Matt Cropp 🌲🌲@tbeckett Sometimes there's a fine line; deep beneath the shitpost/troll there is educational intent... :P
Jzero@mattcropp @tbeckett If I understand the question, it could also be phrased "does your #creditunion offer indentured servitude?" Have I got that right?
It's more a question of character lending. You take out a loan from a pool of capital mutually aggregated by your friends and neighbors with whom you share a common bond and which you democratically govern.
So the communal expectation is that you would only default for reasons that are socially legitimate within said community, and so the social capital of the community can substitute for material collateral.
@mattcropp @tbeckett Ah, ok...the "unencumbered manhood" bit led me astray.
Using social capital as part of loan underwriting seems like a decent idea. Kind of like what #timebanking is based on. Often, members are allowed to receive services before providing them, i.e. go into "debt" to the timebank, based on the social trust that each person will "repay" that "loan." Not a 1-to-1 concordance, but related concepts, maybe.
@GuerillaOntologist @tbeckett @ElizabethMYLaBerge
This was the original purpose of the #commonbond, before credit scores were a thing:
http://cuhistory.blogspot.com/2013/06/1951-quote-on-purpose-of-credit-union.html
@mattcropp @ElizabethMYLaBerge @tbeckett So, are you suggesting that maybe CUs could have these sorts of common bond groups within their membership? i.e. allow small groups of members make decisions about providing loans to each other, which the CU would then provide? Kind of replacing or supplementing loan officers with a number of small common bond groups?