User:Ilja
About me
name: Ilja
e-mail: mailMe
crew: Crew_Brugge
What interests me
- Democracy
- Programming and free software
Current activities
- I'm currentley working on a literature-studie around basic income.
- Because I feel that our wiki can be much more than what it is now, I'm trying to help out in the current Pirate_Lab pirate labs whose current main point on the agenda is improving the use of the wiki.
David Graeber, Debt: the first 5000 years (book)
After the economical crisis in 2007 anthropologist David Graeber realised that, even though there is numerous research on the different forms of money we find in history, there has never been a real study about the origin of debt. This study led him unexpectedly to not only the origin of debt, but also the origin of money. Even in the 19th century Anthropologists have said that there is no scientific basis for the hypotheses of Adam Smith that money came as a tool to help in the trading of goods and services, even though this is the story that is still widely taught in schools all over the world. Graeber shows a totally knew origin story of money and shows that money in fact came before trade as a representation of debt. By going over the history of money Graeber also explains how our current monetary system came to be. It's a must read for everyone who wants to get a better insight in to the modern monetary system, the problems that it brings, and what possible lessons history can tell us about this.
Money creation in the modern economy (article)
This is [an article of the first quarterly bulletin from the Bank Of England from 2014]. From the beginning of the article: 'This article explains how the majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans.' and 'Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions — banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits.'
The article also explains how quantitative easing works.
The reason why I think this article is so important is firstly because I believe this is important information to know, but also because I have noticed that people often find it hard to believe that this is how money is actually created. This article doesn't only explains how money creation works, it is also a source that you can hardly contest.
Joris Luyendijk, Dit kan niet waar zijn(This can’t be true) (book)
As far as I know there is no English translation yet for this book.
Joris Luyendijk is a Dutch anthropologist who in 2011, after the economical crisis, went to the city of London to learn how the bank system, and more specific the people who worked inside the bank system, actually worked. He kept a [blog on The Guardian] about this and afterwords wrote this book about his experiences and what he had learned.
Peter Macfadyen, Flatpack Democracy
Flatpack Democracy is a small 111 pages long book writen by Peter Macfadyen. In this book he explains how he, together with some other people, implemented democracy in there little English village Frome by founding there own local party Independents for Frome and getting elected. This book is both the story of how they got elected, as well as a guide on how to do something like this yourself.
The reason why I like this book is because, even if there are so many interesting analysis on democratic systems, this is actually a very practical approach on how to get democracy, even within the current system.