Forget Money TimeBanking is the New Economy
(Mira Luna, YES! Magazine, July 15, 2010)
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[COMMENT by Lorenzo: Here is the best idea I have seen in many years. It is perhaps the only way us Working Class People can break the chains of debt and feudalism imposed by the U.S. Central Bank, whose Federal Reserve Notes are merely a reminder that anyone who uses dollars is funding a massive war machine and enslaving their descendants. ]
Unemployed poor folks got together to create time dollar stores and cooperative mills, farms, health care systems, foundries, repair and recycling facilities, distribution warehouses, and a myriad of other service exchanges. . . . Many of these were based on the hour as a unit of account, and often everyone’s hour was equal and could either be exchanged for another hour of service or its equivalent in goods. . . . Modern forms of time exchange, called Timebanks and LETS (Local Employment Trading Systems), have been around since the 1980s. Now, with one in ten Americans unemployed (likely twice that, given recording problems), time exchanges are making a comeback. . . . Timebanks USA, a system of over 120 timebanks in the U.S. and a few other countries, was developed by activist lawyer Edgar Cahn as a way to help the underprivileged and underserved help each other through an organized system of reciprocity. In the following interview, Cahn explains the basic principles behind timebanks:
Timebank coordinators help create matches between people who need things and others who can help meet those needs, and they keep track of completed transactions in the system. No money is involved, and everyone’s hour is equal, which is one of the features that enabled Timebanks to receive an official IRS income tax exemption declaration so that people on disability, social security, unemployment, and other government benefits can participate without penalty. . . . The egalitarian nature of the system ensures that people will be able to purchase the services that they need without toiling endlessly to meet high prices in the market economy. People can also trade goods with the stipulation that their price be based on the amount of time involved in producing the goods and not their market value. Timebanks’ most successful application has been to provide a means for at-risk youth who have gone to court to do service for their community. . . . While we may not have many dollars these days, most people do have some time. Instead of paying professionals who we may never see again to provide services, we can use time exchanges to find neighbors who might provide service in exchange for hour credits, thereby saving scarce U.S. dollars for things like rent and medicine. . . . In the process, people get to know and trust their neighbors, establishing caring relationships that can help reweave the fabric of our communities, and replace our culture’s over-reliance on individual financial security.
ALSO SEE: What is the Core Economy?
The Core Economy is not Wall Street or Main Street; it is the economy of family, neighborhood, kith and kin. Recently more and more economists acknowledge that something like 40-50% of productive economic activity takes place outside of the market and is not measured by traditional indicators. . . . In the Core Economy things happen weekends and holidays and after office hours. In the Core Economy, families and clients talk to each other – regardless of how confidential case files are kept and regardless of how rigorously professional and legal requirements to protect privacy are enforced. In that Core Economy, people eat meals in each others homes, meals that were not cooked in accordance with regulations governing food preparation. In the Core Economy, couples go out on dates without having been screened, without a reference check, without a police or FBI field clearance and without liability insurance.
