Here’s What I Think About Your New Currency System
And I have some suggestions for what you could do next.
I’m an economist and I do a lot of work explaining and promoting the idea of introducing a Basic Income system. And when I write a Basic Income article (or perhaps some other Economics article), I frequently get people who respond by trying to convince me that what we really need is some new form of currency — perhaps a cryptocurrency — or even an entirely new money system.
They usually have the idea that there is a fundamental injustice at the heart of our economies and that our money system is one of the central causes of that injustice. They may believe that our major economic problems are caused by the government or central bank having a monopolistic control of the money creation process. Sometimes they’re inspired by ideas related to ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ (MMT).
And the solution they evangelically propose usually involves a new currency and/or a new system for creating and distributing money, which they say will be much fairer and more equitable than our current system. They believe their system will solve all sorts of problems and make us much better off than we are at the moment. They may say it will eliminate poverty. They may claim it will end unemployment. They may say their system guarantees there will…
