[Local community advocate Julia (Dakin) Frech is heading up a local effort to organize a Time Bank. Mendo Time Bank website is here. The link to join Mendo Time Bank is here. How Time Banks work is here. Time Banks are active in many parts of the world and are a very successful way to build community. What a great way to start off a challenging new year here in Mendocino County. What follows is a brief overview. -DS]
Excerpted from No More Throw-Away People
by Edgar Cahn
“Time Dollars” in a “Time Bank” are a local currency, issued locally, and honored locally. Instead of money that flows to the highest return, we need a local currency that will stay put as a kind of safety net. It functions as a reward for sinking roots, staying in place, accepting responsibility, building community, keeping family together. “Co-Production” elevates the non-market economy as the only possible shelter from the vicissitudes of the global market economy. As a complementary economic system based on maximizing self-sufficiency, it represents a buffer in a world where money’s mobility and global interdependence can mean ubiquitous vulnerability.
There is no doubt that money rewards self-interest, greed, ruthlessness and material acquisition. We need an economy that rewards decency, caring, civic participation, and learning as automatically as the market now rewards unbridled self-interest, winner-take-all competion, and runaway specialization. Time Dollars devalue specialization and assert that the most special and important thing a human being can do is to be a Human Being. That is about as unspecialized a job description as one can get. They are a new tool, available as a kind of appropriate technology to enable the nonmarket economy to compete for a larger share of energy, time and talent and to enlist the capacity of those whom the market devalues or excludes.
Time Dollars simply count the hours people put in. But even when people don’t spend the Time Dollars they earn, something else happens. Observers note that turnover in Time Dollar programs is far lower than in volunteer programs. It was less than 10 percent in all of the original programs, and less than 3 percent in the largest Miami based one. The only thing done differently is to count. And people earn Time Dollars without stopping whatever volunteering they are already doing.
Counting counts. Recording something makes a difference. It confers value. It invests an act with a degree of permanence. It means that what is learned or done will not be forgotten. It just might shape the future.
A user-friendly information and accounting system serves two functions. First, it makes knowledge of what people can do into a shared resource. Information is wealth. Shared information is shared wealth of a new kind. This is one kind of wealth that is not diminished by sharing. In fact, it is increased.
Most of us do not know what our neighbors can do. And we don’t ask. But when that information is in a data base, we don’t mind phoning up and saying, “Do you have anyone in the computer who could take care of my dog this weekend or help my child with homework?” That’s not a question we are going to go up and down the street asking. Nor is it information that would normally be volunteered by a neighbor in casual conversation. Information systems create a new social etiquette that breaks down old barriers. Any email user knows that.
Merely the issuing of Time Dollar bank statements operates as a kind of reward. Those of us who enrolled in frequent flier miles programs know how pleased we are to see the mileage grow, even if we know we may not be able to use those miles for months or even years.
Time Dollars as a currency with restricted purchasing power may be inferior for certain purposes, but it sends out a message: Maybe we don’t really want all the things we value most – our future, our fate, our lives – monitized and determined by market value… up for grabs to the highest bidder. And perhaps we need a currency that, regardless of the market, enables us to use our time to secure a kind of self-sufficiency, that can’t be eliminated by cutbacks in Medicare or eroded by inflation.
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Time Dollars in a Nutshell
1. Members list the services they can offer and those that they need
2. All agree to both give and to receive services
3. Everyone is interviewed and provides references
4. Every hour giving help earns the giver one credit, a Time Dollar
5. Members ‘buy’ the services they need with their credits
6. The computer matches the task, the giver, and the receiver
7. Every transaction is recorded on a computer ‘time bank’
8. Members receive a regular ‘bank’ statement
9. One hour is one credit regardless of the skills one offers
10. Members can donate credits to friends or to the ‘credit pool’
11. Everyone is seen as special with a contribution to make
12. All activities maintain set standards of care and a code of ethics
The Decater Family
Tom Palley
Gene Logsdon
