Unlike using conventional credit, LETS users go into debit without penalties of interest payments being imposed. Being in debit is not being in 'debt', rather it is a 'commitment' to return value to the community. Being in debit is being in 'commitment'. Therefore, there is no need to earn before you can spend. The local money supply fluctuates according to need.
Credits result from sales while debits result from purchases.
The obvious question of persistent lenders or defaulters of commitments is discussed in the next chapter. Perhaps the most innovative of LETS implications is the changing nature of work and the removal of exploitative labour relations. When cash is no longer in short supply, those with stores of cash can no longer force others to work for them. Exchange becomes consensual, not coercive. LETS helps the Government by catalysing conventionally unproductive people to trade, making them more self-reliant.