April 1979 RAIN Page 5 offer. Compare prices and condition, and play from there. Yes. haggling takes a little time, but it's a cheap and worthwhile education. It leads to respect for the other person, how much they know, and how well they can size you up. It is probably the only practical way to deal with the trading of unique or used goods, and a source of fun and satisfaction that cannot be gotten from buying fixed-price new merchandise. When fewer and fewer of us can afford "new," it's a rewarding, cash-and resource-effective way to trade, and truly part of an economics where people do matter. Helping Out As much as haggling is the most common people-process for determining price for goods in a particular situation, helping out is one of the most time honored ways of dealing with services in economies that are localized enough that people know each other and are around long enough to reciprocate. It recognizes the truth of the word "obligation"-that you really owe something back to someone who has helped you that isn't erased by a mumbled "much obliged" and a round of drinks. Looking back, I'm amazed at how much of our lives, even in middle America, never went through the money-changers but was part of a great process of helping back and forth. Many of our vacations while growing up were to visit our relatives living in various places. One uncle was conveniently in the Army, which moved him and his family to new and exotic places like Kansas and Georgia and Virginia every two years so we had new places to visit! While another of my aunts was sick, my cousin came and lived with us for several months. Around home, of course, money rarely changed hands for work done, so probably two-thirds of the work done by our family as a whole- like almost every family-never saw a dollar accounting. With the neighbors, lawnmowers were borrowed, hair was cut, houses and pets taken care of during vacations, rides into town given and taken, and babysitting done. Our neglected grape arbor came under the wing of a neighbor lady who took the grapes every year and gave us grape juiee and grape jam in return. Over the last few years our lives have even more interwoven with others in an interlocking web of obligations and giving, sharing, borrowing and being given, and our lives have become much richer in the process. Lane's younger brother and sisters have all come and spent time living with us-helping put out the magazine, building and rebuilding a house, haring each other's lives and getting to know each other again as "big people." We've gained a lot, and hope they have too. We've passed on to others our newly acquired skills of pouring concrete, doing electrical wiring and building windows, and we've received- not necessarily from the same people-baths and dinners and used water heaters and sinks and tools and hclp felling storm-damaged trees. All that saves money, yes- quite a lot of it once you figure in rhe taxes you have to pay on the money you would have had ~o earn to pay someone to do those things, the middleman profits you've eliminated, and the better results you've gotten doing thing exactly for your needs. But does all this playing ar und add up to any significant impact on our economy? How docs it deal with gasoline, rent, buying a new car, or taxes? Often it can't-which merely says that part of your life is still in the dollar economy, and you may wish to leave it there. Gasoline? Probably little help unless you know a friendly farmer. But maybe you can carpool or share rides with someone. Rent? Sometimes you can trade fix-up or maintenance work for a rent reduction, but the big help of helping out is to help you build your way out of the rental market. A new car? Wrong market again. A used car, yes. Repair and maintenance, surely. Taxes? The more you move out of the dollar economy, the less you have to earn and to pay taxes on! In our own case, I would estimate that we've reduced our cash needs by more than half over the last few years, and should cut them in half again in the next couple of years. But dollar savings aren't the most important reward. It's often a lot easier to do things with four hands instead of two. It's usually more fun helping someone do something, where you don't have the responsibility and can just do the doing and not the worrying and figuring. It's fun to be in on felling trees, building walls, making things happen. It's fun growing new skills, learning how things are done, and what things actually are worth in sweat time, money time, and work time. And not having any skills to offer is not a problem for long. Two willing hands and a little sweat helping someone who knows how is the quickest and easiest way to learn skills. _ Many current attempts at structured barter arrangements, barter "banks" or trading clubs fail to recognize that one of the real benefits of "helping each other out" is that when it operates among friends or neighbors, it doesn't need any immediate return of a favor or any kind of accounting procedure other than that little flag in the back of your head that finally says, "Hey, I've helped him a lot, and he hasn't done anything in return. Let him fix his own roof!" If accounting is needed, money works better than most barter banks- that's what it was designed for! Helping out works partly because it's all between friends, or you become friends in the process, but also because each person views the helping out very differently. The helper probably wanted an excuse to get out of the house anyway, probably had fun helping, and probably had forgotten how desperately floundering it felt before when he or she needed that particular help themselves. The "helpees," on the other hand, think they've been given a lot more than they have, because they needed the help, probably didn't know how easy it was to learn or perform the assistance they were given, and probably believed the helpers knew what they were doing! That difference in perceptions is an important social glue. Over a period of time and helping back and forth, it frequently ends up with everyone feeling they've gotten back a whole lot more than they've given themselves. [ have that feeling of gratitude and thanks towards many of our neighbors and friends, and have discovered that many feel the same illl reverse. The used water heater we were given meant another trip to the dump for our neighbor, but to us it was the equivalent of $100 and the heart of a future solar water system. And so it goes. In any case, most helping out is just that. It rarely is tied to getting something back, though eventually things come full circle through the oddest of routes. One of the great benefits of economics where people do matter is that they force you to get to know people and get to understand people. You have to learn that George won't ever turn down your request for help, though his back is killing him this week and you shouldn't ask him. Or that Ali!;e has a wealth of skills for cutting bureaucratic red tape. And that Sam is always dependable in a pinch. And somewhere along the line you begin to learn the true costs-both economic and social-of an economics where people don't matter. ,
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