Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Freeconomy



Tracy from Eco Street brought this website to my attention:

Freeconomy allows people to make the transition from a money based communityless society to more of a community based moneyless society

Sounds very interesting. You can sign up for skillshare, toolshare, spaceshare and landshare. It seems to be a bit like an extension of Freecycle, but instead of offering unwanted used goods for free, people can offer to share their skills, tools, space or land for free.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was something like this in Bootle/Crosby in the seventies/early eighties whereby, for example, a teacher could offer free personal tuition in return for some plumbing work, etc. I don't know how well it caught on but I seem to remember it was done through the church (catholic). My school also had something like it, except this time it was all teaching. An adult with skills such as plumbing, bricklaying, carpentry, etc., but who had learning problems, could receive free evening tuition as required in return for time spent during school hours instructing pupils in the skills the adult possessed.
This was quite popular until the education authorities put a stop to it. They argued lack of teaching skills and health and safety rules. I thought it was terrific with parents getting into the schools and seeing how we worked, and the problems involved in teaching in what was, at that time in particular, a very deprived area, and the pupils responding awfully well to seeing their parents taking an interest in school and being accepted by their teachers as valuable and respected participants in education.

donna said...

thanks mel for hi lighting this, it sounds really interesting. i will take a look. by the way "Hello" on world hello day!

Anonymous said...

This looks similar to the LETS scheme where people exchange goods and services without money, a kind of barter scheme with units or hours earned or spent. You can find one in your area at this link:

http://www.letslinkuk.net/regions/uk-map.htm

Melanie Rimmer said...

I agree Madeleine, it is a bit like a LETS scheme but without the tokens. It's based purely on goodwill. The scheme dad (Bill) is referring to was probably a LETS scheme.

Hello to you to, Donna!

Dad, the school scheme sounds brilliant. Of course you couldn't do it now because all the parents would have to have a CRB check.

Anonymous said...

We use the beer economy.

Six bottles of home-brew stout = butchery of two pigs

One butchered half pig or two-and-a-half dozen bottles of stout = JCB and driver for four hours.

Eight bottles of stout = tractor with front loader and driver for one hour.

Two dozen bottles of stout and two bottles of parsnip wine = one day's manual fencing.

Some combination of pork, stout and parsnip wine will buy most things we need, while fresh veg, jams and chutneys make the up the fillers when needed.