Bartering hard in the Information Age

This was my weekly column from the Sunday, April 5, 2009 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this also aired as an essay on KAXE‘s “Between You and Me.”

Bartering hard in the Information Age
By Aaron J. Brown

Between 6,000 and 9,000 B.C. people started using livestock as a sort of living currency. It was like “one cow for a mocha cappuccino. Two cows for a double mocha.” (Or would it have been moo-cha?) Some of the earliest forms of written languages arose from the need to track the exchange of grains and animals. Of course, these transactions more closely resemble bartering than they do our modern economy. Cows don’t generate compound interest. They do, however, generate compost interest … and a 10 percent return is not unrealistic. Just ask Bernie Moo-dof.

What? Too soon?

Cow puns aside, bartering has been part of the human experience for a long time. The early days of the United States saw plenty of bartering, especially in rural areas where money was short and corn was high. Bartering later became common among the very poor or as a convenience for skilled craftspeople and farmers. Today, even corporations barter. In northern Minnesota, the harvesting of timber and other wood products in exchange for food or other services is a time honored tradition. My family has been bartering as long as I can remember, usually over car or motorcycle parts. Last Christmas, I was handed a beer and told it was part of an elaborate exchange involving a family-owned snowplow and the parking lot of a local liquor store.

But as much as we might be used to bartering in northern Minnesota, the whole practice is getting a fresh look amid our economic downturn SLASH crisis SLASH apocalypse. See, modern people have seen lots of movies that tell a story about something called “The Great Depression.” A few have read “Grapes of Wrath” and occasionally some old timer will wander by to explain that all that really happened. So we have a sense that when things tighten up we’ll need to revert back to that way of life, not AS IT WAS but rather how we IMAGINE it WOULD HAVE been. And then eventually Daddy Warbucks will adopt us.

So many are now reviving an idealized view of bartering during hard times. After all, bartering works great if you have a specific and highly valuable skill or if you produce craftwork or useable goods. But that’s just the problem. Indeed our economic situation might be connected. Most modern people have vague, useless skills and produce nothing necessary to human survival.

What is a guy like me going to barter? I don’t even have a snowplow, so how am I going to get my beer if things get worse? (To liquor store owner) “Hey, mister. I’ll write you a press release for a bottle of Canadian whiskey. Throw in a case of Schmidt’s and I’ll rough out a whole marketing plan.” If things get worse liquor stores won’t need marketing plans. They’ll need gun turrets and 12-foot barbed wire fences. People will congregate in Hoovervilles on the edge of town where the sounds of a mournful woman will be heard:

“My baby needs milk. Does anyone need a clever Facebook status update? I used to be the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Facebook group administrator. Please, God, help me.”

I picture myself being accosted by a hard-edged country sheriff:

“Hey, boy, you got any useful skills before I letcha’ into our town?”

I can cover city council meetings, I’ll say. I can write a 25-word lede in active voice.

(Sheriff scoffs). “Shoot, boy. We got 50 of your kind in the county jail. You best just move along.”

It’s a grim vision. Let’s hope for the best.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him or read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com. His book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” is out now.

Speak Your Mind

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.