You need a currency constellation based on you value system

Auroville Today: You say that in Auroville a great deal of development happens at the personal level, but at the level of the collectivity we keep building the old world. What do you mean by this?

J-F Noubel: I mean that many Aurovillians have worked intensively upon themselves but when they come together they tend to repeat old patterns of thought and behavior. This points to ‘invisible architectures’ – hidden structures that shape our worldviews and our actions. Language, for example. In early times, language would point to very basic things like naming an animal or situation. While language evolves, it keeps elements of the archaic consciousness that no longer fit the modern world. So modern language still tends to focus upon objects interacting with objects, while systems theory and quantum physics have broadened our reality and make us see it in terms of energy, of waves and flows. Current language cannot adequately describe this as a shared reality in the social field.

Also, some of the words we use do not necessarily cover the full spectrum of our experience. For instance, to describe gender we only have ‘he’ and ‘she’, whereas we recognise today many more forms of gender identity.

Once we realize the hidden architectures of language, we can decide to evolve it, to “hack” it, in order to overcome some of these limitations. Techniques like Nonviolent Communication try to change some protocols in the conversation so that they don’t trigger archaic forms of violence in the way we express ourselves. I use e-prime, which removes the verb “to be” (implying “this I how it is”) from the English language. Instead I say, “I believe that” or “I have the opinion that…” etc. to make clear that I express my own experience, not a projection of reality that I confuse for a fact. In this way, it is difficult to impose my view upon others.

You have identified the conventional money economy as another form of invisible architecture. Why?

If you play the Monopoly game, you will understand how conventional money works. Although everybody begins to be equal, you end up with one person who has everything while the rest have nothing. This happens because of the ‘Pareto Principle’, a law of condensation, accentuated by money. Hence the reason why, in economic terms, we call money a ‘scarce currency’. All conventional currencies – dollars, euros, yen, rupees, etc – operate in the same way.

So if you use conventional money in Auroville, you will import an artificial scarcity into the living system, rather than one of abundance or sufficiency; inequality rather than equality. This can lead to entire systems and philosophies of scarcity, competition and conquest. Hierarchical societies need scarce currencies because of the correlation between concentration of money and concentration of power. If you want to build a new society based upon human unity and distributed collective intelligence, conventional money becomes a poisonous and inadequate technology. This is why the next collaborative societies will create currency constellations based upon their value systems.

We can create other currencies to build different kinds of economies. For now, complementary currencies (like local currencies) exist alongside the conventional system. In the near future, ‘free’ currency constellations will flourish everywhere. They will free humanity from the dependency on conventional money, and will allow the rise of massive gift economies. For this, you need to understand currency as ‘current-see’, a language that tracks flows in a living system so the system can balance itself. Currencies can also track flows of gifts in a large gift economy so it can sustain itself in the same way a small local community does.

Until recently, two challenges existed to designing an alternative system to money. Firstly, there was the power and absolute monopoly of the banks that also control the Nation-States. However, the present global banking system no longer functions well and will likely collapse soon. Sooner or later it will lose its monopoly on money – even some CEOs of big banking groups admit this in private. Secondly, the technological threshold. If you wanted to create an alternative currency just for buying and selling, no technological barriers existed. However, if you wanted to build ‘integral’ economies that factor in different forms of wealth (material and immaterial) and which work globally as well as locally, no previous technology could handle the complexity of this. But now the technology exists to build massive gift economies. In fact, we already have it in examples like Wikipedia or Couchsurfing or the Open Source movement.

How does a gift economy differ from a market economy?

In a gift economy, we give what we can give and receive what we need, but not necessarily from the same person. So I may spend three hours fixing someone’s roof, then go somewhere else to get my groceries. After that, I may teach a class at the school while somebody fixes my computer. All this happens without any kind of monetary exchange. In this way, energy flows around the community.

The conventional market economy, on the other hand, operates on the basis of direct reciprocity: I give you something only if you have something to give back. If you have something I need but I have nothing to exchange, I don’t get it.

Then again, we can distinguish different types of wealth:

* ‘movable’, that moves from hand to hand

* ‘measurable’, like the diversity of an ecosystem or the number of hours offered to one another in the community

* ‘rankable’, that speaks about the performance of the system. For instance, the quality of life in Auroville compared to other cities in the world

* ‘acknowledgeable’ which speaks to our subjective inner experience, like peace and joy

* ‘potential’, that makes us aware of what we can attract that hasn’t yet materialized.

The conventional money economy tends to value only certain kinds of wealth – the movable and a little bit of the measurable (it can measure how much land we bought, but certainly not how many birds live on it). A gift economy, in addition, can find ways of valuing more subjective qualities, like peace and joy, or useful activities to which the conventional economy gives no monetary value. In this way, a gift economy can encompass a more integral concept of wealth. This is why we talk about ‘integral economies’ and ‘integral wealth’.

How could we set about moving to an Auroville economy that values more integral forms of wealth?

First of all, I do not think Auroville works through a market economy, although money plays a role in it! Auroville works mostly through gifts. People don’t come here for the paycheck; they come to offer themselves to something higher.

To build that economy more consciously, integrally, is one of the most burning challenges. How? I don’t know exactly; I don’t think anybody knows. But a few things I do understand. You can’t accomplish that with money; you need information about the flows in the system; and you need Aurovilians to do their integral yoga.

You could begin by brainstorming what kinds of wealth – movable, measurable, rankable, acknowledgeable, potential – you value in Auroville. When you understand this, you can design currencies that track these different forms of wealth. At this point, you don’t need conventional money any more. You can use any kind of token or unit to allow people to express something subjective like joy, or how many hours of service they gave to the community today. Money represents just one form of currency among many others we can devise. Currencies are a way of tracking and organizing flows. In living social systems, you need to see the flows and to organise them in a systematic way so that the system remains in balance.

In a small community, you can see who does what, you know who does a good job, and you can sense the state of the whole. In larger communities, the difficulty of knowing this increases, so you need to devise tools to measure eco-diversity, how many hours somebody puts in, how happy people feel etc. In this way, you build a system that enables individuals to become aware of the whole. In collective intelligence we call this “holopticism”. Every individual action modifies the whole which, in return, informs the player about what to do next: in a holoptical context, the individual knows what to do because he/she gets informed by the whole. Then actions don’t need to come from a chain of command.

But in such an economy, how does one ensure that all the necessary tasks are performed? What if everybody wishes to give time to education but not, say, to waste management?

In a money-based economy, people are paid to do the less desirable work. Won’t there need to be some form of directing agency in a gift economy to ensure the system is balanced and not abused?

It depends upon the level of agreements you make to balance the system. For example, the community may ask you to perform certain tasks for some time. Sometimes you may find yourself doing things that do not match what you want to do, but holopticism enables you to see how it contributes to balancing the living system in which you live.

Also, like any living system, Auroville needs ‘membranes’ to make sure that the people who enter have enough spiritual, intellectual, physical and emotional maturity to participate in such an experiment. The gift economy represents a deep shift in our minds, consciousness and vision of the world. It connects us to integral yoga as an essential part of this shift. Whereas archaic forms of consciousness tell us, when we need something, to just “take it”, and more evolved forms employ systems of exchange, the gift economy requires us to give and receive only from a place of offering and faith: the trust that you can give and receive without the mind telling you that you need some kind of guarantee. It should be easier to do this in Auroville than in many other communities because Aurovilians have already accomplished so much through faith, through deep listening to the call of The Mother.

In September 2011, I decided to shift personally to a gift economy and it has taught me so much about myself and about how living systems work. It showed me that the gift economy works as a cosmic principle and has a very deep spiritual component. In a joyful state, when I only do things that make me blissful, I find that peace manifests.

Going into the gift economy, I had to take responsibility not only for my immediate needs but also for my dreams. I had to affirm to others what I desire to fulfill my life in all its richness and to offer my work in a spirit of service. When you do this, you touch people’s hearts and give them the opportunity to become generous. And people feel happy when they give out of generosity.

Are there stepping-stones, like complementary currencies, that can be used to move from a conventional to a gift economy or does it have to be done in one leap?

In many communities, people may still need to operate in a market economy through complementary currencies before they get the courage to shift. In the case of Auroville, I doubt that you need complementary currencies as a stepping-stone because you already have the elements of a gift economy here. At a personal level, Aurovilians could prepare for shifting to a gift economy by doing acts of kindness and seeing what happens.

If Auroville was successful in creating a gift economy, what would be its relationship with the larger world that would still be using conventional money? Auroville would still need inflows from the conventional economy. Would this not jeopardize the gift economy experiment?

If Auroville opens itself completely to the external market economy, this will tend to kill the project. However, if it closes itself off completely, it will also kill it because you need an exchange with the outside world. Most of the flows of wealth, in the widest sense, can happen inside Auroville without the use of conventional money, although we need currencies to track them, balance them, and holopticism so that Aurovilians can make informed decisions. Auroville could keep using conventional money exclusively for what comes in and what goes out of the community, not for what happens inside.

In the larger world, some communities and organizations, like Vipassana retreats and Karma Kitchen, already operate on the basis of the gift economy. Auroville could also play the gift economy with the larger world. Some big organisations may offer things to Auroville, not as sponsors but in a spirit of gratitude.

How would this work?

Firstly, you have to clarify to yourselves and to the world what Auroville can offer and what it requires to flourish: the ‘desired riches’ (not the ‘poorism’ of basic needs). Then you could build personal relationships with executives of big companies interested in Auroville who want to learn or gain something from this unique experiment. If they feel they received a ‘gift’ from Auroville in a spirit of generosity – without a price tag attached – they may want to express their gratitude in some way or another, monetary or not. This can come through something that Auroville puts on its desired riches list, like the provision of specialized technical assistance, or supply of technology etc.

I function like this as an individual in the gift economy, and it works. Firstly, I only offer my time to companies that have meaningful things to do. Then, when I first meet CEOs, I ask them what gets them out of bed in the morning. This enables me to relate to them as individuals and connect with their soul’s journey. We don’t have a commercial relationship; we build a human relationship. Then they may ask me to give, say, a presentation to their senior management. I’ll say yes if they agree to make it open source and express a willingness to continue the chain of generosity. In other words, they don’t have to express their gratitude by giving anything to me: they can make a gift to someone else. And if they want to gift something to me out of a sense of gratitude, not debt, they can go to my webpage where I have a list of my desired riches.

I really believe that most people in the market economy know how to express generosity, even in the restricted legal system within which they have to operate. Moreover, many people in the world would manifest gratitude to Auroville if they had an opportunity to do so. Of course, it already happens: Auroville would not exist without the world’s generosity.

But when you speak of CEOs of companies being ready to help Auroville, they can do it because their company is based in the conventional economy. So doesn’t the gift economy you speak of really depend upon the conventional economy for support? Doesn’t the gift economy feed off the conventional economy in some way?

One should understand that the market economy represents an epiphenomenon of the gift economy rather than vice versa. The apple that you buy or sell in the market economy originally was ‘gifted’ by the tree.

So the gift economy actually reflects the way that nature works. We should remember that naturally we come from the gift economy because we grew up thanks to the care provided by our families. Can we put a price on that? So far, Auroville has grown exactly because of this too.

More information at noubel.com