
Mon Valley communities test “time credits”, a new form of currency - tantalor
https://www.wesa.fm/post/while-investment-dollars-remain-scarce-mon-valley-communities-test-new-form-currency
======
jefftk
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.

~~~
pyronik19
It'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
Marx 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.

------
peter_l_downs
The article refutes the headline — nothing New about this except the ledger?
When I was very young my parents joined a New Parents group. Members traded
favors (“can you watch my kid for a few hours”) for little pieces of paper
denominated in half hours. The shopping neighborhood nearby had
“NeighborhoodDollars” that you could buy at a discount to face value and use
at any of the shops. Local currencies are great and help bring people
together, I highly recommend talking to people who live near you!

~~~
snarf21
This is pretty cool. It reminds me a little of a concept I have been working
on which is part currency and part UBI experiment. (shameless plug) It is
called The Good Loop (thegoodloop.org). It works by Charities creating tasks
that reward some number of credits. Volunteers perform the tasks and earn
credits. Merchants accept credits for goods and services. Merchants then
donate the credits to the Charity of their choice. It is a closed looped
system to encourage and reward volunteerism.

~~~
luckylion
Can the merchants claim it as a donation on their taxes?

At least in Germany, you can't "pre-donate", i.e. work to a charity and claim
it as a donation. You'll have to agree on a price and the charity has to be
able to compensate you and after everything is done, you can choose to not
take their money. I'm not sure whether the third party in the transaction
changes anything.

~~~
snarf21
I'll add that to the list. I'm currently still in the building phase but tax
implications will be something to consider.

------
docdeek
There’s a local currency in use here in my city [0] and it seems to have a lot
more support than the approx. 10 local businesses accepting the Time Credits
mentioned in the article. I see the stickers in the windows of shops that
accept the local currency (it’s pegged 1:1 to the euro) but I’ve never
actually bought any myself. Seems to have a following if the list of stores
accepting it is anything to go by [1]

0: [http://www.lagonette.org](http://www.lagonette.org) 1:
[http://www.lagonette.org/la-liste-des-
partenaires/](http://www.lagonette.org/la-liste-des-partenaires/)

~~~
throwawayiionqz
How is VAT paid? The government is clearly not accepting the local currency.

So VAT must be paid in euro for purchases in the local currency? I am
wondering how this eventually works out, especially the day when selling your
local currency into euros is not anymore possible or pegged 1:1, while VAT
must still be paid in euro.

~~~
docdeek
I didn’t know - and I hadn’t considered it, to be honest - but a dig on the
website suggests that the government treats it as something akin to bartering
or donation of services. As a result, it is exempt from VAT (TVA in French).

[http://www.lagonette.org/une-monnaie-locale-et-
complementair...](http://www.lagonette.org/une-monnaie-locale-et-
complementaire/)

"Les échanges de services non-monétaires, promus par les réseaux de monnaies
complémentaires (banque de temps, réseau d’échanges réciproques de savoirs,
SEL – Système d’échanges Locaux, etc.) relèvent d’une activité ponctuelle,
d’un coup de main. Ils n’entrent pas dans le cadre d’une profession et sont
exonérées de TVA et d’impôts.

~~~
throwawayiionqz
Thanks. So I go for a haircut, if I pay in EUR the hairdresser forwards the
VAT to the government. If I pay in the local currency for the same haircut,
the hairdresser keeps the VAT. Same if I buy fruits from a local producer (how
is that "coup de main"!?)

This very much looks like VAT or other tax evasion scheme. Maybe users of the
currency should realize the associated risks.

If the government shuts it down for fraud, it will be difficult to convert the
local currency back to euros and the claim that is pegged 1:1 to the Euro
might be be correct after all.

~~~
docdeek
I don’t think it is quite that bad.

As I understand from their site, while you can trade euros for the local
currency at a rate of 1:1, you cannot trade your local currency for euros.

They have a FAQ [0] (in French, sorry) that states that the national financial
autorities do not allow for you to exchange your local currency for euros.
What’s more, if you pay for something in the local currency you cannot receive
change in euros - the vendor needs to give you change in the local currency,
too.

It sort of seems like once you ‘buy’ your local currency, you can spend it but
you can never trade it for euros again. The peg of the currency to the euro
1:1 seems to be convenient more than a tax dodge, but I have never used it
personally.

[0]: [http://www.lagonette.org/utiliser/](http://www.lagonette.org/utiliser/)

------
bryanrasmussen
Of course time is money, the benefit for some people though is that their time
is then credited at a fairer rate of exchange than the normal employment way
of crediting time, at the same time that it allows them to monetize things
that would otherwise be difficult to monetize.

However for someone like me whose time is credited more than most by the
employment system it seems like it would be a losing proposition to do things
for time credits instead of money.

~~~
WilTimSon
Yes, but that whole system is essentially built on the trust that everyone
gets their fair share for giving time. Saying "for someone like me" runs
completely counter to their ideas. Personally, it wouldn't be beneficial to me
either but the catch is that this system essentially dictates you just have to
give up some benefit to you in order to gain a benefit for the community.

However, I really don't know how viable this scheme would be on a bigger
level. Eventually, this hopeful and admirable attempt faces the problems
outlined in the article: landlords don't want time credits, banks don't want
them, the government doesn't want them. So it's a risk of giving up your
privilege of earning well that might leave you with nothing eventually.

~~~
antasvara
I don't think it has to be viable on a bigger level. If all the system does is
keep productive, engaged community members a reason to stick in the town due
to the currency they've built up, I see that as a win for the currency.

~~~
Kinrany
Startup idea: a messenger that allows small communities to create their own
currencies and provides a way to convert between them. Basically Internet, but
for money.

...It'll turn into an even bigger scam than cryptocurrencies, but the idea
seems interesting...

~~~
bsanr2
I think the whole point is that you can't convert easily.

~~~
Kinrany
You can't just trade them, but you could find a loop where every two
consecutive traders have at least one community in common.

Perhaps I don't really understand the value of not being able to convert them.

~~~
bsanr2
The point is to incentivize local spending, not just spending on local goods.
Money that circulates within a community stimulates more local activity. Local
producers are more likely to undercharge for the value of their goods and
services for the sake of community vitality than large, remote businesses that
want to squeeze every bit of value out of a transaction.

It's essentially a way to get more work done. It doesn't work if the network
is so large that people lose that incentive.

~~~
Kinrany
Right, so this is a way to make local economy more efficient that works
because people care more about local externalities.

The question is, is there a way to scale this to the whole world by building a
global network composed of local networks?

------
hkt
Time credits are not a new form of currency, they were used extensively in
early co-operative communities such a the one started by Robert Owen in the
1820s. Sorry to cite a book, but this has some details:

[https://www.routledge.com/A-Global-History-of-Co-
operative-B...](https://www.routledge.com/A-Global-History-of-Co-operative-
Business/Patmore-Balnave/p/book/9781138191495)

There are lots of examples of co-operatives that use a currency of their own,
the more idealistic ones did time based currencies because it was a proxy for
equal pay for equal work. Communities tended to adopt their own to keep money
circulating locally.

------
martindale
It's not a new idea [0], but I admit that I was excited about this referring
to digital communities. Nonetheless, it's a cool way of separating one's self
from the Government monopoly on money.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-
based_currency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency)

~~~
eru
I found the story of the Birmingham buttonmakers producing coins
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3392302-good-
money](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3392302-good-money)) to be a cool
way of separating one's self from a Government monopoly on money.

~~~
sukilot
It's less efficient than regular money and government would never allow it to
grow to rival.

~~~
eru
Have a look at [https://www.alt-m.org/2015/07/29/there-was-no-place-like-
can...](https://www.alt-m.org/2015/07/29/there-was-no-place-like-canada/) for
one example of less government involvement in money.

------
tantalor
To the comments saying "this is not new", the article uses the sense of the
word not as "not existing before" but as "already existing but seen,
experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time" e.g., "her new
bike".

[https://www.google.com/search?q=define+new](https://www.google.com/search?q=define+new)

This is new for this community. It could be new for your community too.

------
umvi
Reminds me of the movie:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time)

> Instead of using paper money, a new economic system uses time as currency

~~~
zackmorris
Ya I was thinking that too. We've been watching The Last Kingdom and Vikings
(set around 800 AD), and the main thing that's changed today vs then is that
they had little mechanization or automation, so everything was made by hand. A
suit of armor required so much time to make that it took a lifetime to acquire
one.

Contrast that with today, where we can buy computers for $1000 that took
millions of worker-hours to design and build. So in away, our $15 is worth
something like $15,000 to them. Or more precisely, their day's work on the
farm would produce 1/1000 of today's wages, maybe 30 cents or something
comparable. Enough to buy some eggs or beer if they were lucky.

What gets me though is that most of us have a quality of life higher than
royalty enjoyed then. Yet most of us spend our entire lives underemployed,
doing work of little importance, still making someone else rich. The sacrifice
of our daily life should cost us 1/1000 what it did then, but it still costs
us the same. What good is more buying power if you hate your job, today is the
worst day of your life, and tomorrow will be even worse? But hey, at least you
have a flat screen.

I think that's why the concept of barter can feel attractive, because if
everyone has a relatively comparable work output, then an hour spent doing
something we enjoy (say baking or whatnot) can be exchanged for something we
might find miserable but someone else might enjoy (like giving a massage).
Whereas with cash, an hour baking might be worth $7, but an hour massage is
worth $60.

The divergence between the free market value of something, and its toll in
human suffering, is the primary cause of most conflict in the world today
IMHO. That gap is why some of us are punished so much more for the work we do,
and why so many of us don't get to do the work we'd like to do. We all just
run the rat race and compete with the joneses until we're put out to pasture.
I've found no solution to this yet in my own life, so I'm curious to hear
others' experiences.

~~~
njarboe
Check out [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)
for one possible alternative that is working for a lot of people that live in
the US. The FIRE movement is about working for a short amount of time and
living frugally but well for the whole of your life. You have to give up
keeping up with the Joneses and most people will think you are a bit weird,
but many people feel that is a great trade.

------
olodus
Bah, humbug. Time credit system? The currency is only related to time (time
someone puts into doing something the community values, that is). My new
"actual" time credit currency goes all the way and pegs itself totally 1:1 to
time. Sadly, it turns out the inflation is horrible. Mother nature clearly
hasn't studied economics the way she keeps creating new seconds all the time.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
If you can loan me 8 hours for sleep I would be grateful :-)

------
antasvara
I've always found this concept interesting, and more generally the idea of
community-based currencies. Time-based currency has a history [1] of attempted
implementations, many of which don't leverage the community aspect here.

A large part of why I find these ideas interesting is related to the legal
system used by the Romani [2],where failure to comply with the rules set
forward results in exile. Because of their reliance on community, members are
incentivized to follow the rules because exile would be incredibly detrimental
to an individual's livelihood. I feel as though time credits work on a similar
principle: that your efforts will be recognized in your community, but a lack
of good faith will result in those time credits being worthless.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-
based_currency](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency)

[2] [https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/13/book-review-legal-
syst...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/13/book-review-legal-systems-very-
different-from-ours/)

------
smabie
As always with these kinds of ideas, it can never work, in this case due to
Gresham's law: bad money drives out good. No prostitutes or manual laborers
(good money) are going to trade their time. Only aspiring actors, amateur
artists, and etc (bad money) will be willing to participate in the market.

You can't get around money, at least not as a large scale economic system.

~~~
tuesdayrain
That's a very interesting explanation for why most supporters of communism I
see are artists, actors, or just generally unemployed.

------
gmoore
It turned out bad in
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

------
sukilot
Another article on same topic, without the misleading title:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24105860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24105860)

------
dbg31415
* Ithaca Hours - Wikipedia || [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours)

> Date of introduction

> November 1991

------
kdamica
Reminds me of Berkshares, a local currency that launched in western
Massachusetts while I still lived there. It's not a great idea since people
have no real incentive to participate, but it's always interesting to see
something like this play out.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BerkShares](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BerkShares)

------
evanwarfel
There's a difference between re-defining one's local monetary system to use
'chunks of time' instead of money, and variably pricing select goods and
services in terms of 'how much money you make in an hour.'

The former scheme is hard because time, as the Ithaca HOURS currency
experiment shows, isn't exactly fungible in the same way that money is. Being
able to redeem 'an hour' assumes that all people can do the same level of work
at all tasks.

The latter, however, requires a different way of thinking about pricing.

For instance, service providers might set their rates as multiples of one's
hourly wage: a tennis teacher might charge 1x, a pro-tennis teacher might
charge 3x, and a low-income psychotherapist might charge .85x... Such a scheme
could work with a sufficient number of clients -- essentially one is sampling
from the income distribution -- but the system is more equitable to income
differences.

From this point, one can think of more complex schemes, like a non-linear
mapping function that can prevent high-income individuals for paying
drastically more than others.

Yes, one big issue is one of trust and verification of income... but if it
were a culturally accepted practice, it could work. The other issue is the
incentive to only target high-income people. Perhaps there could be a set of
tax breaks for those whose distribution of client's incomes met some basic
requirements.

~~~
freeone3000
The second one we've decided is called "dollars", and is the usual mechanism
of exchange in a society.

------
diablerouge
I got here a touch late, but this seems inspired by or at least a descendant
of the Cincinatti Time Store[0], which at the time (1827) was the most popular
mercantile endeavor in Cincinatti.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Time_Store](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Time_Store)

------
eru
This is an old hat. Have a look at eg
[http://www.tauschkreise.at/?page_id=46](http://www.tauschkreise.at/?page_id=46)
for some activities in the German speaking parts of the world. (Use Google
Translate as needed.0

------
peter_d_sherman
>"Churchill resident Cynthia Underwood delivers groceries to a home in
Swissvale, just outside Pittsburgh.

As part of a program run by Neighbors Helping Neighbors and involveMINT, the
Rankin native earns _" time credits"_ for her service."

------
jkhdigital
Calling this a currency is generous... it’s more of a token that externalizes
the normally intrinsic reward for acting charitably. It’s like the stickers
that I give my 6 year-old son for doing his chores.

~~~
the_other
Why is this not money?

Surely if people can trade these “tokens” for goods or other services, then
they’re money?

~~~
baq
can't pay taxes with it == not money

~~~
the_other
Money you can pay taxes with is the specialised kind of money: “state money”.

You limit yourself in some ways if you consider state money to be the only
money. It ties you to your state: which is OK when you agree with your state,
but sucks when you don’t. It ties you to the state’s economy (the problem
these novel/local currencies attempt to solve). It ties you into statecraft,
international relations, and the horror show that is global currency exchange.
It invites the state into every transaction you make. It invokes your state’s
monopoly on violence, with every transaction you make.

All these have their uses, but they are also a burden sometimes.

------
WealthVsSurvive
I see this and bitcoin as attempts at Balkanization, due to the failures of US
conservative & neo-liberal economic policy since the early 70's onward. I see
bitcoin as a Chinese state scam, a structured, self-funding via hardware
manufacturing, attack on NATO policy that outgrew its britches and now serves
as a global-warming-causing lunar-magic-gold reserve. Since there aren't any
cheap new frontiers, you see things like "Time Credits." This means that
undeserved communities are inventing their own tribal states because the
larger state isn't meeting their needs. These generally aren't good things
because more cohesive societies tend to exist longer.

------
chaz6
Whilst I cannot debate the merits, I like the idea of a currency that helps
reduce the amount of hoarding, since the whole point of currency is to be
exchanged and keep an economy working.

~~~
savanaly
Introductory economics usually frames the purpose of money as being threefold:

1\. Medium of exchange; this is what you're referring to as "the whole point
of currency". But don't forget about:

2\. Unit of account; Something that allows you to compare "apples to oranges"
so to speak, a common denominator.

3\. Store of value; Some people choose to consume what's due to them up front,
others choose to "hoard" for later (nothing wrong with that, IMO), most spread
their consumption evenly over their life more or less. If we were all trading
chicken eggs and babysitting hours amongst ourselves this would be a lot
harder.

------
biolurker1
Hardly new concept it's called barter

~~~
frankdenbow
It doesn't have to be a new concept to be necessary. Why do people on hacker
news constantly have to miss the point? Most ideas are revised versions of
things that have been done for centuries. The cult of "new" is ridiculous.

~~~
biolurker1
it's in the title. "a ___NEW_ __form of currency "

~~~
frankdenbow
Exactly, you cant even read past the title to pull out the most important part
(hint: the definition of the word "new" isnt the most critical thing to talk
about)

~~~
biolurker1
Argue as you want, the title is wrong. This is a 1+1=2 forum.

------
Bombthecat
In one sci fi book, there was money per kj of work.

I find this idea interesting. Since the brain uses around 20 percent...

------
megiddo
"The idea grew especially popular during the Great Depression, when market
failures dried up the supply of cash in circulation."

I mean, if you define an executive order seizing money as a "market failure",
sure.

Or conversely, FDR didn't know what he was doing and Gresham's law always
applies.

~~~
monocasa
They're talking about the banks folding, and the subsequent inability to
change money, which happened years before FDR was elected.

------
Ericson2314
I wish NYC had its own currency that municipal taxes were in part payed in.

~~~
jefftk
Why?

~~~
Ericson2314
Basically it would give the city more power relative to the state and federal
government.

Basically I think this would be the best way to turn back the changes best
described in the book "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of
Austerity Politics".

Economic reason:

Some of cost disease of social services like the ones that were cut relates to
the subsidizing of suburban America, and I think local currency with reduced
purchasing power in the suburbs would help avoid that.

Political reason:

The structure of American governance gives non-urban areas disproportionate
power, due to a variety of mechanisms. Yet cities are more inherently more
productive and the engine of the economy. Granting a major city the power of
semi-autonomous monetary and fiscal policy will give it more power to counter
balance this.

For similar reasons I think EU should go back to local currencies, but rather
than getting rid of the euro could have both.

------
transfire
Love how the article ignores the obvious question -- are we in a depression?

