hOURS
helluva Organized United
Reciprocation System
hOURS is a trading system that strengthens and
enriches communities in which it’s used.
hOURS is an enormous “You scratch my back,
I’ll scratch yours” scheme. There are way
more than just the 2 people, and the reciprocation can be indirect. For example, say Paul helps Diane paint her
house, Diane cuts Felicia’s hair, Felicia gives Sean a clarinet lesson, Sean
babysits Melinda’s kids, and Melinda fixes Paul’s leaky faucet. Everyone’s happy. But we need not have such obvious, closed loops like this. By recording the time spent – hOURS can be
more free-flowing, with many such loops intersecting one another. Then we need not worry about arranging
reciprocation. It happens naturally as
people put into, and take from, the system.
Suppose Paul spent 2 hours painting Diane’s place, then Diane spent one
hour cutting Felicia’s hair. Paul’s
balance would be +2. Diane was at -2,
but brought it up to -1 with the haircutting, and now Felicia is at -1. That takes care of Diane’s part in the above
loop, but still at minus one, she then, let’s say, feeds Marnie’s cat and
waters her plants while she’s away. She
squares her account and Marnie goes off on another such circle. And so on and so on. People just need to return their balances to
zero at some point. Ultimately, using
this hOURS device, we all get to know our neighbors and help each other out.
hOURS
is a new twist on the idea of a LETS (Local Economic Trading System). These first appeared in western Canada in
the early ‘80s and now are widespread in the UK, Australia and New
Zealand. LETS’s are designed to
alleviate poverty in economically depressed areas. Recession/depression is simply an unavailability of money. People in depressed areas have plenty of
skills, resources, and labor to utilize, but lack the monetary mechanism to
crank it all up socially. Banks that
are “too big to fail” can also be too big to care. The key insight of those who started the first LETS was that they
needn’t be subject to the whims of banks, corporations or the government (those
who control most of the money). They
could make their own. This isn’t counterfeiting,
because they didn’t presume to make dollars, but rather a whole new form
of currency that was locally controlled.
That currency might be imaginary and arbitrary, but if you think about
it, so is the dominant national currency.
Dollars have no intrinsic value, and are only good to have insofar as other
people want them. What they are
capable of doing is greasing the wheels of exchange.
Creating alternative currencies, such as
the Hour in this case, we establish that mechanism. In fact we improve upon the dollar. We recognize what’s true in the axiom “money is the root of all
evil.” retaining what’s good about money, while rejecting what’s bad. Rather than creating an imaginary construct,
which people then fight over the meaning of, hOURS uses something real, units
of time, which have the same ability to grease the wheels of exchange. For example, in trades under the hOURS
system, services are services - an hour of dentistry is worth as much as an
hour of washing dishes. Under the
national monetary system, the more imaginary units of dollars get fought
over. There we find dentists are apt to
feel their time is worth more than a dishwasher’s time and we get social
tensions. hOURS is all about being
friendly. People and skills severely
disrespected by the main economy become valuable with hOURS. This is good news for those considered
unemployable by “the system”: the mentally ill, the severely handicapped, the
infirm etc. They all have something
to contribute. Kids and the elderly can
get involved. Many of them are craving
ways to be useful. Also, various skills
that the dominant economy chooses not to compensate can find a home here: for
example, services that have traditionally been “women’s work”, or esoteric
abilities like story-telling, crafting angry letters-to-the-editor, consulting
for endeavors like downshifting, etc.
hOURS is a way to empower those who have been disempowered by the
economy, which is probably everyone to some extent. Do what you like to do, not only what some employer is willing to
hire you for. [Click
here to read about more 'evil' aspects of money that hOURS subverts.]
So alternative currencies like hOURS
enrich communities by bringing forth nascent, hidden resources, denominating
transactions involving them, but they also enrich communities when used to
denominate transactions that were already taking place for which dollars were
used. In that case the dollars are
‘liberated’ and can be spent on something else (though this is a one-time
windfall).
A central database is kept with everyone’s
“account” information. When services
are performed, the parties log it on the website and the respective accounts
automatically get credited/debited. The
credits (known simply as Hours) exist only in this electronic form. We may print notes someday, but strictly
speaking, those aren’t necessary. (75%
of all U.S. dollars exist solely in electronic form, by the way.) We need not worry about squaring everyone’s
account to zero on a day-to-day basis.
The system can continue indefinitely, with people vacillating from plus
to minus, staying put for a while, or whatever. Hopefully no one will keep a large negative balance for a long
time. If that happens, other
participants can suggest ways of earning hours to that person. If that doesn’t work, people can cease
performing services for them. No one is
ever under any obligation to trade, for any reason. Bottom line, if something isn’t worth the price, i.e. if so and
so doing 2 hours of x for you isn’t worth 2 hours of your time, then don’t have
them do it. Besides mutual agreement,
there are really no hard and fast rules.
The point of hOURS is not to constrain anyone or be a burden in any way,
but to free up possibilities and potential.
The website also serves as a sort of ‘yellow pages’ in which everyone
can list the goods and services they have to offer, and those which they need,
which can be just about anything.
Can goods be bought and sold under the hOURS
system too? Sure, just remember an Hour
of money represents an hour of time.
Use that to determine what a desirable price would be. If an item can be readily reconceived of as
a service (the service of providing that item) use that to determine the price. Businesses can get involved as well.
So
why isn’t the ‘h’ capitalized you may be wondering: Because both “hours” and
“ours” are good names for the program.
The first is obvious, but “OURS” captures some important features of it
as well. It’s literally ours, belonging
to the people involved. No bank or
corporation has the ability to pull funding.
No absentee owners siphon off rents and dividends. A community that uses hOURS is strengthened
by the increased interpersonal contacts and becomes wealthier through two
mechanisms mentioned above. We need not
suffer any problems that come from the so called credit crunch, nor any
problems stemming from the nature of that credit, such as its control by
elites. hOURS can make us much better
off.
What
are you waiting for?
Now tell me about day-to-day nuts-n-bolts
The political significance of alternative currency
How and why businesses and organizations can participate