Ithaca NY (fwd)

[William.Butos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

TO: pk'ers.  Would you kindly take a few minutes to read the message I
sent out over the Austrian discussion board.  Does anyone on PK board
know of this?  Thanks.  Bill Butos

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 19:36:19 -0500 (EST)
From: William Butos <butos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: AustrianECON@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Ithaca NY



Has anyone heard about a newly emerging system of barter (?) or
quasi-money (?) in Ithaca NY?  A psych colleague told me about some sort
of exchange system some guy started in Ithaca.  The story, I am told, was
reported in the print media a few weeks ago (maybe in the NY Times).  The
story seems to go something like this (what follows is extremely sketchy,
reflecting a conversation on the fly with a Gibbsonian psychologist):

	individuals are issued a quantity of scrip (?) from the organizer
in proportion to a specific quantity of labor of a particular kind (say,
carpentry) that entitles the holder of this note a claim to that quantity
of labor.  My friend seemed to suggest that these notes were then being
exchanged for each other at some clearinghouse.

I realize my description is very sketchy.  Does anyone have any specifics
on this?  At first blush, it looks like a way unemployed can kind of
solve their Clower-type constraints.

Bill Butos