Cohousing-L Mailing List: Network Benefits -- That's It!

[Richard Morley (cohousing]

There we are -- 'network benefits' is the expression I was looking for

> ...
> critical mass of people making the decision to trade among themselves
> for the network benefits to be there.  On the other hand, if the group
          ================
        L.E.T.S. facilitates interactions between people who didn't know
        they could help each other and lived just down the street, or in 
        the same co-housing project ...

> gets too large, you're right back in the modern impersonal market.

        If the scheme is 'local'; it can't get too large, because you're only
        looking for people fifteen minutes away, and there are only so many
        of them, wherever you live ...

Notions that L.E.T.S. replaces the larger economy are, I believe, unhelpful
and maybe even romantic.  It's value can be in its exploitation of neighbour-
hood proximity and informality to introduce a complementary economy in and
around the domestic sphere.

Anyway, to put cards on the table, I'll tell you my experience: in our student
co-op (organised into five co-housing units of forty to ninety people in 
each), each member owed on top of cash fees, two hours per week.  This labour 
was usually allocated to a regular task, but wherever there was a disruption, 
whether caused by the student's wanting to re-schedule, changes in the academic
calendar, or an unexpected need for extra labour, the 'accounting' paradigm 
proved very useful in allowing people to adjust and take responsibility for
their own contributions.

-- 
Richard Morley