Transacting services through time banking: renegotiating equality and reshaping work

Time banking was popularized by Edgar Cahn in the 1980s in the United States and has been practised around the world in different forms, with differing levels of uptake, state recognition and support. A key value underlying most time bank exchanges is that everyone’s labour is valued equally, and that human communities flourish best through interdependence and reciprocity. This chapter reviews research on time banks to highlight how time banking differs from price determined market transactions, and the ethical questions time bankers negotiate. While time banking does not provide the single solution to all of the injustices created through waged work, it does provide an alternative transaction logic premised on a more equal way of exchanging labour. This equality is significant in helping people to reduce their reliance on waged work and money, while building trust in, and attachments to, other forms of transaction.