> Ms Two is a member of a SEL - systeme d'echange local. The services
she
> offers to the SEL are: English lessons, babysitting, tofu-making,
organic
> vegetable growing, housework, storing furniture and finding a home
for a
> mechanical lawnmower. In return for repairing her leaking roof by
> Robert Evans and John MacCullough at a cost estimated by the
prosecution
> at 3,200 pounds sterling, Ms Two provided to tofu for Robert's
daughter.
The interesting question is:
- is it an attempt of the state to create a backlash on "grey economies"
which then would deserve the highest attention and resistance of
social innovators
or
- is it a private dispute about the value-assignment of
LETS-arrangements
which sometimes really raises the question of feasibility.
Who filed the charge? Was it on a private base, or was it from
public prosecution? Or was it the federation of builders, but on behalf
or against the participants in the LETS process?
It is evident that with the increasing social importance of LETS
these cases have to happen. Unfortunately, either LETS will be included
in commodity economy legislation or it has to create a completely
new system of social values which have not even been explored yet.
Franz Nahrada, GIVE (Globally Integrated Village Environment)
