Cashless trading

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/141281/how_bad_will_the_economy_get_really%2C_really_bad/

There is plenty of precedent for this sort of cashless trading. It involves a process of direct credit clearing among associated buyers and sellers. During the Great Depression the entrepreneurial middle class in Switzerland organized themselves into the WIR Economic Circle Cooperative. After 75 years, the WIR clearing circle continues to thrive with more than 60,000 member businesses trading the equivalent of about US$1.3 billion per year.

The past four decades have seen the emergence of a new industry comprised of commercial trade exchanges, sometimes called "barter" exchanges, that act as "third part record keepers" enabling the same sort of direct credit clearing for thousands of businesses in cities around the world. Efforts at the grassroots by social entrepreneurs to localize exchange and finance have been similarly widespread in many communities over the past twenty-five years.

Measures to properly reform the money and banking system by political means have about as much chance as the proverbial snowball in hell. However, what is possible, and what seems to be gaining traction to transcend the dominant system, is the materialization of voluntary, private initiatives that enable the cashless exchange of goods and services. As these systems continue to improve, proliferate, and scale up, they will provide a pathway toward a sustainable economy, greater local control, and a better quality of life for all.

[willing dwarf]

1. We attempted a barter trade system in Philadelphia

a few years back through a local co-op but I heard that it got squashed by IRS. Fearing anyone backing anything but the dollar.

I've wondered if California issuing IOU's isn't a form of barter, and I've wondered how the federal government would respond. But on a pragmatic level, as the 7th or 8th largest economy in the world, I guess California needs to do something, and the feds don't seem to be squawking.

Seems to me that barter is the real market economy where the individual seller knows what he needs and can value it against what he has. And actually, now with the internet to help identify and winnow potential trades, a barter system might really work.

[eridani]

3. There are also local currencies like Ithaca dollars

Not sure how they get around the IRA>

[snot]

2. K&R'd

If they could do it then, w/ the internets, we sure shd be able to do it now.