Funny Money: In Search of Alternative Cash. David Boyle

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СКАЧАТЬ attractive American urge to look on the bright side, which seems to be particularly apparent in Washington. As I sauntered up to the palatial tower block which housed the USHC, I passed an old lady with three large sacks containing what I assumed were her worldly possessions. She was singing ‘Give my Regards to Broadway’.

      The Co-operative Caring Network (CNN) was an enormously ambitious project set up in 1993, aiming to involve 15,000 people, fifty different member organizations and shelling out time dollars to pay for up to 700,000 hours of work a year. They even had plans to record people’s transactions by voicemail: all you would have to do was phone them up and tell them. IBM had donated six computers, the telephone giant Bell Atlantic had volunteered some of its staff, and each participant was going to pay $15 in dollars for the privilege of taking part. You didn’t have to be Einstein to realize that, however much they may have been earning in time dollars, they would also be raking in up to $225,000 a year.

      As I was to discover, the Network never quite worked out as planned, but they are still one of the biggest time dollar banks in the USA. And to prove it, I had been given a pile of leaflets explaining the whole idea. ‘Co-operative Caring Network gives “credit” for the volunteer work you do,’ said their introductory leaflet. ‘For each hour you spend providing a volunteer service, CCN will give you a care credit.’ There were piles of other leaflets in different colours and languages, all with the same cartoon of a bald man with a moustache looking deeply perplexed. ‘Xe toi can sua chua,’ he was saying. ‘Vay, bang cach noa me toi co the gen van phong bac-si duoc?’

      I was also given a list of happy success stories, couched in rather strange formal language. ‘Estell Barrios earns Care Credits by providing clerical support to CCN staff,’ said one of them. ‘Ms Barrios cashed her credits in for handy man services. We assigned Mr Eduard Walker to help Ms Barrios out with a few odds and ends around her home.’

      Others read more like Dateline: ‘Maria Massey is a visually impaired senior, residing in Arlington, Virginia. Ms Massey requested a person to accompany her for walks. We found Mr Clark Egbert who is also an Arlington resident to walk with Ms Massey. Mr Egbert also has volunteered to pay Ms Massey friendly visits and take her for drives to the park for their walk. They are happy with the match.’

      The CNN offices were unexpectedly expensive, in a large gleaming grey office block on Fifteenth Street, in Washington’s commercial district. I took the lift to the fourth floor to meet Farrell Didio, the manager. She explained that the network linked thirty-three organizations in the Washington area, from Virginia in the south to Maryland in the north – covering flats, libraries, parks, old people, anything in fact which needed volunteer support. There are now 1,600 of them, which is not quite the planned 15,000, but impressive nonetheless.

      Six federal ‘volunteers’ help Farrell and her assistant to administer the system, helping each network out if they find they can’t service a request. Most of them are concerned with helping old people stay healthy and active and in their homes – not for the kind of things the health or social services should be paying for, but for everything else.

      ‘We had a lady call, she’s in a wheelchair,’ said Farrell. ‘She said “I do OK getting to the grocery store, but once I get there and buy my groceries, I have a hard time”. Through the computer, we were able to find someone who can help her get her groceries home. Then there was a lady who was very visually impaired: we sent someone to the grocery store with her every two weeks so that she could read the labels on the cans. Life-threatening, no. But services that people find add to the quality of their life – you bet!’

      Farrell Didio was getting into her proselytizing stride. ‘I even had a gentleman who said, “You know, I just want to help people move their furniture round”. That’s not life-threatening either, but if you’d had that couch on that wall for twenty years – well, there’s a lot of value in these things.’

      There were a number of features which particularly interested me. For one thing, only people over fifty-five were allowed to save time dollars for themselves – the rest had to give them away, preferably to elderly relatives who might need to pay for services. Some high schools required pupils to earn credits before they could graduate.

      Second, they still help people with no time dollars. ‘It would be tacky not to,’ said Farrell, and I agreed.

      Third, they don’t call them time dollars at all, for fear that the IRS will hear the word ‘dollars’ and prick up their ears. They simply call them ‘credits’.

      And fourth, the time dollar economy turns out to be excitingly different from the ‘real’ economy. This is a revolutionary world where everybody’s time is worth the same. If you are an expensive lawyer, your time is worth exactly the same as if you are an elderly housebound widow making supportive calls. ‘Some people say it sounds too good to be true,’ said Farrell. ‘They say: “You mean I’m going to get free trips to my doctor’s office and in exchange I can make friendly phone calls to ask people how they are?” And I say: “Yeah, that’s exactly it – that’s the way it works”. Then they say: “Are you sure?”, and I say: “Trust me, I’m sure”.’

      So what went wrong? Well, to start with, the member organizations wanted to cling tightly to their hard-won lists of volunteers. That did for the idea of charging them $15 each. Then there were the potential volunteers who were afraid their names would end up on a computer list, and people would ring them demanding lifts to doctors far into the night.

      I was getting to the end of my plastic cup of tea, but there were two other issues I wanted to discuss. What if you moved to another part of the USA: could you take your time dollars with you?

      ‘Somebody was moving to Oregon and asked me that, and I said “It’s OK. It’s just paperwork”. I think as people, we have got to make whatever allowances we can make to get folks served.’

      ‘But won’t there be a problem if you allow time dollars to move around the country?’ I asked. ‘Then they would all eventually flood to the rich areas and you’ll have exactly the same situation that you get with dollars and pounds – some areas have lots and some have almost none? Doesn’t it have to be local?’

      ‘I think that’s probably true,’ she said, shifting her position slightly. ‘But I have no problem with saying: “Gee, Mrs Smith’s daughter lives here, so we can work something”. I may not want to do it for 5,000 people, but I can do it for one or two.’

      That’s the joy of time dollars somehow. It’s effective, but it isn’t quite real. You don’t have to account for absolutely everything. You can give a little bit here and there. You don’t have to be a bank manager. But in spite of all that, these computer blips of what Edgar Cahn called ‘funny money’ do seem to drive a new kind of economy. They do pay for services which ‘real’ money can’t. They do give a kind of value to what volunteers do, and anybody involved in their local community, and they do give dignity to the old people who get the services. This isn’t charity: they pay for them.

      But I had one final, crucial question: what does the Co-operative Caring Network cost to run? ‘Do you know,’ said Farrell Didio with a knowing smile, ‘I don’t think I’m going to talk about budgets.’

      v

      How do you judge danger in places you have never been before? It’s difficult: in practically every city from Aberdeen to Auckland, people say similar things about local crime. They make the kind of noises garage repairmen make when you bring your car in for a service and explain that it’s getting worse and worse. They tell you confidentially that there are some places where you should take the advice in Carousel and never walk alone. Or СКАЧАТЬ