Funny Money: In Search of Alternative Cash. David Boyle
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Through the computer, we were able to find someone who can help her get her groceries home. Then there was a lady who was very visually impaired: we sent someone to the grocery store with her every two weeks so that she could read the labels on the cans. Life-threatening, no. But services that people find add to the quality of their life – you bet!’
Farrell Didio was getting into her proselytizing stride. ‘I even had a gentleman who said, “You know, I just want to help people move their furniture round”. That’s not life-threatening either, but if you’d had that couch on that wall for twenty years – well, there’s a lot of value in these things.’
There were a number of features which particularly interested me. For one thing, only people over fifty-five were allowed to save time dollars for themselves – the rest had to give them away, preferably to elderly relatives who might need to pay for services. Some high schools required pupils to earn credits before they could graduate.
Second, they still help people with no time dollars. ‘It would be tacky not to,’ said Farrell, and I agreed.
Third, they don’t call them time dollars at all, for fear that the IRS will hear the word ‘dollars’ and prick up their ears. They simply call them ‘credits’.
And fourth, the time dollar economy turns out to be excitingly different from the ‘real’ economy. This is a revolutionary world where everybody’s time is worth the same. If you are an expensive lawyer, your time is worth exactly the same as if you are an elderly housebound widow making supportive calls. ‘Some people say it sounds too good to be true,’ said Farrell. ‘They say: “You mean I’m going to get free trips to my doctor’s office and in exchange I can make friendly phone calls to ask people how they are?” And I say: “Yeah, that’s exactly it – that’s the way it works”. Then they say: “Are you sure?”, and I say: “Trust me, I’m sure”.’
So what went wrong? Well, to start with, the member organizations wanted to cling tightly to their hard-won lists of volunteers. That did for the idea of charging them $15 each. Then there were the potential volunteers who were afraid their names would end up on a computer list, and people would ring them demanding lifts to doctors far into the night.
I was getting to the end of my plastic cup of tea, but there were two other issues I wanted to discuss. What if you moved to another part of the USA: could you take your time dollars with you?
‘Somebody was moving to Oregon and asked me that, and I said “It’s OK. It’s just paperwork”. I think as people, we have got to make whatever allowances we can make to get folks served.’
‘But won’t there be a problem if you allow time dollars to move around the country?’ I asked. ‘Then they would all eventually flood to the rich areas and you’ll have exactly the same situation that you get with dollars and pounds – some areas have lots and some have almost none? Doesn’t it have to be local?’
‘I think that’s probably true,’ she said, shifting her position slightly. ‘But I have no problem with saying: “Gee, Mrs Smith’s daughter lives here, so we can work something”. I may not want to do it for 5,000 people, but I can do it for one or two.’
That’s the joy of time dollars somehow. It’s effective, but it isn’t quite real. You don’t have to account for absolutely everything. You can give a little bit here and there. You don’t have to be a bank manager. But in spite of all that, these computer blips of what Edgar Cahn called ‘funny money’ do seem to drive a new kind of economy. They do pay for services which ‘real’ money can’t. They do give a kind of value to what volunteers do, and anybody involved in their local community, and they do give dignity to the old people who get the services. This isn’t charity: they pay for them.
But I had one final, crucial question: what does the Co-operative Caring Network cost to run? ‘Do you know,’ said Farrell Didio with a knowing smile, ‘I don’t think I’m going to talk about budgets.’
v
How do you judge danger in places you have never been before? It’s difficult: in practically every city from Aberdeen to Auckland, people say similar things about local crime. They make the kind of noises garage repairmen make when you bring your car in for a service and explain that it’s getting worse and worse. They tell you confidentially that there are some places where you should take the advice in Carousel and never walk alone. Or in the case of Washington, never walk at all.
Of all the cities you might visit in the United States, Washington must be the most fearful about crime. And not surprisingly, because this is one of the cities vying for the title of ‘murder capital of the world’. When I reached the city in June 1996, 183 people had already been murdered in the year, compared to 161 for the same period the year before. Arrests had been made in only about a third of the incidents – what the Washington Post described excitedly as ‘slayings’. Police stations in the poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Anacostia are often lucky to get their patrol cars out on the road. One station visited by the New York Times had only one typewriter – a manual. ‘If you want to type your reports, you have to bring your own ribbon,’ said one police officer.
Washingtonians may leave their front door keys in envelopes sticking out of letter boxes, but they are terrified of murder. Different cities, I find, worry about different types of crime. In London we are obsessed with burglary or having our cars stolen. In Washington, which is on the face of it a far more dangerous place, these things don’t seem to worry them – they even leave their cars unlocked. What worries the people of Washington isn’t that they will lose their cars while they are parked, but having them stolen at gunpoint while they are waiting at traffic lights. Next time you’re on an American plane, take a look at the executive toys for sale in the magazine. Some of them sell a blow-up ‘fella’, looking tough and determined, which you can put in your passenger seat. This isn’t to enhance your sex appeal, or even to prevent lonely feelings at night: it’s to discourage car-jackers.
I wondered idly whether car-jacking was Washington’s alternative to public transport. The buses are scarce, and taxi drivers are liable to pick up other passengers while you’re hurrying along in their cab. They also tend to start the ride with the words: ‘And how are you today?’ – as if you have accidentally flagged down a psychologist.
Parts of the city clearly are extremely dangerous, but even so the fear seems almost unnatural in its intensity – whole sections of the metro map are treated almost as no-go areas by the ‘respectable’ half of the city. The Yellow and Green lines seem to a visitor to be a transport version of Nightmare on Elm Street. Take many Washingtonians to areas in the east of the city and they will be entirely unfamiliar with the road layout.
The only Washington person I met who seemed entirely unconcerned about these things was Edgar Cahn. He wanders around south-eastern Washington – the kind of place which gives Washington matrons nightmares by its mere existence – and comes to no harm, he told me. And he’s always done so. ‘I’m quite safe,’ he said, in a wonderful statement of American liberalism, reminiscent of what Arthur Miller says about his own behaviour in New York. ‘Because these people smell respect.’
‘Where are you going tomorrow?’ asked Irene the evening before, as I passed her sitting room. Emma Thompson was speaking in the background from a costume drama video of Carrington.
‘Oh,’ I said, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Somewhere in the north-east, near Shaw-Howard.’
‘Well,’ said Irene severely. ‘That doesn’t sound like a good idea at all. Last year there was this British guy and his father came out of the back door of the National Gallery by mistake and walked just a couple of blocks, and he got jumped for his camera. Killed. So I always like to ask my guests where they are going.’
I gulped. Shaw-Howard was more than a few blocks past the National Gallery. ‘It’s only a hundred yards or so from the metro. I’m sure I’ll be fine,’ I said. She pursed her lips disapprovingly. Later that evening, a British friend of mine – living