TIME, VALUE, AND THE ANSWER
Bob FiskeMay, 2009
I see a role for technology in this sweeping vision of assigning
VALUE to human activities. Many
activities involve material goods. In
these transactions, there already exist capitalistic and accounting methods to
equate these goods to monetary value. In
many cases "market factors" are largely responsible for the
adjustment of value.
For instance, a company that wishes to increase
market share for its product could attempt to manipulate the market by lowering
price or creating other buying incentives.
Here are some examples: the cell phone company that offers a
"family deal" of getting 4 cell phones for the price of 1. Or the innovative pizza store manager (Anita)
who sold mugs of beer for 25 cents from 2 to 5pm on weekdays. (This was so successful at drawing in
customers that the purchase of food exceeded the peak lunch-hour times.)
In the service sector, however, the valuation of non-material
(time based) activities can be difficult to establish. There are groups of people that are
attempting to pioneer an alternative to money-based valuation as a means of
conducting business. These are
barter-based movements in which goods and services are exchanged directly without
using the intermediate convention of money-based value.
Here are some links to explore:
Barter
Overview article about the method of exchanging goods or
services directly without using currency.
Barter can be an alternative form of conducting commerce in extreme
situations (hyperinflation, deflation, frozen currency flow).
Local exchange trading systems (LETS)
A non-currency-based credit system in which people swap skills
or “favors”. These systems are developed
locally among people in a geographic situation who want to conduct trade among
themselves.
The LETSystem Design Manual
This is of historical interest since it dates back to the
mid- to late 1990s. This online manual
documents the fine points of users in Canada and the U.K. who were setting up
and participating in local exchange trading systems.
Gift economies.
This is a fascinating overview of non-market-driven economic
systems based up giving without an expectation of receiving in return. Often, the non-monetary societies organized
this way viewed “gifting” as an ongoing activity in which to stop the flow of
giving resulted in social disapproval.
Article reviewers have faulted this exposition for its many
un-referenced statement, unfortunately.
BarterQuest.com
A commercial, online bartering database/network founded by Dr.
Paul Bocheck and Michael Satz.
Swap.com
A widely used swapping web site where people can post
“wants” and “haves” and form trades.
Craigslist bartering
A crude barter system where people can post ads about
something they have and something they want in exchange for it.
For example: http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/bar/
Time banking
A system of commerce using time as the currency. In this system services are exchanged, rather
than goods.
Examples of time bank web sites
California Federation of Time Banks
Long Beach Time Exchange
Orange County Time Bank
