Hours as Currency Instead of Dollars

I often trade my time for stuff. Many times both parties come out ahead by doing so.

As far as when and where that is highly specific to whom is involved and to what is being traded.

Personally I tend to equate how many hours a month I have to work to pay for any regular monthly expense or luxury purchase.

I don't know how it works in Canada, but in the US, the government really doesn't like organized barter networks. They see it as tax evasion.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-15/us-government-begins-bitcoin-crackdown

Some more on US barter exchanges and the IRS.

http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/1998/Mar/malitz.htm

I had a friend try to talk me into getting into one of these, and it sounded like a great idea that had the potential to turn into a government intrusion nighmare. I passed.

We have the same rules here in Canada but I will leave that up to the barter guy. That is another topic I do not intend to enter into..

If you don't want to discuss the one major stumbling block, I would say that barter relationships will work just like cash relationships...

Some people will do an honest job, and some people will attempt to rip people off. There's nothing magical about bartering with strangers, that makes business relationships, any different than with money changing hands.

If your government is like ours, all transactions are treated as cash transactions, as far as taxes go. Your friend can probably get a copy of the chart that the government uses to assess the taxes on different trades, and go from there. They will be able to tell you the going barter rate for a seamstress, carpenter, and probably just about anyone else.

Ya sure, ya betcha! I'd love to trade an hour of my time for an hour of my surgeon's time. What a steal deal!

I agree with all comments just wondering if there is some other platform other than cash or precious metals that would be a stable index of value other than hours that seem far too flexible. I have enjoyed all comments and thanks

There is.

Get yourself a still.

Product produced is good for bee stings, disinfection, general stimulus, anxiety, what have you......VERY trade-able too for some reason....

Ah, the Cuervo Gold standard.... I wonder if Milton Friedman would approve.

I think he would.... admitting it ...well....I don't care...

Coincidentally I recently wrote a paper creating a hypothetical form of government that uses hours of work as its currency. Different kinds of work earns different amounts of credit.

The idea is based on Buckminster Fuller's idea of changing from an economy of scarcity to an economy of abundance. The economy of scarcity, which is what we have now, is based on competition for scarce food and resources. The economy of abundance assumes that everything everyone needs is possible to produce with minimal effort. I think it is technically possible now, because it only takes a small amount of labor to produce everything we need. However it is not possible socially or politically yet, because in order to keep the current economy running, everybody has to have a job, which means that they have to produce a far greater amount of useless garbage.

In my hypothetical economy, anything people do for other people counts as work, as long as the other person is willing to sign their "work sheet". Nobody gets money, but everybody gets what they need, and some things that they just want, if they perform enough work. Some work is higher prestige than other work. The biggest rewards are not in money or goods but in respect and prestige.

I'm not saying this will actually work, though.

Sorry about the delay. I ran out of hours.

There is distinction between trades. Some are much higher prestige than others. High accomplishments can be rewarded by goods, recognition, travel, and positions. Ideally the highest positions are teachers and office-holders.

Regarding communes, in this system everyone lives in small communities, perhaps a few thousand people, that I call villages. The villages have communal work like raising a large amount of the food they eat, building housing, landscaping, childcare, medicine, etc. This is communism only to the extent that Native American villages are communism. In fact that was part of my inspiration. In these villages everyone takes care of the basic needs, and even the lowest skilled person can take part in a harvest effort or painting or weeding. Nobody needs to have a private pool because the community has one better than any individual would want to maintain, and the same for many other facilities. There are facilities for every kind of hobby, like I see in many retirement communities. The members can see how their food is produced, and how their energy is produced.

The villages can also produce goods for the greater community, perhaps in factories or offices run by the village. They can contribute people to go to work in other locations, to earn currency used between villages. The work that they do goes toward their work effort in the home village, while the currency is mostly owned by the village.

The central government is mainly responsible for a long term outlook that individuals and companies are not capable of. The government has to make sure that environmental practices are sustainable over the long term, such as making sure that the farmland is not going to get salted up like the Fertile Crescent turning into desert. It makes sure that poisons are not getting into the food and water. They have to look and plan hundreds or thousands of years into the future.

The government is a democracy, but it starts at the village level. You get to know the people you vote for. A campaign for office has to convince people who already know you. In turn, those representatives vote for the next level of government from among their members, because they get to know them while working together, and they get to know who to respect and trust. At the highest level, the President is chosen by the highest representatives, probably from among their members.

There's more, but these are the basics.

I see some holes.

Wild boars root the fields of Village 1, destroying all foodstuffs. Village 2 fenced their fields, which were untouched. Simultaneously, Max Buffington from Village 2 successfully courts and marries Sydney Leathers from Village 1, the prized cheerleader for the Village 1 basket weaving team. Village wars break out. When the dust settles, the dominant Village 2 has amassed all of Village 1 land, women, and leathers, and sent Village 1 packing.

I love it. Sounds like the Dark Ages of Europe, in which every village and city stands alone in a dangerous wilderness and technology is limited to what you can make by candlelight.

Aside from the danger of reverting to Feudalism, what are those holes again?

Fortunately in my system the internet still exists, there are close connections between villages, and disputes between villages are settled by dodgeball. (OK, maybe by mediators and courts.)

In this system, after the boars' visit, Village 2 would not leave its fields unfenced long (a week?), and the best practices can spread from village to village. Also there are levels of government above the village, helping villages, regions, and even entire states cope with disasters. Even though every village raises a lot of its own food, that doesn't mean that they can't get food from elsewhere. There is an exchange medium between villages, and plenty of extra food. Some villages will specialize in producing extra food for export. Or electronics, music, software, hand-carved furniture, art, scientific research, education, etc. Just like now. Think of villages as replacing companies as well as being great places to live, like Oneida, but this is a highly technical, highly industrialized society. I envision each person's "work sheet" as being like a smart phone.

There are several reasons for every village to grow a lot of its own food. One is that it has a lot of fresh vegetables and healthy food for its members. One is that it has control over what kinds of pesticides gets into it. Another is so that it has the expertise and capability of raising food if it needs to. Another is that it is work that a lot of people can do, even very unskilled workers, and it is work that is always needed. Another is that it encourages stewardship of the land, with real, live, expert gardeners taking care of composting and seed stocks. Another is that you can grow far more food on land when you are managing it closely, rather than using modern corporate farming techniques. Another is that it is good for a the people in a community to be closely in touch with its land and nature, starting with the children.

I was just yanking your chain.

Before capitalism touched the Native American population, they had not progressed very far for maybe thousands of years...perhaps what they wanted.

They were semi-nomadic tribes of hunter gatherers.

If this is what you are championing, I see a future.

I prefer leaps and bounds in technology...Moore's Law kinda stuff...

The kind of progress that can only be attained by a dog-eat-dog kind of civilization....

Max Buffington from Village 2 successfully courts and marries Sydney Leathers from Village 1, the prized cheerleader for the Village 1 basket weaving team. Village wars break out. When the dust settles, the dominant Village 2 has amassed all of Village 1 land, women, and leathers, and sent Village 1 packing.

Once Sydney Buffington (nee Leathers) appraises what has happened to her friends and family, Max never ever, gets good food, or an heir....but he does get cuckolded, while the ex Village 1 basket weaving team causes the spread of mysterious groin itch throughout Village 2, now known as VD (Village2 Damnation)...

And the winner is ...???

My visceral reaction is "Hogwash", but it took me a while to formulate a reason, and here is the source of my reaction.

"High accomplishments can be rewarded by goods, recognition, travel, and positions. Ideally the highest positions are teachers and office-holders."

We already do this, and wonder why our politicians are so corrupt, and our Acedemicians can't DO their way out of a paper sack, and are producing useless graduates with advanced degrees and no ability at all.

I choose to set the value for what you do based on WHAT you do, and whether it is what I need done. That means, of course, that my economy (the one in which I live) is often NOT the same economy as much of the world I inhabit is living in. But, and this may come as a surprise (or maybe not), I've never lacked for people with whom I can trade goods and services well enough, and richly enough, to not want for what makes MY life go around.

Granted I (or we) don't march to the same drum as a lot of others, and granted we aren't (nor are we likely to be mistaken for) "City Folk", since what we LIKE to do revolves around forms of work that tend to put the food on the table and the roof overhead (Fishing or hunting for dinner is recreation for food. Double WIN!).

And taking someone else's kid along to help out with the skinning/dressing/preparation, in exchange for a future, unspecified favor, provides food today, the ability to get and prepare more in the future, another generation who thinks like we do, AND "owed" (but not tallied, cause we don't roll that way) favors for the future.

Besides, I LIKE the kids, and enjoy their company.

Not for everyone, but we like it, and barter works that way.

And the objection to the quote above? Who are YOU (or anyone else) to decide what something SHOULD be valued at, for me? Nearly every attempt to "create a planned society" involves someone arrogantly deciding for everyone else, based on what they believe to be worth having, what everyone else should believe.

A man convinced against his will, is a man of the same opinion still.

And I'm not convinced.

I agree with everything you are saying. Offhand, I think you would probably enjoy this system. The attention to children is very important. That is considered valued work, even when you do it out of love.

Regarding choice of teachers and office-holders, You say we do this now, but we don't. We don't reward high accomplishments with positions as teachers and office holders. We don't currently value our office-holders because of the way they get into office, and it is the most hungry for power or attention who want to get into office. Likewise, nowadays teaching is a low prestige, poorly paid job, even though it is the most important job any society can have.

In my system, being a teacher or office holder is the reward for accomplishment. They are respected because they deserve respect, and everybody knows it, and knows why. This is a system that has its roots in what everybody values, not what some powerful person decides is valuable.

On the other hand, remember that high accomplishment is not always accompanied by being good at teaching or holding office. My system has other rewards for accomplishment that don't involve putting a square peg into a round hole.

Regarding valuing goods, it is far more like bartering than you think. There is nothing planned about it. People value each other's efforts by endorsing their efforts, signing their work books. Nobody tells them how valuable the work is. If someone does an hour of (effective) medicine for someone, they may get as much endorsement as someone else doing a week of landscaping, or vice versa. It is not a centralized economy. The members create the economy by the perceived value of the work done for them, not by paying for it using a currency that may fluctuate according to its own rarity. All value derives from labor, not from capital.

You make good arguments for the system you have in mind, though I doubt we'll ever get those with entrenched power to give up that power in favor of what intrinsically TRIES to be a fairer system.

Perhaps it's only because I grew up in a Capitalist Society, and found ways to work outside it's confines whenever it didn't suit me (which is, honestly, most of the time) that I have a negative gut-level-reaction to the idea of communal living. But it is there, whatever the cause, and it makes me antsy when I think about giving up my freedom of choice because the group thinks I should. I still prefer being able to drop out of sight, fend for myself, and not have to worry too much about what others EXPECTED me to do for varying periods of my life.

And I've NEVER been comfortable in large crowds, getting exhausted by the mere presence of a lot of people, even family, before long. So dropping off the map for a while is, for me, a complete necessity.

But it's while I'm off the map that I find I can teach by "hands-on" most effectively. I suppose its because, after all, if someone is going to have to survive a catastrophe, it is a lot more useful to have seen them demonstrate the skills necessary BEFORE it strikes, and it's hard to put yourself in that demonstration mode while surrounded by city appurtenances. Its a whole lot more effective to do it while the doing is at least close to being needed.

Actually, my system permits people to drop out with no problem. Since there is enough produced by a few for all, it permits outsiders to barter with insiders for things like health care and manufactured goods. They are likewise allowed to get help in case of emergencies. In fact, the system allows people to drop in and drop out at will.

I've was thinking that it is not possible to get there from here, but I think now that it is not that hard. I've seen retirement communities that live this way, with shared resources such as pools, gardens, meeting halls, libraries, cafeterias, landscaping, etc. None of the people think they're giving up any freedom.

Maybe all that is necessary is for some like-minded people to just go do it, at least on a small scale.

Roy:

Given that currency itself, in the absence of a Retail-Shopper relationship (what bartering is NOT is retail shopping) is a very flexible value, no one can come up with a stable monetary value for anything, despite what established and organized business OWNERS would like you to believe.

Don't believe me? Try dickering over the price of something at a garage sale or flea-market. The object's value in currency is whatever you agree it is, and not some pre-determined value set by a broker or actuary somewhere. But you will pay for it with that same "Stable value" currency.

The same is true for a service traded with someone. What's it worth to YOU, NOW? Next week it might become something drastically necessary, and it's value to you may triple as a result.

That's why you don't ever want to go to a market where values aren't pre-stamped on items (pretty much all outdoor markets, flea markets, garage sales, etc.), and look desperate for the one thing you REALLY want. It's also why I am reluctant to walk away, and return later, unless I'm certain I can look like the return is casual (I parked my car out this way, and just had to come back by to get to it. While I'm here, did you reconsider my offer?) and pull off the casual return drill with some hope of being convincing.

In short, value for anything is what two or more people agree it is. And that is always unstable, and always open for negotiation. Personally, I wouldn't enter into any kind of "exchange" based on someone else's value-assessment, tax rules notwithstanding.

But I barter all the time. Just not formally enough that the IRS even wants to get a handle on it. No records, but a trust that the people with whom I do business will recognize value and return it. It works on a "limited exposure" scale, in that I don't do that with people I don't know, unless I don't care about the return value (I gave that service away, and if I ever got something for it, what a pleasant surprise).

I find I like life better that way, and "Christmas" happens at the oddest times, but mostly when it's needed the worst.

Excellent concept and just like I remember my grandfather on mother's side a horse trader to the end.

This is true, all commodities fluctuate in value depending on the people involved and the trade negociated. But, the word stable has a relative meaning in this context. The precious metals remain valued over long periods of time in human experience, and that is why they have become currencies. People in general find them to be the most useful, because they are universally valued, long-lasting, relatively valuable compared to other commodities, and so they require less of them to be carried or held.

The problem of stability is relative when you talk about paper currencies vs metals/commodities. Metal values go up and down like a cork on a lake, paper goes down, and down, and down.....It is this downward trend in relative value that is what we call price inflation, because the real value of goods and services must keep going up and up and up to maintain a match in value. Metals don't do this.

I do the same, but these exchanges can involve thousands of people.

The one my friend wanted me to join, used an alternative currency called "barter bucks", in which people went about their regular work, bid the jobs, etc., and had accounts of accrued barter bucks, which could be traded for all kinds of things...from dental work to car washes. So a dentist might get 100 barter bucks for a root canal, and I might get 20 barter bucks for a small paint job. Everything is based on what the person would normally earn.

I don't think the government is worried about friends and neighbors helping each other out...yet; but I believe that joining an exchange is inviting extra scrutiny.

In times where the leftist government talks a big talk about equality, they are only thinking in a one dimensional sense - dollars. In truth, one could confiscate all the money, and hand it all back out "equally", but there would be nothing equal about the way the money was handled by the recipients. This is why all government hand-out programs ultimately become abject failures, taking place only to really support the government agency responsible for doling it out.

The real truth is, every human is equal in one God-given endowment : 24 hours/day.

It is in the management and utilization of this time the results show forth. Investing in a neighbor's well being through the gift of your time, has returns that cannot be measured in currency, except in the currency of friendship and trust.

This is done everywher; even down here in Ms. It is easy to trade time between different crafts assuming their pay scales are close. But how would you equate time a surgeon spends with someone who repairs roofs? A surgeons time is measured in minutes while with the rest of us ; time is measured in hours and days. If a surgeon did bypass surgery on, say a roofer, that took all of 30 minutes, what could the roofer offer in exchange? A lifetime of free roofing repairs?

I guess the roofer would have to negotiate the cost in advance, and they'd have to figure out what it is wort. But growing up in rural parts of the US, where money wasn't worth near what work was, the Doctor's (Yep, even then, they sometimes made house calls. So it WAS a while back)fee might be nothing more than a couple of home-cooked dinners at later dates. Weren't heart surgeons, but at least twice one of them operated on my parents. One was for a smashed finger that resulted in a great deal of pulverized and lost bone, and the other time I remember was when my Mom nearly took her thumb off at the mid-point joint when the hatchet slipped on a piece of kindling she was cutting.

Not all Doctors are willing to charge horrendous prices to serve. They ARE worth more, but when you ain't got money, time may be all you can offer. And good Doctors won't let a patient suffer just cause he or she is poor monetarily.

These two currencies aren't the same though. Time can only be spent once. Money, if it is spent wisely, can be spent over and over again.

Both are simply measuring systems.

They are more similar than it seems. If you trade the promise of an hour of work to someone else, they can then trade that promise to someone else who may value it more. It's like a coupon for an hour of work. The work is in the future, not the past. When someone cashes it in with you, you do the work for them.

A dollar used to be just a voucher for the ownership of precious metals like silver and gold. If you turned it in to the treasury, you got your gold.

The value of the American dollars value is only supported by the production of the American worker every since we went off the silver standard!

In the barter network each person gives his work a value, then it is up to the seller to accept that value or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efNzhEKm3w4

I should have said this is a movie that takes the concept to the ultimate conclusion:

In Time - Justin Timberlake

Well stated, and my thoughts EXACTLY. GA from me.