Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Barter economy

[Martin Schafer (schafer]

> 
> I am just a pessimist; I see the down side to every positive point.
> If it promotes a self-sustaining economy, it also promotes insularity.
> If it develops local skills, that means the work is being done by people
> who are not as skilled as people you might pay to do it, and so it's
> probably not being done as well.  If it prevents the loss of money from the
> community, it also prevents income to the community by diverting members'
> efforts from the activities they are more expert in (and therefore most
> productive at) and could sell outside the community, to activities they
> are not as expert in, and could not get anyone to pay money for.
> 
> Andre Guirard
> 

Normally I would be making the same points, but let me offer another
viewpoint.  If there is a real value to the people involved of the
social and market relationships built up by buying and selling among a
relatively small group of people, that value may overcome the costs 
of using everybody's talents at less than perfect efficiency.  While
each person must make that trade off for themselves, it requires a
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
gets too large, you're right back in the modern impersonal market.

Attaining the right size is difficult, and then keeping the right 
size is difficult (if you're at the point that maximizes benefit
you are most likely to get more people joining in).  So, it seems
to me that the whole thing is unstable, but could be worthwhile
while it lasts.

Martin