Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1900-03-10
TRADE WITHOUT MONEY.
A Society in London Aims to Abolish
Poverty.


! That money is the root Of all evil Ii
| view which has recently found favol
| among political economists. Most PEG
| pie think ii is the want Of it that mat.
| tiers. Now some cooperative reform
| ers have started an experiment to dis
cover what amount Of truth there is In
! these two views. The scheme in ques-
| ton is the work of the Cooperative
! Brotherhood Trust, Limited, and they
| have hit upon a very ingenious plan
| for trading without money. Before ex-
| planning what this is, however, it would
| be well to state their reasons for adopt
| ing it, which are something more than
| merely sentimental objections to cur
! rent coin.
one result of our present SYSTEMS OF
| currency is that money has value far
| beyond any Of the commodities 1t rep
resents. The demand for 1t has in
| creased more of late years than has the
supply, and the result is that man
who has no money at all stands to-day
but a poor chance of getting any, and
a fairly good one Of going under, -
though he may all the same be able to
do useful work that his fellows need.
To-day there are some thousands Of
men all able to produce something Of
benefit to the community, and yet all of
them idle, merely because they lack
money.
Take the case of one of these. For
the time being all the vacant jobs are
full and he is unable to get employ
ment.
Now, unless he has money enough
TO set himself up in small business,
or money enough to extensively adver-
tise his goods, it is useless for him
to produce any. He does not know
how to get any one to buy them if he
does. Accordingly he drifts and drifts,
and finally becomes a member Of what
is apparently the surplus class.
only apparently, however for really
while he is unable to find people who
Want his goods there are plenty who
are only too willing to consume them.
Only, like himself, they cannot pur-
chase, because for the time being, at
any rate, they are without money
The result is that both the potential
consumer and the potential producer
have to stand idle, though both have
labor force and both are capable of
producing something of use to one an
other. Without money, however, they
cannot do this, and what happens is
that an artificial poverty seizes both of
them and their energies are paralyzed.
1t is this artificial poverty that the
Cooperative Brotherhood Trust, limit
ed, have set themselves to abolish, and
they do this by bringing the idle con-
sumer and the idle producer together
and exchanging the labor of one for
the labor of the other.
They manage to effect this in very
clever way In connection with the
trust an exchange circle has been
started, and this is the medium through
which all the labor products are ex-
changed and in the following manner:
We will say a carpenter has become
one of the unemployed. He is out OF
work and has not enough money to set
up in business for himself, but he joins
the exchange circle and puts his name
down on the directory.
He offers to supply tables, chairs or
whatever it is that he can most easily
make, and offers at the same time to-
do odd jobs.
When some other member of the
circle who is in need of the thing he
offers buys it, and pays him, not in
money but in barter notes and to
winch ne has become entitled by the
work he himself has executed for
third member of the exchange circle.
These barter notes not only entitle
the bearer to as much as their face
value of the goods in the circle. but
also to such goods as are in the store,
and these include groceries and pro-
visions, clothes, hosieries, furniture,
athletic requisites. and nearly every
thing except alcoholic beverages.
If the holder of any particular barter
note desires to realize 1T in cash the
committee endeavors TO oblige him.
But it is, of course, preferable that he
should take it out in food made by
other members, as only in this way can
the circle be self-supporting.
OF course, the success of the circle
largely depends on the number of peo-
pie joining it. Obviously the goods
cannot be exchanged without at least
a fair number of exchanges. But,
though yet in it's infancy. it is vigor-
ously developing, and the fact that
tradesmen are accepting barter notes
instead of cash augues we'll for it.
Pearson's Weekly.