Communities turn to barter-style crop swaps to combat cost-of-living crisis

Communities turn to barter-style crop swaps to combat cost-of-living crisis(abc.net.au)

11 points by Tomte 3 hours ago | 1 comment

Am digging the benefits of a local farmers market.

But not sure about why they're skipping the cash? Isn't the whole point of money that you can sell your item A to someone (who doesn't have what you need but wants A), then hand the money to someone else who doesn't want A but has item B that you wanted? Thus removing the need to match trading partners who both have what the other wants.

Why drop that advantage? If it's about complexity of electronic payment systems, taxes, .gov tracking or whatever, just stick to physical cash. Or a local coin. Or lumps of gold, ...

edmundsauto 29 minutes ago | |

My read is that money changes transactions that are antithetical to the goals of this community. Money is such a concrete way to keep score that it warps interactions, making “winners” and “losers” apparent. It attracts people whose sole objective is to make more money at any cost.

Barter is like an intentional bit of friction, plus it obfuscates winners and loser scoring. Those are both beneficial in some ways that make sense to relationship based communities.