lose-lose transactions of war and feud -- whoever loses least wins. We may also have to distort win-win transactions to satisfy our win-lose mindset.
win-win: Transactions which provide gains to both parties. Example: love and sex relationships. We're not comfortable with such abundance, which is why we still run our affairs on win-lose or lose-lose principles. Business may come close to a win-win philosophy for making profits, but these are soon eroded by win-lose accounting. An economy based on win-win accounting is still a crazy new impossible idea.
win-win accounting: Basis for a win-win economy. Still unheard of in a world where the books must balance. Yet a new balance can be achieved where currency, such as volunteer hours, is created jointly by two parties as a credit to each, and is subsequently verified by win-lose exchanges. Win-win accounting is not only better suited to human interactions, it also describes information exchanges, increasingly the basis of the world economy.
win-win economy: An economy based on win-win accounting and win-win currencies, such as volunteer credits, personal currencies, information currency and many others. Some of these currencies may exist in separate economies, but volunteer credits have the potential to support a global win-win economy.
wish list: A list of nine categories of wants -- love, health, friends, happiness, wisdom, wealth, environment, adventure, purpose. Some examples are provided in each category, with room to add our own. The purpose is to review major life priorities and maybe value them in our personal currency. See wishlist.htm