Democratic Money
The open space to imagine how money could be fairer, more equal, more human.
The logic of society is one person, one vote.
Your voice matters equally, whoever you are.
The logic of money is one pound, one vote.
Your voice matters more, the more you have.
What happens when you smash these two ideas together...
when the logics of society and the economy collide?
Isn’t that what’s going on in the social economy, that hopeful world of grant-making and social investing where money is aimed at creating good in society?
The conventional answer is that money wins.
The communities without money, the ones that the social economy promises to help, rarely get to decide what that help looks like because, in a one pound, one vote system, they get out-voted.
What if there’s another way?
What if, instead of communities being accountable to the money, the money was accountable to communities?
It’s worth taking a moment to shake your head hard enough to dislodge the cultural norms in that sentence!
What if, as well as giving money, funders started giving power?
What if the social economy were a little less one pound one vote, and a little more one person one vote?
A little more equal, a little fairer, a little more human?