I would still expect that this situation (in Greece and in all of the Eurozone) be finally resolved properly, as bartering remains a short-term solution. It gets bogged down by the constant requirement of a double coincidence of wants, and results in far less efficiency and productivity than when commerce is done with a state-backed currency. Still, for what it's worth, for now this development is a triumph of the human spirit over outsize constraints, of necessity over adversity.
Read it at Rogue Economist Rants
Bartering in the Greek Euro odyssey
by Rogue Economist
3 comments:
Agree with Rogue here.
It is similar to what the chicken raising people are doing that I posted to downthread.
Nice try, but cannot scale.
I dont blame them for trying.
Then of course the irony that this is being played out in the nation that houses the cradle of western civilization... just sad for the human.
Resp,
Reboot your 21st century economy and when it restarts it is the 15th century all over again. A real triumph of the human spirit.
This is what happens in an extreme deflation. My wife's family had a family farm during the depression. The had zero money but plenty to eat and barter with. To them steak and eating high off the hog literally was nothing, but a can of tuna or a jar of peanut butter was a rare treat. They could even get all the ice cream and other stuff like that which was make locally with barter. But for those living in cities, where money was necessary, life was a bitch.
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