The barter economy - a fundamentally conservative idea?

I had an email today from swaptree.com. It’s a website that specializes in arranging trades between people for unwanted items of similar value – things like books, DVDs, records, and so on. I’d actually forgotten that I had joined up (I only had a few items listed as for trade, so it’s not much of a surprise that I this was my first swap offer), but I accepted the offer and this afternoon I went down and posted off a copy of Naomi Klein’s ‘The Shock Doctrine’ to a lucky (or not so lucky, perhaps) lady in Southern California.

With the growing success of swaptree and other barter based websites such as favorpals.com, which specializes in the exchange of services, there is a growing barter economy in the US. Given that for many people money is a premium and that the recession has caused many of us to have a good deal more time on our hands, so to speak, this is perhaps not such a surprise. On favorpal.com, people are offering services such as gardening, swimming pool repair, language lessons or even dental work.

Now, even barter exchanges are taxable in the US. However, assuming that the services rendered are income neutral, there’s no tax that needs to be paid. It seems to me that the exchange of services between two individuals without a monetary interface is fundamentally a very conservative idea. This is a transaction that takes place between two parties with no government intervention. Between them, they are able to set the terms of the agreement, the timeframe, and the way that any work is carried out.

All of this without money. When it really comes down to it, money is printed by the government, is owned by the government and guaranteed by the government, so it’s only really worth anything if they are prepared to honor it. Now, I’m not going to go so far as to suggest that any government, be it Democratic or Republican, is going to suddenly undermine the legitimacy of the dollar – if for no other reason that the country would be plunged into chaos, something, despite occasional suggestions otherwise, you have to think that neither party would like.

But isn’t it basic tenet of anyone of a libertarian bent that anything that removes a dependence on a central government is something worth doing, no matter how small? There are some other good, conservative values that it consolidates, too. By encouraging interaction within a community, it creates greater trust and fosters a sense of co-dependence; what could be more conservative than that?

To be honest, I like the idea more than just a left / right issue, but I thought it would be interesting to explore from a right wing perspective. I’d be interesting to hear of any other things that people are doing to help them through the current economic downturn. It will also be intriguing to see what survives, and what gets left by the wayside, when there’s an uptick again, and unemployment and levels of security rise.

Let us know what you think below!