Photo By Robert Webber

Michael Grouse says bartering is already commonplace in his profession.

Maybe you need a hand painting your house, so you ask your handy friend a favor. You know she's been dying for a massage; you hit up your licensed massage therapist friend and promise him a supply of the tomatoes ripening in the backyard.

There are only three parties involved in this particular bartering circle, but already it seems pretty involved.

Bartering goods and services has brought people together since the beginning of civilization, but bartering usually stops at a one-on-one exchange.

Now communities across the country are starting to meld the idea of standard U.S. currency and bartering into a new kind of money called complementary currency, or local currency.

"If a gardener is unemployed and I'm unemployed, in the normal economy we both might starve," said Bernard Lietaer in "Beyond Greed and Scarcity," an 1997 interview with Yes! magazine. "However, with complementary currencies, he can grow my salads, which I pay for in local currency earned by providing another service to someone else."

In Cincinnati we trust
A half-dozen Cincinnatians passed around Ithaca Hours -- the local currency of Ithaca, N.Y. -- during a March 28 meeting at St. John's Unitarian Church. The topic was how local currency might work in this city.

Ithaca Hours epitomize the possibilities of complementary currency. The front of the currency, which resembles U.S. paper bills, says, "In Ithaca We Trust."

"Time Is Money," the back says. "This note entitles the bearer to receive one hour of labor or its negotiated value in goods and services. Please accept it, then spend it."

In smaller print, the bills explain their purpose.

"Ithaca Hours stimulate local business by recycling our wealth locally and they help fund new job creation," the bills say. "Ithaca Hours are backed by real capital: our skills, our time, our tools, forests, fields and rivers."

Ithaca Hours are set at 10 U.S. dollars. The implication, of course, is that no one can get paid less than $10, a substantial raise from the minimum wage. Denominations vary from one-eighth hour to two hours.

Complementary currency, as the name implies, doesn't entirely replace standard currency; and, of course, it's still subject to taxation.

But there are grocery stores, landlords, lawyers and doctors in Ithaca that accept payment in Ithaca Hours. This makes it immediately clear which businesses are local and which are tied to overseas goods and labor. By promoting businesses that accept local currency, Lietaer said, "You create a bias toward local sustainability."

In Ithaca, there's also plenty of shopping to be done with those strange bills. The 2004 Ithaca Hours Directory runs 48 pages, listing purveyors of accessories and accounting through writing, yard work and yoga.

Similar systems of complementary currencies are catching on around the country, as close as Indiana and Kentucky, but not yet in Ohio.

Creativity and more compassionate communities seem built into this re-conceptualization of currency. Japan uses private currency systems called "fureai kippu," or "caring relationship tickets," to care for its elderly. The credits earned by helping care for an elderly person can be redeemed for one's own future health care or wired to "pay" for the care of a parent across the country.

Wannabes no more
Most of us are pretty well versed in "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" dynamics. But asking favors might be easier if there were something more concrete to offer in return.

Studies have found that people are less reluctant to pay friends in local currency than in money, according to Randy Weeks, a Cincinnati Web site developer who led the meeting. Real money somehow seems to cheapen the interaction.

Yet local currency actually strengthens interactions. Mackey McNeill, a financial adviser and advocate of local currency, remembers exchanging babysitting services with other young mothers.

"We learned about each other, we learned about each other's needs," she says. "We had to work together, so there was cooperation, there was conversation and interaction. That's a totally different experience than we have with paper money and the competitive system."

It might also avoid some of the resentment created by an overly demanding friend, according to Weeks' wife, Jane Pugliano.

"I was a stay-at-home mom for 20 years," she says. "I felt pretty worthless. I do think of (local currency) as empowering women who are not quite as educated, who have more time than money, who have talents to offer that aren't being seen or heard."

The new system also honors creativity within a community instead of forever elevating those with the most training, the most talent or the most resources. In a world of specialization, it's just not cool to say your uncle is a musician unless he has a record deal somewhere. A writer is just a wannabe until she gets a book deal.

"This is an opportunity to bring some of that back from the margin," Weeks says. "My hope is that one of the energies that comes from this is the reclamation of the multi-talented people."

Barb Winburn, a project manager by day and a writer and artist by night, is drawn to that idea. Local currency could help her side business grow. Likewise, massage therapist Michael Grouse says trading services is standard in the body-work industry. Local currency could be a wonderful way to quantify those exchanges.

Local currency can also cultivate a sense of inherent worth in populations that lack traditional resources.

"We give to charity and give to the poor but by definition have now said that they're poor," McNeill says. "We've created class. But if we allow them to give back ... "

Instead of a system of consumer and provider, it becomes a system of peers, Weeks says.

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The next local currency meeting is at 7 p.m. May 7 at St. John's Unitarian Church in Clifton. Find out more at www.consciousmoney.org.