Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This is part of a series of interviews that will accompany a book I'm writing, that will be published by Chelsea Green - an employee-owned company, and part of the new economy that book is describing, built around a mutual credit core.
Today I’m talking with Michael Linton, founder of LETS, a moneyless trading system that grew around the world. Michael talks about what happened.
Part 2 of this conversation is about his new idea, Open Money: lowimpact.org/open-money-exchange-system-michael-linton-letsystems
Transcript of this interview, with more links: lowimpact.org/lets-origins-michael-linton-letsystems
LETSystem design manual: archive.lets.net/gmlets/design/home.html
Open Money: openmoney.org - and openmoney.cc app coming soon.
Introduction to mutual credit: lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/mutual-credit
More on the book: lowimpact.org/book-deal-new-decentralised-economy-mutual-credit-core
Mutual Credit Services: https://mutualcredit.services/ Credit Commons: creditcommons.net
Chelsea Green: chelseagreen.com
Highlights
1. When there’s a transaction between 2 people, whether it’s labouring, childcare, dental work – whatever – there’s an acknowledgement that something’s happened, with a payment. A payment forward. If you get something from someone, you commit to provide something for someone else in the network. We called this mutual credit. LETSystem was one variant of that, with no service fees, no interest, and using legal tender as the measure of the value of a unit.
2. We documented and specified, published and placed in trust the intellectual property of the LETSystem. The LETSystem Trust is the holder of those deeds in kind. That was because we felt that we needed a precise definition. We could see all sorts of things out there without definition. We saw this LETS process happening everywhere, with no feedback. We heard that they’d created committees, credit limits, and lots of added features – none of which made it work better, and some blocked it from working.
3. If people had read the manual and followed the instructions rather than adding things like credit limits, democratic control, user fees etc. it would have worked.
This is part of a series of interviews that will accompany a book I'm writing, that will be published by Chelsea Green - an employee-owned company, and part of the new economy that book is describing, built around a mutual credit core.
Today I’m talking with Michael Linton, founder of LETS, a moneyless trading system that grew around the world. Michael talks about what happened.
Part 2 of this conversation is about his new idea, Open Money: lowimpact.org/open-money-exchange-system-michael-linton-letsystems
Transcript of this interview, with more links: lowimpact.org/lets-origins-michael-linton-letsystems
LETSystem design manual: archive.lets.net/gmlets/design/home.html
Open Money: openmoney.org - and openmoney.cc app coming soon.
Introduction to mutual credit: lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/mutual-credit
More on the book: lowimpact.org/book-deal-new-decentralised-economy-mutual-credit-core
Mutual Credit Services: https://mutualcredit.services/ Credit Commons: creditcommons.net
Chelsea Green: chelseagreen.com
Highlights
1. When there’s a transaction between 2 people, whether it’s labouring, childcare, dental work – whatever – there’s an acknowledgement that something’s happened, with a payment. A payment forward. If you get something from someone, you commit to provide something for someone else in the network. We called this mutual credit. LETSystem was one variant of that, with no service fees, no interest, and using legal tender as the measure of the value of a unit.
2. We documented and specified, published and placed in trust the intellectual property of the LETSystem. The LETSystem Trust is the holder of those deeds in kind. That was because we felt that we needed a precise definition. We could see all sorts of things out there without definition. We saw this LETS process happening everywhere, with no feedback. We heard that they’d created committees, credit limits, and lots of added features – none of which made it work better, and some blocked it from working.
3. If people had read the manual and followed the instructions rather than adding things like credit limits, democratic control, user fees etc. it would have worked.
