Decolonising money: learning from collective struggles for self-determination

Abstract

As a reflection of our politically engaged research, this paper addresses the multiple challenges of transforming money for the emergence of the Pluriverse, arguing that practical efforts of emancipation and autonomy need to dismantle the colonial nature of our current monetary system: the flip side of the colonial state. On the one hand, we look into Chiloé, a territory marked by long-term relations of colonialism, dependency and extraction, where the arrival of monetised forms of work in extractive industries has meant the destruction of former ways of inhabiting the territory. On the other, we explore the emergence of the Circles project, in Berlin, that aims at creating a basic income from the bottom-up, whereby people in different communities issue money equally and exchange with each other without the need for state cash. More than assuming that money in itself is 'bad', we suggest that a recovery of the social and ecological fabric of life could be done through local money systems, designed and managed by the communities themselves, delivered and redistributed as a basic income. Moving to a plural monetary system based on relations of care would lead to a recovery of history as a project of collective self-determination.

Grassroots innovation for the pluriverse: evidence from Zapatismo and autonomous Zapatista education

“…As a result, a diverse array of grassroots movements, organizations and communities seek to design and build alternatives to development in the global South (Gudynas 2011a , b ; Lang et al 2013 ; Zibechi 2007 ). Examples include decolonizing money through local institutions like minga or tequio 1 in Latin America, eco-villages in Mexico and elsewhere, or the Ubuntu philosophy in South Africa (Cabaña and Linares 2022 , this issue; Martínez-Luna 2009 ; Morris 2022 , this issue; Ramose 2015 ). These alternatives are often based on the production of new knowledge and the revitalization of traditional knowledge.…”

“… 1 Minga refers to a rich economic circuit that relied on non-monetized forms of exchange and communal forms of work-celebration (Cabaña and Linares 2022 , this issue). In Mexico, tequio is also used in many indigenous communities as an element of communality and refers to unpaid labor that each person does once or twice a month for the community (Martínez-Luna 2009 : 88).…”

Universal basic income on blockchain: the case of circles UBI

“…Mutual credit is interpersonal and contrasts centralized surveillance fiat or commodity-backed credit and payment systems as in the case of central bank issued money, commercial banks, PayPal, Visa, etc. (Cabaña and Linares, 2022;Criscione et al, 2022). Circles UBI is a decentralized blockchain-based sovereign version of credit money operating on a web of trust.…”

“…To this end, money dissociates from the commodity fetishism of both Marxism and Liberalism, in which money represents reification and utility, respectively. Money also parts ways with the nation-state sovereign money, fiat, or credit, to empower people through mutual credit systems designed to circulate values others than profit maximization and capital accumulation (Cabaña and Linares, 2022).…”

“…Mutual credit systems point to the potential democratization of money, its creation, and its institutions-a money commons-a currency for the commons where credit is issued, co-owned, and administered by people democratically from the bottom-up rather than by state bureaucracies and banks (Cabaña and Linares, 2022).…”