Trade 2.0

Trade is more than one hundred and fifty thousand years old.
It’s a fundamental human right.

To buy and to sell.
To self-sustain.
To transport goods to where they’ll create more value.
To use the excess of what you have as a bargaining tool to get what you want.

The stock-exchange used to be more about the exchange of stock.
Between people.
Between towns or villages.
Farms or Ports.
Everyone had a stock-exchange.
A building where trade happened.
A ‘church to mutual wealth’.
A place where value is concrete and communal.

Trade is so basic that every child understands it.
Trade is intuitive, an essential part of being human.
I want what you have, you want what I have, so let’s trade.

My wants
Your Haves.
Our keeps.
Open to everyone,
just like baseball or football cards.

So,
how did trade start?
We traded to survive.
Because it was better to trade than fight.
Mutual wealth meant life was more sustainable.

So why did we stop?
Because consumerism created an imbalance.
Consumerism created the illusion that we all have all that we need.
That there’s an endless supply of everything that we want.

Consumerism said:
”I don’t need anyone.”
”I’m not dependent.”
”I’m not reliant.”
”I’m independent.”

And when we no longer depend on each other.
We begin to fight.
Society begins to collapse
And the economic engine slows to a halt.

Consumerism closed local stock exchanges
and made us depend on a single central ‘virtual’ stock exchange
Where instead of trading we trust professionals to trade for us
A place where they benefit from the profit that we made.

But,
trade is a basic human right,
not complex,
heady,
or
intellectual.

If I want an iPhone13,
But I forget that I own an iPhone 3, in the original box
and that I invested in two iPhoneX’s that are in a drawer
and that I also have my iPhone that I use now.
I realize that I have more than enough stock to trade to get the new phone.

More for me.
More for the people who buy what I no longer use.
More for apple.
More for eBay.

With much less waste
and much less fighting,
and that’s just the value in a drawer.
What about a self-storage unit.
My house?
Your house?

Our houses are warehouses.
Your Store.
My Store.

Trade is how we all manage our relationship with things,
How we share value with other people.
How we create and share prosperity.

Lets harnesses the value stored in things that we already have and share it with those around us.