Fair.coop is an open global cooperative which organizes itself through the Internet and stays off-limits from nation-state control.
A primary objective of Fair.Coop is to build a new global economic system based on cooperation, ethics, solidarity and justice in our economic relations, so that all human beings can live a fuller, more equitable life.
For this matter we ask ourselves some questions:
Why do we do this? What are we after? How will do it? When? We will now answer them for everyone to have a glance at the initiative we are developing and a chance to form their own opinions.
WHY do we do it?
Currency exchange through forex markets negatively impacts on people’s purchasing power and therefore increases economic inequality, causing impoverishment, cheap labor, plunder of natural resources through speculative devaluation, etc.
Global financial system is dominated by a minority.
Economic models based on perpetual growth are causing destruction of many life forms on the planet, natural cycle mismatches, overexploitation of natural resources, etc.
Central governments and corrupt politicians focused on following the dictates of hegemonic power are plundering even the most essential resources needed for a decent life.
Individualism and competitiveness are the values we are constantly forced to have.
Privatization of knowledge and technology plays against the advance of the human species.
WHAT do we want to achieve?
A new global economic system based on cooperation, ethics, solidarity and justice in economic relations.
An autonomous, independent system based on a common strategy to allow economic empowerment of active social change subjects and all the people who are not getting the minimum required for subsistence.
Based on the open cooperative concept where commons equals fair, and with a name to clearly show its goals:
– Restore economic and social north / south balance
– Enhance the seed of cooperation, the common good and economic justice expanding to all corners of the planet.
– Use the properties of cryptocurrencies, namely Faircoin, which has some characteristics that make it suitable for this purpose, enhancing its use as a reference currency in the areas of fair trade and ethical consumption.
Everything under the principles of:
- Redistribution and peer exchange
- Open political participation
- Decentralization of organizational forms
- Production of commons
- Share and distribute open knowledge
Economics, politics, knowledge, cooperation, production, all peer to peer and openly and cooperatively
HOW will we do it?
Initially it is important to notice that in general, a currency should:
1. Be a medium of exchange for goods and services
2. Be a store of value
3. Be a reference value (price system)
Up until now the official Banking System, based on central banks and fiat currencies, has been the only option that allowed all three options. Alternatives based on Social Currencies, as they are usually referenced to a fiat currency, are facing similar challenges as fiat money, for they are also inflationary, etc. Furthermore they are mainly intended for local use and are not very interconnected so far.
Therefore, fair.coop is developing a series of tools and concepts, both technological and monetary, that will allow us to stop depending on the hegemonic system.
First, by using Faircoin, to create a fair and decentralized economic system. This cryptocurrency has characteristics suitable for it: it is Earth-friendly (99.99% of the new creation is by minting and therefore does not require high energy consumption), it encourages saving, and it’s secure (thanks to the combination of POW and POS, the two most common systems used to generate and validate blocks).
In the political and organizational aspects, we will build on the principles and ways already defined by various groups who fight for social change, such as the integral revolution, peer2peer, hacker ethics, free knowledge, degrowth, good living, etc.
As for the tools that will allow us to achieve these goals, they include so far:
At monetary level:
- Faircoin: as a store of value and future price reference.
- Faircredit: an evolved, global mutual credit system as a means of exchange of goods and services, complementing faircoin and thus reducing the need to spend faircoins and enhancing in that way its function as value storage.
At resource level:
- Fairfunds: Funds destined for donations to social and technological change or local community empowerment projects.
- Fairsaving: Savings service for members who want to use our infrastructure to keep their faircoins.
- Fairmarket: Virtual Market focused on the marketing and distribution of products and services by Fair.Coop members and open to everyone. Based on a Faircredit and Faircoin payment system. In short, products and services moving all around.
- Fairbag: Encrypted backup system for user information.
- Fairfunding: Platforms for collecting donations for Fairfunds. We start off with Coopfunding net.
- Fair.Network: The community’s social network, through which decisions are made, voting takes place, protocols, tasks, meetings, etc. are shared, exercising then direct and participatory democracy.
Fair.Coop Ecosystem (the forest)
All of this is like a natural ecosystem based on cooperation and encompassed within the global cooperative Fair.Coop. It is organized into Councils (trunks) and Commissions (branches) which form the trees of our forest.
The ones already created by the promoter group are:
Ecosystem
Which includes various working committees or branches:
1 General
2 Economy
3 Extension
Funds
1. Global South Fund
2. Commons Fund
3. Technology Infrastructure Fund
Local nodes
They will look after Fair.Coop’s territorial expansion, bonding and cooperation with groups running projects, and direct support to empowerment of local initiatives.
FairNetwork
It’s an open social network that allows all members to collaborate, discuss and decide together. And specifically allows councils and commissions to share collective creation spaces with all members.
WHEN?
While social collaboration dynamics are already starting on the Fair Network, the economic plan has been divided into 3 phases:
Phase 1: Increase the value of the currency based on savings
Objective:
Increasing participation and generating value with Fair.Coop’s projects and services, and putting collective intelligence to work at sharing knowledge, decision-making and new projects on the FairNetwork.
Raising Faircoin demand and price in relation to other currencies (capitalization), to increase value of the funds and interest from real economy in Fairfunds.
Enhancing empowerment and development of Global South collectives and Commons-oriented projects, supporting them with technology and sharing of open knowledge.
For this we will:
Have cooperative actions for Faircoin-raising through donations.
Reduce the amount of coins from ethical savings available for sale, as supported by the system in which minting of Faircoin is based (POS) and by the many services created for that matter.
Phase 2: Economic activity based on Faircoin
Generating commercial interest, especially in ethical, cooperative and sustainable areas, through increased Faircoin capitalization.
Building Faircoin trade activity among Fair.Coop members and everyone in general; launching FairCredit and Fairmarket.
Phase 3: Consolidation of a fair economic system
Expansion of the Fair.Coop ecosystem.
Store of value function will allow us to stop depending on fiat currencies.
Generate broader cooperation and solidarity dynamics worldwide.
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