Non-monetary economy

The non-monetary economy represents work such as household labor, care giving and civic activity that does not have a monetary value but remains a vitally important part of the economy. While labor that results in monetary compensation is more highly valued than unpaid labor, nearly half of American productive work goes on outside of the market economy and is not represented in production measures such as the GDP. The non-monetary economy represents work such as household labor, care giving and civic activity that does not have a monetary value but remains a vitally important part of the economy. While labor that results in monetary compensation is more highly valued than unpaid labor, nearly half of American productive work goes on outside of the market economy and is not represented in production measures such as the GDP. The non-monetary economy undertakes tasks that benefit society (whether through producing services, products, or making investments) that the monetary economy does not value. The non-monetary economy makes the labor market more inclusive by valuing previously ignored forms of work. Some acknowledge the non-monetary economy as having a moral or socially conscious philosophy that attempts to end social exclusion by including poor and unemployed individuals, providing economic opportunities and access to services and goods. Community-based and grassroots movements encourage the community to be more participatory, thus providing a more democratic economic structure. The social economy refers to the space between public and private sectors occupied by civil society, including community organizations, volunteering, social enterprises, and cooperatives. The social economy represents “a wide family of initiatives and organisational forms — i.e. a hybridisation of market, non-market (redistribution) and non- monetary (reciprocity) economies”. Rather than being fringe activities at the margins of the formal economy, this amounts to a significant level of activity: The 'civil society' sector of the United Kingdom employs the equivalent of 1.4 million full-time employees (5% of the economically active population) and benefits from the unpaid efforts of the equivalent of 1.7 million full-time volunteers (5.6% of the economically active population), and contributes 6.8% of GDP. Edgar S. Cahn developed the concept of the core economy to describe the informal social networks that he considered the bedrock of society, which he felt were eroding as monetary economies de-legitimized them. The core economy as he defined it consists of social capital, and generates collective efficacy that's of critical importance to the core economy. Collective efficacy refers to the effectiveness of informal mechanisms by which residents themselves achieve public order. More specifically, this is the shared vision or fusion of shared willingness of residents to intervene and create social trust (the sense of engagement and ownership of public spaces), intervening in the lives of other residents to counter crime, increase voting, or encourage residents to recycle. These informal mechanisms are what he calls social capital, a public good provided by citizens who participate to build up their communities (from raising children and taking care of the elderly to volunteer work). This kind of work is essential to a democratic and stable society. Unlike a market economy, the core economy relies on specialization reinforced by a 'do-it-yourself' attitude that “Builds self-esteem and a voluntary interdependence that replaces involuntary dependence that comes w/ industrial and market specialization” and where self-sufficiency is based upon interdependent family or community units (instead of a market economy's atomized individual). This model reduces or eliminates the involuntary dependence that comes with the market economy's strict division of labor. It also focuses on alternative distribution mechanisms to pricing, using instead normative considerations like need, fairness, altruism, moral obligation, or contribution. Collective efficacy and social capital are central to two very successful examples of civic-based, non-monetary economies: time banks and local exchange trading systems (LETS). These work systems provide alternative forms of currency, earned through time spent in directly serving the community, e.g. working in the community garden, recycling, repairing leaky faucets, babysitting. These units of time can be used to ask other members of work systems to do jobs they need, or may act as a forum in which special jobs or needs can be communicated and traded. These systems operate to a large degree outside of the monetary economy, though do not negate the importance of a monetary economy or seek a return to systems of barter. A time bank is a community-based organization which brings people and local organizations together to help each other, utilizing previously untapped resources and skills, valuing work which is normally unrewarded, and valuing people who find themselves marginalized from the conventional economy. These are things that family or friends might normally do for each other, but in the absence of supportive reciprocal networks, the time bank recreates those connections. These interactions are based upon the exchange of hours spent on an activity, where time dollars are the unit of measure/ currency. They are traded for hours of labour, and are redeemable for services from other members.