With thanks to Dan Adams of the wonderful self-sufficiency networking site Earthineer, here’s a perfect example of creativity (and freedom) arising from destruction.
VOLOS, Greece — The first time he bought eggs, milk and jam at an outdoor market using not euros but an informal barter currency, Theodoros Mavridis, an unemployed electrician, was thrilled.
“I felt liberated, I felt free for the first time,” Mr. Mavridis said in a recent interview at a cafe in this port city in central Greece. “I instinctively reached into my pocket, but there was no need to.”
Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a growing network here in Volos that uses a so-called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek, to exchange goods and services — language classes, baby-sitting, computer support, home-cooked meals — and to receive discounts at some local businesses.
Part alternative currency, part barter system, part open-air market, the Volos network has grown exponentially in the past year, from 50 to 400 members. It is one of several such groups cropping up around the country, as Greeks squeezed by large wage cuts, tax increases and growing fears about whether they will continue to use the euro have looked for creative ways to cope with a radically changing economic landscape.
I did my first barter very recently. Wanted to do cartwheels as it felt SO GOOD!!
If for no other reason than to learn how the system that governs our future is going to work, we all need to pay close attention to these kind of local networks. International currencies won’t work locally in the future, they are a relic of a centralized past. Timmy Gietner and George Soros may love the idea of international currency but they are so manipulated as to be nothing more than a statist wet dream.
Wonderful! We use quite a bit of barter here, but sometimes it is awkward and some sort of medium of exchange would be good. Most of us are quite prepared to use the more common “precious metals” when the time comes, but that time doesn’t seem to be quite yet. I’m going to float this idea to our local agora.
Similar systems appeared in Argentina after the collapse. Nature and free markets always find a way to reproduce. There are many online resources which you can use to barter for goods or points on a point system. Just scroogle them. One that comes to mind is alt-markets.
I think barter is a key tool in box of the freedom seeking liberty oriented individuals. Barter is a wonderful tool despite all the economists out there giving it a bad wrap as “inefficient”. This should be a skill cultivated by everyone.
Barter is practically instinctive in the human race, you can see it in the schoolyard, i.e.: “I’ll trade my apple for your sandwich.”