ARGENTINA: Bartering – Here to Stay?

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 9 (IPS/IFEJ) - In May, the bartering system will celebrate 14 years of new life in Argentina. After a peak in this form of trade following the country’s late 2001 economic collapse, today it has a lower profile, though it involves tens of thousands of people around the country. But despite its survival, economists question its long-term viability.

Some 500 barter clubs operate in Argentina. And although the number of people involved today is far below the three million people who sought support in bartering in 2002, spokespersons say there are twice as many people in the clubs now as there were last year.

In the clubs, people exchange clothing, school supplies, homemade food, household repair jobs in carpentry, bricklaying and electrical work, medical and dental services, tutoring and tourism, among other goods and services.

Organisers have seen a 50 percent rise in the number of barterers over the last year or so, coinciding with the beginning of a feeling of economic uncertainty linked to the conflict between the government and farmers over a hike in export taxes.

Because of this expansion, the country's oldest barter club, created May 1, 1995, in Bernal, a southern Buenos Aires suburb, is moving to a bigger space.

"The relaunch will take place in the next few weeks," announced Rubén Ravera, one of the founders of the Club del Trueque, or Global Barter Network (RGT) in Argentina. "It's recommended that the number of participants at each location is no more than 100, because that’s the only way to establish face-to-face relations and build up trust between the members," he said.

Ravera said it is difficult to measure the volume of trade. But "it's been growing slowly since 1995. Barter agreements are made by phone, e-mail or in person," he said.

In order for a barter market to function in a "multireciprocal" way, all participants must consume in the same proportion in which they supply goods and services. This is known as "prosuming".

"That has an incredible effect on people's self-esteem, especially among the youth and the homemakers, who can place value on abilities that had not been valued before," Ravera said.

Belén Rodríguez, a woman in her thirties who has never had a formal job, initially prepared food and recycled clothing. "That work with my hands gave me the ability to create crafted items that I exchange for services," she explained while attending to a hairstylist interested in her items.

Ángela Mariño appreciates "the simple contributions from people, which show warmth. The pastries aren't always identical, the meat pies have that homemade crust, a sweater has a loose thread. Nothing is perfect, but everything is abundant," she described.

But not everything is so "homemade." This "prosumer" says that what she most gets out of the Club del Trueque is getting to know a group of young people who help her keep her computer updated.

People also come to the club as families. Fausto Torres and his family visit once a week. "The result is highly positive," he said.

"We bring pies, croissants, empanadas, pastries and sweet breads that we trade for an unimaginable range of things, from food and beverages, cleaning supplies, household goods (batteries, flashlights, light bulbs, compact discs), clothing and even eyewear," Torres said.

But isn't the world now too globalised to return to this primitive form of trade focused on subsistence?

"This system has a future in today's world to the extent that we are seeing with new eyes the attraction of cooperation. Barter is not synonymous with subsistence, or with separating from the economy. It is a complement in order to incorporate those who are excluded from the system," says Horacio Krell, head of the Unión de Permutas de Argentina, an entity that promotes exchange of goods and services.

The return of the barter system would be possible, says Krell, through education and "revaluing a culture of work that promotes a form of capitalism sustained in the real economy and not on financial profits."

In Ravera's opinion, the inclusive model of the Club del Trueque has "enormous potential for developing the economies of small communities and curbing the impact of the approaching crisis."

But the system is unviable in the long term, according to several economists interviewed for this article. The Ministry of Economy, meanwhile, did not respond to repeated attempts to obtain comment.

The concept of sustainable development has to do with the level of consumption, which is difficult to reduce, said Carlos Leyba, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). "If we stopped consuming, the army of unemployed would grow," he said.

Leyba, who heads the research team at the Strategy Centre for the State and Market, believes that analysing the return of the barter system belongs in the sphere of philosophy.

"It sounds like a big step backwards, because it happens when currency no longer makes sense. In a world that advances on the basis of international trade, with multinational corporations that fragment production and manufacture in different countries, physical compensation is impossible without money," he said.

UBA economist Carlos Melconian, founder and director of M&S Consultores, a consultancy, was categorical in his reply: "Barter has neither a place nor a future."

Consultant Roberto Cachanosky, a graduate of Argentina’s Catholic University, agrees. Barter "is a prehistoric mechanism... In the case of an international monetary collapse, any attempt to re-establish it would be temporary, very short-term, and a way out until the monetary system was rebuilt," he said.

Professor Antonio Brailovsky, an economist and historian, introduced another dimension to the question.

"Barter functioned in Argentina at a time of emergency. But do people accept an economy without money, or do they prefer to be scandalously poor and handle some sort of currency? Managing money is related to identity, and is a very important aspect of culture," he said.

Because of that, "a barter economy of poor people without money would be unstable," said Brailovsky, a former assistant ombudsman for the environment in the city of Buenos Aires.

Microcredit social networks, by contrast, get around that instability, said Brailovsky. The pioneer in the global microcredit movement was the Grameen Bank of Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

But against all predictions to the contrary, the barter clubs have not disappeared. And the reasons are not always about economics.

Ricardo Jordan has been a prosumer for many years. That is how he covers approximately a quarter of his basic needs. Of Scottish descent, he is a skilled artisan, but his current specialties are organic gardening and carpentry.

"When I arrived at the Club del Trueque, I had just lost everything: my job, my self-esteem and my dignity. I was dead," he said. "But now I have found life again."

*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS - Inter Press Service and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists, for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org). (END/2009)

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