Learning from the super markets of Buenas Aires
Town & Country Planning,
July/August 2001
One of the most controversial debates about the euro is those
unpredictable consequences of tying every city in Europe to the same interest
rate.
We don't quite know what effect that will have, of course. But with Dublin
booming and Rome struggling - and no means of changing the monetary climate
for either - it may turn out to be tough.
So spare a thought for those cities of Latin America that have the value
of their currency tied into the dollar, the interest rate for which is
explicitly set with the good of the USA in mind and nothing else. Some
would say, just for the good of Wall Street.
Take Buenas Aires, for example, which has been suffering from high inflation
followed by massive unemployment and the complete collapse of welfare
and public services. Worse, thanks to the link with the dollar, this is
also now one of the most expensive cities in the world with an exhausted
and impoverished middle class.
So it is especially interesting that Buenas Aires is also now the epicentre
of one of the most extraordinary new kinds of money anywhere in the world
- so big that one visiting Brazilian minister recently described it as
a "massive social movement".
The Global Barter Network is in fact ten years old, and has grown up independently
of any of the local currencies in richer countries. I only know anything
about it myself because of the recent visit to Argentina by Leeds University
development studies professor Ruth Pearson, together with an Open University
film crew.
What makes the network fascinating is its sheer size - 300,000 members
in Buenas Aires province alone, many of them increasing their monthly
income by the equivalent of $600 a month, or more than the average wage.
All members are known as 'prosumers' - both producers and consumers. They
are given 50 'creditos' - the name of the local currency - when they join,
each one printed in different denominations, with serial numbers. Most
of the trade goes on at weekly meetings of each local group, which take
the form of a large market, attracting anything from homegrown vegetables
to remaindered stock from local businesses.
There are bigger monthly markets too, which attract a range of dentists,
doctors and surgeons, performing their skills out in the open among the
stalls - but all in exchange for creditos. No pesos change hands in these
markets at all.
Argentina has seen a number of regional currency experiments in recent
years, as a direct result of their economic collapse. They have all incurred
the wrath of the Argentine authorities and the mirth of international
economists. But this time it seems to be different.
The Argentine government has moved to encourage the Barter Network, and
visitors from other Latin American governments are pouring in to see if
they can replicate the same idea. This makes some organisers nervous,
but it does mean that current talks to get supermarkets to contribute
goods and to let people pay some local taxes in creditos have more chance
of success.
Is it relevant to us? At first sight, possibly not. They have no welfare
to speak of, and so no welfare regulations - nor professional regulations
- that prevent a wide number of people and professionals taking part in
the markets. We have a multiplicity of both, which could make short work
of a Liverpool Barter Network, for example.
On the other hand, Buenas Aires is showing a possible way that ordinary
people can survive when there's no cash - not without discomfort or effort,
but this is survival, after all.
And when we all live under the same interest rate, from Aberdeen to Athens,
there may be some cities that need to learn that lesson very quickly.
Helping cities to create their own money, for local use, may turn out
to be the missing silver bullet we're all looking for.
