On 30th
June 2009 when the international credit crunch hit Ireland, the Irish
Nation saw their entire economy collapse with an unworkable National
Debt of €65bn. Three years later the total has doubled to €131.7bn and
continues to increase at €100,000 every three minutes. The average
income in Ireland is around €22,000 (CSO-2010) whilst the National Debt
per person is €27,000 (2012). If every Irish worker gave up a quarter of
their income every year for the next 5 years, the debt could still not
be paid. Austerity, referenda, IMF advice, EU financial guidance and
decisions by the Dáil Éireann will now keep Ireland in debt for the
foreseeable future whilst propagating the very financial monetary system
that caused the global economic crisis in the first place.
Alternatively,
Ireland’s national debt could be parked in a similar fashion to
Argentina in 2001. In a radical shift in economic policy President
Adolfo Rodriguez stated that the Argentine people would take priority
over national debt payments by introducing a parallel currency alongside
the peso to create liquidity. In the same way, the Irish government
could rethink economic policy at a government level but instead of
creating an alternative currency, create a new economy network for
transacting. Ireland could then retain the
trading currency of Europe, whilst rejecting EU debt treaties, stopping
the socialisation of debt through long-term austerity measures imposed
on it's people.
The
technology now exists to create a transaction network economy from a
peer-to-peer [P2P] citizen architecture that can perform transactions
through online accounts operating from online
mobile payment-processing platforms. This independent solution would remove
transaction costs and allow money to flow freely throughout the
population whilst offering layers for banking, savings and loans.
By implementing an alternative infrastructure, expensive intermediary, financial service providers are circumnavigated to
prevent extractive accounting mechanisms from draining resources
away from communities; enabling a cycle of continuous reinvestment back
into the economy, creating wealth, jobs and infrastructure.
The
Irish state could guarantee this transaction network economy by government
charters for an internetwork of citizen identity accounts. Charters have
long been the traditional way for constitutional governments to
authenticate new institutions, making them acceptable in the public
realm. With the will to create a new social economic system, a
government could begin to promulgate charters that guarantee a new
participatory transaction network, designed upon digital identity for
every citizen be the architect of their own life. From this
citizen-centric approach a new transformational role for government
could emerge as a guarantor of new forms of citizenship and finance.
Economic change through social responsibility is far more affordable
than the existing banking solutions, which have proven socially
irresponsible, institutionally corrupt and negligent.
Despite the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economics unleashed by EU structural
adjustment policies, Ireland now looks more like part of the
marginalised periphery of failing European states caught in a tidal wave
of debt. International debt adjustments treaties are primarily designed
to serve their signatories. What citizens need are social economics
based on localised solutions that serve the national interest. In
Ireland this could be more easily achieved if government charters worked
through an existing social network, such as the Gaelic Athletic
Association (GAA). The GAA has the trust to broker a new form of social
economics because it is rooted in the cultural identity of every local
community. This would allow the Irish government to move out of the
current crisis using a transaction infrastructure based on an existing
citizen network, for a more resilient economic future.
Published by Oliver Ashton & Fred Garnett
@oliverashton @fred Garnett
oliver@oliverashton.com
http://transitiontransaction.wordpress.com/
http://digitalcitizennetwork.wordpress.com/
http://www.thundrbank.com/