FREE ECONOMY:In a recessionary world, PATRICK FREYNEexamines how to get goods and services without resorting to cash
With our complicated financial system and highly technologized society, it’s unlikely that barter will make a widespread return. The sentences “I will swap you three hens for an iPhone 5” or “I will kill a wolf for a go of your Xbox” are unlikely to be crossing many lips.
In the wake of the financial crisis, in an era of tightened belts and purse-strings, people have been trying to find new ways of getting what they need. Around the country local currencies and favour exchanges are popping up, allowing people to exchange goods and services and also helping to bind communities together.
“We didn’t invent the idea of local exchange and trading schemes,” says Miriam Cotton one of the founders of the Clonakilty Favour Exchange. “Time banks were originally conceived as a way of storing up services for yourself for when you were ill or old. They started in America and Canada particularly. The idea was that people would contribute something back into the community earning themselves care for when they were older. We’ve taken that idea but we’ve made it more immediate. You can earn back your time anytime you like.”
How does it work? “People can exchange whatever skill or labour they have with anybody else in the scheme. You don’t have to make direct swaps so if you were offering to write articles for people you could do that for one person but you might be able to use the credits to get a haircut from somebody else entirely. There’s a central record kept of who’s doing what all the time. There’s a debit limit and credit limit. The currency we call ‘the favour’ and that’s the equivalent of 15 minutes of time. Everyone’s time is equal within the exchange regardless of what they’re offering. It’s a response to the recession but it is, as much as anything, a community-building scheme.”
Another man interested in community-building is Bristol-based Donegal man Mark Boyle, who decided to forgo money entirely three years ago. He published a book about it at the time, The Moneyless Man, and has just published a second, The Moneyless Manifesto. He also founded the Freeconomy website and is a passionate advocate of the moneyless lifestyle.
“Money disconnects us from everything around us, from the land under our feet from the people in our local communities,” he says. “It creates a sense of separation from everything else.”
For Boyle, bartering doesn’t go far enough. He’d prefer to see a “gift economy” where people simply give without expecting anything in return. “Freeconomy doesn’t involve exchange at all,” he says. “It’s about unconditional giving. Take my local community in Bristol. There are 5,000 members of that group, so if somebody needs a bike fixed they say ‘I need my bike fixed’ and someone comes over and says ‘I can do that’. There’s no credit system. The person that person has helped doesn’t have to help them back. But because the community is so big, the person who fixes the bike will get something else at some point.”
Boyle wants people to get out of the habit of “exchange” entirely, but he feels barter is a good way of weaning people off money. “Bartering is effectively an awkward form of money but its benefits are that it creates a more real relationship between people,” he says. “For some people it’s too much of a step to go from every transaction being heavily monetised to a gift economy and bartering is a very good stepping stone in that transition. When people go through the bartering process friendships grow and you want to stop charging them in the first place. We’d never charge our partners or parents for cooking dinner in the evening. It’s an absurdity.”
For Boyle such behaviour creates tighter communities. He’s an optimist who doesn’t believe in “the tragedy of the commons” (ecologist Garrett Hardin’s term for how people take advantage of commonly held resources) and believes that people are ready for something new. “It’s really taken off in countries like Greece and Portugal over the last few months,” he says.
While Mark Boyle’s moneyless status is born out of a real desire to inspire social change, Canadian blogger Kyle Mac Donald started bartering in a spirit of pure whimsy back in 2005. “I took a red paper clip and put it on the barter section of the Craig’s List website. Initially the goals were about trying to find people to trade with but after I started succeeding in making trades for bigger and better things I started thinking of where I could go with them. About three trades in I decided I was going to try and trade up to a house.”
MacDonald traded his paperclip for a fish-shaped pen, the pen for a hand sculpted doorknob, the knob for a camp stove, the stove for a generator, the generator for an “instant party” (a keg of beer), the party for a snowmobile, the snowmobile for a two person trip to British Columbia, the trip for a van, the van for a recording contract, the contract for a year’s rent in Phoenix, Arizona, the rent for an afternoon with Alice Cooper, the afternoon with Cooper for a Kiss snow globe, the Kiss snow globe for a role in a movie and the movie role for a two-storey house in rural Canada. The house, no longer in his possession, is now home to the Red Paperclip cafe.
Although MacDonald’s motivations weren’t as political as Boyle’s or as community focused the Clonakilty Favour Exchange, he did find that the process made him more inclined to make more personalised transactions. Ultimately, MacDonald concluded that all his possessions were just a form of money anyway. “I realised very quickly that money is just barter, a very liquid very fluid form of barter. I’ve never been a big stuff person. I don’t really covet things. I like experiences and hanging out with people and I don’t know I now look at things as being even more liquid. Oh, you can get rid of this and do something else with it!”
A trip to Moore Street
"I'd like a bag of bananas please," I say to Cathleen, 40 years operating a stall on Moore Street the day I attempt bartering with her. She's accompanied by her friends Betty and Joyce. "That would be €1 please," says Betty. "What if I were to offer you something other than money in exchange for them?"
I say, with what I like to think of as an intriguingly raised eyebrow. "It depends what it is," says Cathleen, with a raised eyebrow of her own. "How about a pair of shoes?" I say.
"They'd want to be Louboutins," says Joyce. I point at my scuffed Doc Martens.
"I think we'd prefer the euro," says Betty.
I pay the euro.
A new take on Twitter
A week ago I offered several "random items" for "interesting things" on Twitter. An old Silvertone semi-solid body electric guitar in need of repair (it had been left in the garage for a long time). A box of old CDs and books.
U2 by U2, a big coffee table book about a band called U2. A pile of old Economist and New Scientist magazines.
There were no offers for the U2 book or the magazines (one tweeter suggested I just go to a charity shop). One person offered "a box of old VHS tapes" in exchange for my box of old CDs and books (not the most practical exchange for either of us) and, most intriguingly, the Silvertone guitar was claimed by one willing barteree for a "vintage REO Speedwagon T, proof copy of Elvis Jesus and Coca Cola and rare framed Wilco poster". There were also some interesting random offers. One musical chap offered me a Danelectro Black Licorice guitar pedal for "some baking stuff" and author/journalist Darragh McManus pledged me "my dreams for your memories".
Clonakilty community
My most satisfying and enjoyable bartering experience was with the Clonakilty Favour Exchange. I uploaded a profile (with the help of Miriam Cotton) and soon I was helping Austrian computer programmer Christian Graninger draft a press release for his soon to be published book of recipes.
Graninger has helped out many residents with computer problems and has, in return, been given practical help with his book and received lifts and haircuts.
I also got some pet advice from Clonakilty based vet Aisling McAuliffe. My household features a very old, white cat with a number of medical ailments. McAuliffe, who has found the favour exchange useful for babysitting services and for arranging lifts, gave me some tips on the care of a crotchety old cat.
Patrick Freyne
