‘steps were cut out.

By Jim Smith

In “the beginning, - there
was no money. So. people
bartered: A farmer, for

instance would tradé his cow
for a couple of chickens,

some wood, and a pair of -

socks. No money was involv-
ed.

This worked rather well --

provided someene who want-

‘ed to trade a horse for a steve

could find someone else who
wanted to trade a stove for a
horse. If the stove owner

‘would accept only a lawn-

mower as payment, the horse
owner would have to look for

someone wanting to trade a

lawnmower for a horse
THEN he would trade the
lawnmower for the stove.
Economists call a barter
economy ‘‘primitive”’

As society became more
sophisticated, money  ap-
peared. Because it. was

univercall ur accented moaneyv

wh See ¥ we pre See eae

‘proved to be tremendously

valuable in matters of com-
merce. The farmer could sell
his horse for money, then use.
the money to buy the stove.
The intermediate barter
Econo-
monetary
‘developed””. ,

mists called a
economy *

Well,. Canada has had a
monetary system for about
306 years. Presumably, these
have. been 300 years of
improvements. And what do
we find today? We find that
bartering is making a strong
comeback. Honest.

In the biggest cities and
the tiniest villages, in every
part of the country, people
are bartering in earnest.
There are even professional-
ly organized clubs that will
bring potential
partners together. And the
barter doesn't just involve
chickens and goats, either;
there are lawyers swapping
time with accountants and
mechanics ‘trading their ser-
vices for restaurant meals.
This is barter on a very high
level.

Some of this barter follows
naturally from higher and
higher ‘tax rates. As long as
the transactions don’t appear
on anyone’s books, the
traders hope to avoid paying
taxes. Sometimes it works.
More often, it doesn’t. The
Canadian Federation of In-
dependent Business became
very concerned about the tax
evasion nature of some
bartering; ft js warning
members that, for tax pur-
poses, there Is no difference
between payments In kind
and payments In cash.

More of the barter exists
because of the decline in the
economy. Barter has always
been a good indicator of the
state of any economy. In a
healthy, booming cconomy,

barter is rare. In a_ sick
economy, it is common, In
part because people no
longer trust the nation’s

money and in phrt because
there’s a natural tendency

bartering

for’ neighbours to band

together during hard times to .
help one.another. -

You can draw your ewn
conclusions about what the
growing momentum in bar-
tering says about our mone-

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tary system. Everyday,
though, .: more... Canadians
“move outside our ‘‘develop-
ed’” monetary system to
make some transactions
‘‘nrimitive‘*

Meena

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