All People...and An Hour of Their Time...are Created Equal!
Timebanking 2014
by Pamela Boyce Simms
The hospicing of a tattered economic system is well underway.
Timebanking, which eases the anxiety
of “letting go,” is transforming how people view money, and is gaining traction in the Mid-Hudson Valley, throughout New York State and the Mid-Atlantic Region as economic inequality worsens nationwide.
In a timebank, an hour rather than a dollar is the unit of currency.
Members exchange work for credit that they can then redeem for other services
they need.
It is of course easiest for timebanking to take root when unemployment
is high. Crunch-times and hardship motivate the underemployed to sign up and
offer their services to get things they need. But beyond any given
economic trend, timebanking grounds a vision of how we might treat each other
better. The inherent rub is that timebanking dismisses prevailing market logic
by valuing all work, an hour of every person’s humanity and
contribution, as equal. Embracing this deepening of American founding principles is timebanking’s
growing edge challenge.
Neighbors who are joining New York State and regional timebanks have stopped worshiping markets as
infallible because their personal experience compels them to think differently about economics. The stark
reality is that half of our neighbors can’t afford to save for retirement; a
third have next to no retirement savings at all, or have taken an average loss
of $12,000 on their retirement funds. The intent of timebanking is to help
build an economy that meets our needs in the present moment. Timebanking
encourages us to live fully in the here and now and build for the future
specifically by deepening our relationships and sharing our talents, rather
than by continually readjusting our lives to serve the growth of the economy.
Civil Rights activist Edgar Cahn created timebanking to alter the way
people relate to each other by altering the medium of exchange. He comments,
“Timebanking was a giant step away from hyper-individualism and the destructive
competition inherent in inequality.” Cahn created timebanking to, “…sustain
true collaboration and focus on the commonality of human need
fulfillment.” Timebanking is pushback
against the entrenched idea that we are defined by what we can buy and sell.
The four core values of timebanking
are:
• Assets—The wealth of a society is its people.
Every human being can be a builder and contributor.
• Redefining Work–Work redefined includes whatever it
takes to rear healthy children, preserve families, make neighborhoods safe and
vibrant, care for the frail and vulnerable, attack injustice, and make
democracy work.
• Reciprocity—We all want to give back. Replace
all forms of one-way acts of helping with two-way transactions, so that
"You need me" becomes "We need each other"
• Social Capital—Humans require a social
infrastructure, which require ongoing investments of social capital generated
by trust, reciprocity, and civic engagement.
Timebanking is more relevant than ever in 2013 when eight out of ten
Americans, (80%) have to make do with 7% of the nation’s income; when nest eggs
no longer produce income, as people delay retirement and prematurely borrow
heavily from their IRAs and 401(k)s.
This year New York State (NYS) residents became members of timebanks
serving Troy, Rochester, Syracuse, The Capital Region (including Albany, Schenectady, and Saratoga), The Mid-Hudson
Valley (Woodstock and Warwick Timebank
team), Long Island, and New York City.
NYS timebanks met on October 5 and shared best practices with 30
timebankers representing 14 timebanks from six states in the Mid-Atlantic
Region. They met at the invitation of seasoned veteran Mashi Blech, director of
the 2000-member Community Connections Timebank of the Visiting Nurse Service of
New York. Additional fledgling timebanks, just coming on stream, gathered on
October 6 in Media, Pennsylvania to be mentored by Marie Goodwin, founder of
Mid-Atlantic Regional Timebanks.
Timebanking boils down to the giving of self, and reciprocal
giver-receiver affirmation. Timebankers are catalysts who combine this thinking
with the moneyless economic exchange of services in their communities. Regular
roundtables like those convened by Mashi Blech and Marie Goodwin “catalyze the
catalysts” and are forming the interconnected root system that will support the
morphed economy that is germinating.
Here in the Mid-Hudson Valley, the Woodstock TimeBank (WTB) will
inaugurate a new timebanking chapter in early 2014 with two projects:
• Alliance-building with formal and informal human service networks will
generate
“social-change hour exchanges.”
• Thematic public storytelling rounds in coffee shop
settings, will showcase the talents and life experiences of participants as
needs and assets are matched for timebank service exchanges.
As we round the bend into 2014, let’s raise a glass of delicious
Mid-Hudson Valley hard cider to those truths that we hold to be self-evident;
that all people and their compassionately offered labor are created equal.
Pamela Boyce Simms is director of the Woodstock TimeBank.
Posted by Chris Hewitt
on 5:04 PM.
Filed under
Feature,
Local Economy
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