this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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Anarchism

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Do you know of any anarchistic material related to a bartering economy? (lemmy.perthchat.org)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.perthchat.org/post/309225

Trying to read/watch/etc a little on it to try to establish a vague food swap with friends. Specifically no cash.

Nobody is rich enough to engage in unilateral mutual aid/donations.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd wager that classical barter is deeply against anarchist principles and ethics, as it fundamentally rests on a logic of quantifying social relations and turning them into debts.

By "classical" barter, I mean a kind of system where you've created a whole system of measuring the value of one good against tens or even hundreds of others. E.g. a can of beans is worth a carton of milk or half a steak, a chocolate cheesecake is worth five bowls of porridge etc.

More importantly though, classical barter has actually never existed in history. Economics textbooks -- and economists, of course -- have perpetuated the myth that it did, mostly to suit their own narratives about the origins and nature of money.

Instead, we overwhelmingly find people engaging in "gift economies" or relations of reciprocity with each other, where the logic of quantification is mostly absent.

Not saying it's any easier, though! And in any case you don't wanna believe someone (like me) who spouts theory and has almost no real world experience :) ultimately any experiments you actually try out are way more impactful than my comment!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

By “classical” barter, I mean a kind of system where you’ve created a whole system of measuring the value of one good against tens or even hundreds of others. E.g. a can of beans is worth a carton of milk or half a steak, a chocolate cheesecake is worth five bowls of porridge etc.

I'm thinking more like can of beans same value as milk = steak = cheese cake etc

And some good faith to prevent friends from trying to like give someone else like a raw deal. So like realistically some portion of gift economy, like can of beans for a steak, can of beans person later on gives steak person a "good trade" later on to sorta balance it out