3 ms·
In the early 2010s I participated in a time bank, run along similar lines: http://timetradecircle.org/ http://timetradecircle.org/ (Cambridge MA) It didn't wor
by jefftk 6y ago
In the early 2010s I participated in a time bank, run along similar lines: http://timetradecircle.org/ http://timetradecircle.org/ (Cambridge MA)
It didn't work very well. People with valuable skills were generally not willing to offer them, and instead people would offer to do only fun things. So you would see lots of unmatched requests for things that required specific skills (legal, taxes, plumbing, computers) or difficult work (carrying heavy things, babysitting), and lots of offers for amateur interior decorating advice etc.
Additionally, everyone who signed up started with 10 hours in the bank, effectively printing money, which made it even more unbalanced.
- agentdrtran 6y agothis is exactly what happened to an online time bank service I remember.
- pyronik19 6y agoIt's almost like supply and demand is a thing and the only mechanism for overcoming it is the jackboot. Karl Marx has entered the chat.
- sumtechguy 6y agoMarx did not account for exactly the sort of behavior as described. The jackboot enters to enforce equality in that system very quickly because people will abuse it. I have seen people fight each other over mcdonands toys. Greed/Sloth knows no bounds, your particular monetary systems has to account for that. Most dont.
- jefftk 6y agoLooking back, apparently I wrote about this at the time: https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-value-of-an-hour https://www.jefftk.com/p/the-value-of-an-hour Which reminds me of the excellent 1977 Sweeney and Sweeney econ paper about the Capital Hill Babysitting Coop: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/cs286r/courses/fall09/papers/coop.pdf http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/cs286r/courses/fall09/papers/coo...