Organizational Democracy » Constitution Collection

For cities and companies, the value of virtual currency

Alex — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:47:19 +0000

The Hub is one of my favorite models for coworking spaces. They have their own currency: the Ven.

Stan Stalnaker’s TechCrunch article is Bitcoin, Ven and the End of Currency.

He provides an overview of virtual currency, and shares some facts about Ven.

I think it’s important to have local currency, on the scale of a city or smaller. And for companies, and departments within companies, to have their own virtual currency. Here’s why:

Very similar to virtual currency, although it’s regulated, is Class B stock in companies. Class B stock lets investors in a company trade the “currency” valuing that company’s reputation… without letting investors have decision-making power over the people doing the work in the company. That’s the way all stock should be.

Local currencies, especially when the value is not tied to another currency, are a valuable self-regulating feedback mechanism that benefit people and economies: read Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs.

And listen to This American Life’s “The Invention of Money“, exploring: What is money?, a society that used giant stones as currency, how Brazil changed from one currency to another to stop enormous inflation, and what the Federal Reserve does.

Design principles illustrated by long-enduring common-pool resource institutions

Alex — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:50:20 +0000

Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for “her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons“. In her paper “Self-Governance and Forest Resources” she identifies when organizations should be governed as common pool resources, and what the governance principles are. The same applies to an organization… it is the resource.

When organizations should be governed as common pool resources, these are the “attributes of the resource:

Feasible improvement: The resource is not at a point of deterioration such that it is useless to organise or so underutilised that little advantage results from organising.
Indicators: Reliable and valid information about the general condition of the resource is available at reasonable costs.
Predictability: The availability of resource units is relatively predictable.
Spatial extent: The resource is sufficiently small, given the transportation and communication technology in use, that users can develop accurate knowledge of external boundaries and internal microenvironments.”

These are the governance “design principles illustrated by long-enduring common-pool resource institutions:

Clearly defined boundaries. Individuals or households with rights to withdraw resource units from the common-pool resource and the boundaries of the common-pool resource itself are clearly defined.
Congruence.
1. The distribution of benefits from appropriation rules is roughly proportionate to the costs imposed by provision rules.
2. Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions.
Collective-choice arrangements. Most individuals affected by operational rules can participate in modifying operational rules.
Monitoring. Monitors, who actively audit common-pool resource conditions and user behaviour, are accountable to the users and/or are the users themselves.
Graduated sanctions. Users who violate operational rules are likely to receive graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offence) from other users, from officials accountable to these users, or from both.
Conflict-resolution mechanisms. Users and their officials have rapid access to low-cost, local arenas to resolve conflict among users or between users and officials.
Minimal recognition of rights to organise. The rights of users to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.

For common-pool resources that are part of larger systems:

Nested enterprises. Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution and governance activities are organised in multiple layers of nested enterprises.”

When companies have these principles at work, then I’m very satisfied. More importantly, the people who work there are too.

Checks, balances, and alternatives

Alex — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:11:06 +0000

In Ur, a person was responsible for his or her actions:

“13. If a man is accused of sorcery he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels. 14. If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver.”

There are checks and balances appropriate to the organization: the river ordeal checks, and from that, the resulting punishment or innocence balances order amongst the people.

The constitution includes back-up plans. Its writer has thought through some realities: “24. …If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10 shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that belongs to him.”

Equity

Alex — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:07:14 +0000

The Code of Ur-Nammu has a preface that tells how the people came to be united. It tells its core principles “of equity and truth…. equity in the land; he banished malediction, violence and strife” and sets measurements.

It also says that the measurements shall not define the man.

“The orphan was not delivered up to the rich man; the widow was not delivered up to the mighty man; the man of one shekel was not delivered up to the man of one mina.”

The value of a person is separate from the value of their property. This is equity.

Code of Ur-Nammu

Alex — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:51:46 +0000

Source: “Code of Ur-Nammu” at Wikipedia

Written: 2100 BC-2050 BC. Credited to king Ur-Nammu of Ur (2112-2095 BC). Maybe written by his son Shulgi.

The Constitution

…After An and Enlil had turned over the Kingship of Ur to Nanna, at that time did Ur-Nammu, son born of Ninsun, for his beloved mother who bore him, in accordance with his principles of equity and truth… Then did Ur-Nammu the mighty warrior, king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad, by the might of Nanna, lord of the city, and in accordance with the true word of Utu, establish equity in the land; he banished malediction, violence and strife, and set the monthly Temple expenses at 90 gur of barley, 30 sheep, and 30 sila of butter. He fashioned the bronze sila-measure, standardized the one-mina weight, and standardized the stone weight of a shekel of silver in relation to one mina… The orphan was not delivered up to the rich man; the widow was not delivered up to the mighty man; the man of one shekel was not delivered up to the man of one mina.

[[One mina ( 1/60 of a talent ) was equal to 60 shekels ( 1 shekel = 11 grams]] ….

1. If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.
2. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed.
3. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver.
4. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, he does not leave the household.
5. If a slave marries a native (i.e. free) person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.
6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
9. If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay her one mina of silver.
10. If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay her half a mina of silver.
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.
…
13. If a man is accused of sorcery he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels.
14. If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver.
15. If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man, the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought.
….
17. If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him.
18. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out ½ a mina of silver.
19. If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay ten shekels.
20. If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver.
21. If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver.
22. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver.
….
24. …. If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10 shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that belongs to him.
25. If a man’s slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt.
….
28. If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver.
29. If a man appears as a witness, but withdraws his oath, he must make payment, to the extent of the value in litigation of the case.
30. If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man and he raises a complaint, this is however to be rejected, and this man will lose his expenses.
31. If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field.
32. If a man had let an arable field to a(nother) man for cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field.
….