Editing Barter (section)

=== Corporate barter ===
Producers, wholesalers and distributors tend to engage in corporate barter as a method of exchanging goods and services with companies they are in business with.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Uyan |first=Ozgul |date=2017 |title=Barter as an alternative trading and financing tool and its importance for businesses in times of economic crisis |url=https://www.pressacademia.org/archives/jefa/v4/i3/8.pdf |journal=Journal of Economics, Finance and Accounting |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=289}}</ref> These bilateral barter transactions are targeted towards companies aiming to convert stagnant inventories into receivable goods or services, to increase market share without cash investments, and to protect liquidity. However, issues arise as to the imbalance of supply and demand of desired goods and services and the inability to efficiently match the value of goods and services exchanged in these transactions.<ref name=":1" />

====Labour notes====
{{main article|Utopian socialism|Time banking}}
[[File:LaborNote.JPG|thumb|right|350px|A 19th-century example of barter: A sample labour for labour note for the [[Cincinnati Time Store]]. Scanned from ''Equitable Commerce'' by [[Josiah Warren]] (1846)]]

The Owenite socialists in Britain and the United States in the 1830s were the first to attempt to organize barter exchanges. Owenism developed a "theory of equitable exchange" as a critique of the exploitative wage relationship between capitalist and labourer, by which all profit accrued to the capitalist. To counteract the uneven playing field between employers and employed, they proposed "schemes of labour notes based on labour time, thus institutionalizing Owen's demand that human labour, not money, be made the standard of value."<ref>{{cite book|last=Harrison|first=John|title=Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America|url=https://archive.org/details/questfornewmoral00harr|url-access=registration|year=1969|publisher=Charles Scibners Sons|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/questfornewmoral00harr/page/72 72]}}</ref> This alternate currency eliminated price variability between markets, as well as the role of merchants who bought low and sold high. The system arose in a period where paper currency was an innovation. Paper currency was an [[I.O.U.|IOU]] circulated by a bank (a promise to pay, not a payment in itself). Both merchants and an unstable paper currency created difficulties for direct producers.

An alternate currency, denominated in labour time, would prevent profit taking by middlemen; all goods exchanged would be priced only in terms of the amount of labour that went into them as expressed in the maxim '[[Cost the limit of price]]'. It became the basis of exchanges in London, and in America, where the idea was implemented at the [[New Harmony, Indiana|New Harmony]] communal settlement by [[Josiah Warren]] in 1826, and in his Cincinnati 'Time store' in 1827. Warren ideas were adopted by other Owenites and currency reformers, even though the labour exchanges were relatively short lived.<ref>{{cite book|last=Harrison|first=John|title=Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America|url=https://archive.org/details/questfornewmoral00harr|url-access=registration|year=1969|publisher=Charles Scibners Sons|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/questfornewmoral00harr/page/73 73]}}</ref>

In England, about 30 to 40 cooperative societies sent their surplus goods to an "exchange bazaar" for direct barter in London, which later adopted a similar labour note. The British Association for Promoting Cooperative Knowledge established an "equitable labour exchange" in 1830. This was expanded as the National Equitable Labour Exchange in 1832 on Grays Inn Road in London.<ref>{{cite book|last=Harrison|first=John|title=Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America|url=https://archive.org/details/questfornewmoral00harr|url-access=registration|year=1969|publisher=Charles Scibners Sons|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/questfornewmoral00harr/page/202 202–4]}}</ref> These efforts became the basis of the British cooperative movement of the 1840s. In 1848, the [[socialist]] and first self-designated [[anarchist]] [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]] postulated a system of ''time chits''.

Michael Linton this originated the term "local exchange trading system" ([[LETS]]) in 1983 and for a time ran the [[Comox Valley, British Columbia|Comox Valley]] LETSystems in [[Courtenay, British Columbia]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://wiki.ashevillelets.org/wiki/What_is_LETS%3F |title="What is LETS?". AshevilleLETS. Retrieved December 9, 2008. |access-date=20 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725015808/http://wiki.ashevillelets.org/wiki/What_is_LETS%3F |archive-date=25 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> LETS networks use [[interest]]-free [[community-based economics|local]] [[credit (accounting)|credit]] so direct swaps do not need to be made. For instance, a member may earn credit by doing childcare for one person and spend it later on carpentry with another person in the same network. In LETS, unlike other [[local currency|local currencies]], no [[scrip]] is issued, but rather transactions are recorded in a central location open to all members. As credit is issued by the network members, for the benefit of the members themselves, LETS are considered [[mutual credit]] systems.

====Local currencies====
The first exchange system was the Swiss [[WIR Bank]]. It was founded in 1934 as a result of currency shortages after the stock market crash of 1929. "WIR" is both an abbreviation of Wirtschaftsring (economic circle) and the word for "we" in German, reminding participants that the economic circle is also a community.<ref name="reinventingmoney.com">{{cite web | title=60 Years WIR Business Circle Cooperative - Origins and Ideology | work=WIR Magazine |date=September 1994 | url=http://www.reinventingmoney.com/wirbusiness.php | access-date=9 August 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061017101214/http://www.reinventingmoney.com/wirbusiness.php |archive-date = 17 October 2006}}</ref>

In Australia and New Zealand, the largest barter exchange is [[Bartercard]], founded in 1991, with offices in the [[United Kingdom]], [[United States]], [[Cyprus]], [[United Arab Emirates|UAE]], [[Thailand]], and most recently, [[South Africa]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Bartercard International|url=http://www.bartercard.com.au/bartercard_international.html|access-date=23 June 2014}}</ref> Other than its name suggests, it uses an electronic [[local currency]], the trade dollar. Since its inception, Bartercard has amassed a trading value of over US$10 billion, and increased its customer network to 35,000 cardholders.