Preparing For Inevitable Revolution, Penn Students Abandon Money and Reinvent the Barter System

The Daily Pennsylvanian reports on the Penn Timebank, a new bartering system that lets users exchange time for goods and services: “Penn Timebank will operate as an online network that allows students and faculty to exchange services with each other. The currency is time, and the exchange rate is an hour for an hour. For example, a user could receive one hour of tutoring from another user and then offer one hour of piano lessons to someone else. The goal is to create a real world network from the online portal, strengthening Penn’s community and creating bridges between groups of students and faculty who may not otherwise meet each other.”

Alternatively, one could work for an hour—and use the currency obtained from that labor-for-money transaction to they purchase, oh, an hour tutoring session or piano lessons. We’re just spitballin’ here.