| ARGENTINA |
| 14th May 2001 - Practices in Argentina www.redlases.org.ar http://visitweb.com/trueque www.truequeclub.com Meeting with Mr Pablo Perez, journalist at the magazine El Trueque, Ms Heloisa Primavera, director of the publication - El Trueque, Buenos Aires The first bartering Club El Trueque was created in Bernal, in the Buenos Aires province on the 1st May 1995. It is called PAR (Programa de Autosufiencia Regional) and its founders are Carlos de Sanza, ruben Ravera and Horacio Covase. Following this example other clubs have been created in other Argentinian regions and El Trueque became Red Global de Trueque. Each club is called a Nodo and its members prosumidores - producers/consumers. The aim of the clubs is to exchange products, services and knowledges during trading fairs. Theses fairs occur once or several times a week, sometimes 2 hours each day or even all day long. El Trueque goes beyond these exchanges by enabling the training of its new members, training to the coordination of a club, to personal and entrepreneurial development, coordinators monthly meetings, meeting of clubs sharing the same currency. Each club is autonomous, free to decide wether it needs a currency or not (exchanges can occur withour currency) but must agree to respect the 12 principles of the network. If a club creates its own currency, it might agree to accept a currency of another club as some of its members might use several clubs. In some nodos, there is a fee to get the currency (2 pesos - 2 US$). In this case the interregional meetings are needed to present the accounts of the club. In some clubs, the PAR for example, too many creditos (the currency) have been created. Consequently some inflation appears as well as a distrust in its currency. This has not affected the other clubs thanks to their autonomy. In 2001, there is one to two millions of members (the argentinian population is 36 millions) and about a 1000 clubs, mainly in Buenos Aires and the west of the country. Its difficult to know the exact number of clubs as there is no national association to register them. However according to Heloisa and Pablo, the members of clubs have dobled over the past year and a half and the growth rate should increase in the next years. In fact Argentina is currently in such an economic crisis that the middle class is reducing rapidly. Thus, in some neighborhoods, the unemployment rate is about 50% and the clubs are the only way for some people to survive. 90% of the people enter the clubs by necessecity, the remaining 10% by political choice aginst capitalism. Some clubs are very informal : they are groups of neighbors, often without coordinataors, in very poor areas. Some others on the contrary, are more formal, with a paper currency, offices, employees, a training center... However for Heloisa, they are all an alternative to reduce the crisis effects. That's why the government has signed an agreement with a club and admit the official existence of El Trueque. Despite this growth and this recognition, El Trueque faces currently a crisis. It is divided in two trends : one formal and more bureaucratic, the Bartering Global Network (RGT), leads by one of the founders which aims to be global and centralized and the Social Bartering Network (RTS) which wants to stay local. What is at stake for Heloisa is how to keep the same leval of trust with so many currencies in the clubs. Heloisa also took part in the implementation of other bartering systems in latin america. She is confident in this system and thinks it is time to question the traditional currencies that, instead of facilitating exchanges, create inproductive savings and thus a lack of economic and social links. as for Pablo he practices this way of thinking in his everyday life : in his household his wife keeps on earning her wages in pesos but he earns only creditos by working as a journalist in El Trueque and exchanging his creditos for food, clothes, recors, books... for his family. The same day thanks to Pablo, we met two clubs in the poor subburbs of Buenos Aires : - Inpacto : its coordinator, Geoge O Amabile, tells us that the club is so important in this neighborhood that the city council has agreed that the local tax be paid in creditos. - El Encuentro : his coordinator is Albertor Molina. The club has got 250 members and has been operating for 2 months. Thanks to this club, a mall in bankruptcy has been reopened as well as a swimming pool, a sports ground, a cafe... In these places creditos are accepted and this helped regenrating the neighborhood. |