USING FAVORS IN LIEU OF MONEY Paul Shockley, 1979  Rules Of The Game Supposing a depression were upon us, and we could not get any work anywhere because no employer could sell his goods since everyone was out of work and had no money to buy with. In the last depression, the government, under President Roosevelt had farmers plow under their crops, and slaughter their animals so the price of agricultural produce would rise from the shortage. Meanwhile, there were thousands of men, women and children who went hungry and in some cases actually starved to death, or died from weakened physical conditions and disease. If you can figure out the logic of that "expert" wisdom you are better than I. PREMISE No. 1 It would have seemed much more reasonable to me for the farmer to have let some of the starving people have some of his produce in exchange for services or other goods which they might contribute to him. This is what doing favors for each other is all about. RULE No. 1 The less money available, the more valuable becomes the exchange of favors. PREMISE No. 2 Often, people are afraid to do favors, or limit the number of favors they do for others because they do not get a fair return for the energy they spend, or they are afraid they will not get a fair return and therefore never do favors at all. Yet if there were a way to co-ordinate the favors people do for each other so that everyone knew exactly how much energy he or she had put out and how much was owed in return, there would be more interest in doing favors for one another. It is a natural desire for people to like a balance in energies expended and received; otherwise people feel `ripped off' or if they have received too much, they feel `guilty', and attempt to avoid the person who they feel they `ripped off'. RULE No. 2 It is important to keep track of the favors which have been exchanged.   PREMISE No. 3 There are different ways that favors can be granted. A gift is a favor, whether it is a gift of time, energy, advice, goods, property, service, or information. But it is only a favor if it is wanted by the one who receives it. Likewise, a loan can be a favor. Also sharing of property, space, or other energies can be a favor to one who desires them. Likewise the exchange of skills, transferring of products, trades of goods, time or other valuables can be expressed as favors if both parties agree that the other gave them a favor. An unwanted gift, advice or service is not a favor. RULE No. 3 A favor must be something the Grantee (receiver) really desires from the Grantor (the giver of the favor. A Grantor cannot call it a favor unless the Grantee wants it. PREMISE No. 4 People can ask for favors, offer favors, and give conditions under which they will give or receive favors. Nothing prevents people from negotiating favors they have to give, or of presenting contracts and agreements to record those negotiations. RULE No. 4 Favors can be negotiated and placed on record or recorded as contracts between people who want to do favors for one another.   PREMISE No. 5 People can owe favors to each other. How many times have you heard it said, "You owe me a favor, remember?" This means that you do not have to have your favor returned immediately if you do not need it. Also you may wish to save up favors "owed" to you and use them all at once for something more important, something big later on. In other words, favors can be stored and saved, particularly when records are kept so that people do not forget who owes who. RULE No. 5 Favors can be stored, saved, credited, and owed; records can be kept. PREMISE No. 6 The value of a talent, skill, product, item, property, loan, service, or other favor may not be fully appreciated by the receiver of the favor, or the grantor of the favor may overestimate the value of his or her skill, talent, product or service and feel that the receiver does not value it enough, when in fact the receiver may actually be quite fair in his or her appraisal of the favor's value. It becomes necessary for agreement between parties, to agree upon the value of favors given and received. RULE No. 6 It is possible for people to agree upon the value of a favor; it is NECESSARY if a harmonious exchange is to occur, that each agrees on that value. PREMISE No. 7 In order to have a way of placing a value on a favor that can be universally used, it is necessary to have a common denominator or unit of value that can be used by the parties to measure the value of the favor next to. It could be anything, an ounce of gold, a pound of grain, an hour's service, a gallon of gas--anything could be used as a unit of value to measure a favor by. We could say a favor is worth a shave and a haircut, or a quart of honey, or even a new car. But the best unit is one that is commonly known, can be used easily in estimating values of various things. How many people can estimate how many quarts of honey would be equal to the favors it would take to trade for a new car? It becomes complex because our minds are not into thinking in terms of quarts of honey. Or how many pounds of grain is your talent or skill worth per hour of service? To make it convenient and to fit into the ways we have been trained to think when evaluating goods, services, etc. you may consider one dollar's worth of energy, service, skill, product, talent, property, loan, or advice as being worth one unit of favor. Or in another sense, ten dollars' worth of service would be valued at ten favors owed or received. RULE No. 7 Favors can have any value so long as all agree on the value. A favor can be worth a dollar's worth of service, energy, product, property, skill, or information, if all parties involved agree on such a value base. PREMISE No. 8 It is important to realize that favors are not dollars. Favors are simply what they are, favors done for one another. Favors can be used even when there is no money within a thousand miles of the persons doing the favors. If you were on a deserted island you could still do favors even if you were penniless. You can do yourself a favor even when you have no money at all; favors are favors, dollars are dollars; keep them apart for what they are. Each is different, to be used for different purposes, in different places. RULE No. 8 Favors, like candles, watermelons, socks, or pencils can be worth a dollar, but that does not mean they are dollars. Favors are not money, they are simply favors, but can be used in lieu of money to help each other exchange energies and goods in a harmonious manner.   PREMISE No. 9 In order to make things efficient, so that you may have the broadest possible use of needed skills, talents, goods, properties, and services available from others, it is important that a listing of these be kept and made available to each person involved so that people may ask favors of those who can actually grant the favors needed. Likewise, it is important to be able to list the talents, skills, goods, services or properties you have to offer to others in order that they might be able to ask you for favors which they need. RULE No. 9 Favors may be offered or requested in publications, newsletters, magazines, or newspapers which members of a group may sponsor for such communication purposes. The telephone, bulletin boards, CB Radios, or any form of communication may be used to announce the requested and offered favors.   PREMISE No. 10 It is not necessary that each person keep track of his or her own favors owed or those owed to him, for it is possible that one may have someone else do this work; it is also possible that the person selected to take care of the records of those who are exchanging favors, may handle the records of a large number of people, and may ask for assistance when the number requires it. Thus a group of people may be involved in keeping track of a larger group of people's favor agreements. For such service, that group needs compensation and may, by negotiating between the parties involved, determine the proper type and amount of compensation that satisfies all concerned. RULE No. 10 A switchboard may be set up to keep track of the records and transactions of the group of people who are doing each other favors. Those keeping track of the records may be hired, elected, or self-appointed for that action, if all involved are in agreement with the situation. Those who disagree with the system may start another action, work to revise the present action, or take some other action. PREMISE No. 11 Rather than carrying goods around to offer as favors, one can write down the favor transfer and give instructions to the recipient of the favor, so that he or she can go and retrieve the favor at their own convenience, or so that they can deliver it if that is the agreement. The written document expressing the transfer of the favor can be made so that each party receives a copy and a copy is sent to the switchboard for its files and be used by them for transferring favors from one record to another as is required by the transaction. RULE No. 11 Favor Agreements may be presented in triplicate to allow all parties involved to have copies of the transaction of the exchange of favors, or to record the favors owed in the appropriate records at the switchboard or service center which keeps track of the records of the members of the group. PREMISE No. 12 While money is still in circulation and needed for certain purchases and expenses, compensation in terms of money may be necessary in some cases to pay for services and products that are required by the Service Center, or headquarters for the services, in order to pay for printing costs of records, telephones, buildings, travel, office equipment and other expenses which cannot be granted by people energizing favors. The office can, however, also exchange favors with the community members if and when that is appropriate, necessary, and beneficial. RULE No. 12 The office, service center, or switchboard, whatever it is called, must have the means whereby it can function and serve the people of the "Community", and must therefore have some compensation for its services. This compensation may be of a particular type dictated by necessity rather than idealism. Each situation may be of a particular nature, and may require flexibility and change with changing times.   PREMISE No. 13 The more people there are involved in a favor exchange action, the more talent, skills, goods, services, and properties there will be for members to select from. Therefore, it is good to have an incentive for new participants to join in, and the capacity to expand as is needed. It is also possible for centers in close proximity to each other, to honor each other's people so that all people can have access to the favors available through other centers besides their own. RULE No. 13 A center to be effective and serviceable, needs to grow to a large number of participants so that more and more talents, skills, products, properties, goods, services, and favors are available to the individuals participating. This brings variety, quantity, and quality to choose from.   SUMMARIZING THE RULES From the above, one can see that it is not necessary to buy or sell, if money is taken away, if bartering is outlawed, if it becomes illegal to trade, you can still get by through doing favors for one another. It will be pretty difficult to make it illegal to do favors for friends, or to tax people for favors received. Yet one can do almost as much with favors as with money or barter. The following pages will show you how, by setting up a Favors Exchange And Services Transfer' (FEAST) Center, you can give and receive favors so easily that you'll wonder why it has never been done before; and you'll feel good about all the friends you meet and with whom you share skills, talents, products, properties and other favors. THE KINSHIP'S FEAST Imagine yourself and others in your area having access to a system whereby you could use and share recreational facilities, tools, houses, motels, vehicles, electronic equipment, books, recreational equipment, auto repair shops, cooking or canning shops, sewing centers, an upholstery shop, storage rooms, heavy equipment, health centers, or other facilities and equipment. Imagine having access to a bakery, farm produce shop, barber or hair styling shop, beauty shop, your own garden space. Image also that you could have access to legal services, personal services, health services, schooling services, counseling services, printing services, repair services, construction services, cleaning services, restaurant services, child care services, transportation services, real estate services and dozens of other services in such fields of interest as: music, research, computers, bookkeeping, typing, writing, entertainment, massage, catering, housekeeping, hauling, yard work, landscaping, clothes making, packaging, manufacturing, gardening, mechanics, and so forth, including just about everything you could expect to find in the yellow pages of your phone book. Imagine having the time and encouragement to do all the things you'd really like to do for other people, the way you'd like to do them. Does all this sound too far-fetched to be real? Now imagine being able to receive from others in your area all types of goods, items, gadgets, properties, food, equipment, clothes etc., such as an electric typewriter, file cabinet, a rug, a dining set, jewelry, a set of china, art, a movie camera, a good stereo set, tools, an automobile, records and tapes, remodeling supplies, home furnishings and just about anything you'd find in a major shopping center. Imagine exchanging some unwanted items or giving some special service to someone to exchange for a trip to another state, or perhaps you'd rather give someone a ride to another state in exchange for their skill or some badly needed item. Imagine getting your auto repaired just for the cost of parts and an exchange of favors between yourself and the mechanic. If you can imagine the above, you have glimpsed the potential value offered to you and your community by The Kinship's Favors Exchange And Service Transfer (FEAST) system.   HOW THE KINSHIP'S FEAST WORKS The Balance of Energies There is an old saying: "One man's junk is another man's treasure." The same can be said for skills, talents, information, advice, items, produce, properties, and other things. One person does a favor for another by receiving a favor from them. One person is happy to get rid of excess energy and another is happy to receive it. One has too much, the other too little. They are perfect candidates for balancing the energies of each other. By "energies" we can mean anything from a skill, thing, or property to a product or even an animal. Everything in the universe is an energy of some type. And these energies are in constant flux and change. One area has too much energy, another too little. A vacuum is created in one area, a pressure in another; then a change in balance must come. One person may have an excess of the very thing another needs. While some people are starving, farmers' crops may be rotting. These energies can balance naturally if left alone, but people do not trust nature and instead try to control the energies. Often the control is worse than the chaos of nature, or should we say, the balance of nature. For example, I went to a farmer this year to buy a sack of tomatoes from his four acre field. They were mostly rotten, with possibly 10% of them still alright. It was obvious that another day or two would see the end of his tomato patch. Also, because he lived away from any main roads and did no advertising, it was quite obvious that I was probably the last customer for the year. Yet while I stooped, picking a sack of tomatoes, he stood with a .22 rifle shooting at birds who came close to his garden. He had shot one beautiful Blue jay already--the first Blue jay I have seen in years; I didn't know there were any in this area until I saw that dead beauty. Well, anyway he may have saved the life of a rotten tomato for a few days longer, and perhaps some mosquitoes and flies. Now, it seems to take a real concern and sensitivity to "balance", if people are going to take over from natural laws. The exchange of energies cannot be conducted carelessly if we want to avoid explosions, accidents, violence, imprisonment or destruction. This is true on all levels: emotional, physical, or spiritual. It is also true in relationships. When a favor is done for another, a careful balance of energies can help keep the relationship in balanced harmony. Such a balance can only be maintained by clear communication and mutual agreement between the parties. With this in mind, let us consider the following system which we call the `Kinship's FEAST' whereby people may exchange goods, produce, skills, properties, services, talents, advice, items and other energies as favors to one another.   THE KINSHIP'S FEAST PROCESS OF EXCHANGE Suppose you are just being introduced to the Kinship's FEAST and want to get involved. Here is what you do: 1. Fill out the APPLICATION FOR INVOLVEMENT card as indicated. (This will be supplied by your local FEAST Center) and mail it to the address given. 2. Your local FEAST Center will open a record's file for you to keep track of your favor exchanges and the favors owed to you. 3. It will give you Favor Exchange Pledge Slips (FEPS), which will let you record your favor exchanges. These FEPS will be used to help you keep track of the favors owed to you and those owed by you to others. They will also help you to store up favors in case you need a "really big favor" from someone later. 4. A periodical (newsletter, newspaper, magazine duplicated, mimeographed, or printed) or other means of communication (radio, CB radio , telephone, bulletin board, etc.) will let you know what items, goods, produce, properties, services, skills, talents, advice, information, or other energies are available from and needed by participants. You will be able to express your needs and what you have to offer others in this communication. 5. Besides the periodical or other communication system which lists needs and avaiIabilities, your FEAST Center may help locate that which you need by using a staff of assistants or a computer to match favor requests and presentations. This service will depend on the assets of the Center. 6. You will be given information necessary to locate and communicate with the person having the goods, service or whatever favor you need, so exchanges may occur if you desire. When you are ready to make the favor exchange you, the grantee (the one receiving the favor, service, product or property), will simply fill out the FEP(Favor Exchange Pledge) which is in triplicate copies. You will keep for your records the third copy, giving the original and second copy to the Grantor ( the one who granted the favor, service, product or property) who will keep the second copy and send the original to the FEAST Center which transfers the favors you owe from your records to the records of the grantor. Along with the original and second copies, you give to the grantor a percentage (probably about 10%) in cash money as a service fee to the FEAST Center to help pay its general expenses, (utilities, rent, supplies, administrative costs, transportation, shipping, mail, telephone, etc.) so that it can continue its service. 7. EXAMPLE: You and Mr. Johnson both agree that the work he can do on your automobile is worth F30.00 (Thirty Standard Unit Favors) and that the parts needed will be paid to him in cash. When the job is complete, you pay him for the parts, then sign a FEP for F30.00. You then add $3.00 (10% of FEP amount) and give him the $3.00 and first and second copies of the FEP. The car is fixed and you may take it away. Mr. Johnson now takes the $3.00 and your original FEP for F30.00 and mails or takes this to the FEAST Center. The FEAST Center keeps the $3.00 for its needs and transfers F30.00 (Thirty Standard Unit Favors) from your records to Mr. Johnson's records. Mr. Johnson now has F30.00 (Thirty Standard Unit Favors) owed to him, which anyone participating in the action can grant him, at whatever time and in whatever way he wants to use them. In addition to the $3.00 which the FEAST Center received from this favors transfer, the FEAST Center is allowed to create in its FAVOR POOL three favors: F3.00 (10% of F30.00) Favors in the FAVOR POOL are used for the projects of the Center or for community projects. This also allows community people to exchange energies or favors with the FEAST Center to help create tool shops, gardens, recreational areas, health centers, produce exchange centers, clothing exchange centers, and other projects and activities mentioned previously. These are for public use or loan, but under FEAST Center guidelines.   GETTING AFFILIATED WITH A FEAST CENTER SWITCHBOARD A FAVORS EXCHANGE AND SERVICE TRANSFER Center can easily be started, but is most effective in areas where people have access to mail, telephone or to the Center itself. Rural Centers will be somewhat different from urban Centers. If these centers are all coordinated properly they can honor each other's favors and the participants can have access to any center in the area. For this reason, and to keep communication lines open on all levels, we are using The Universal Service Exchange System (USES) as a coordinating body to assist in the inter-relationship between centers, to answer questions that may arise, and to co-ordinate necessary information between centers. A newsletter to the centers will allow information to be shared and exchanged between them and also will allow other news to be presented that may be of interest to the centers. HOW TO BEGIN YOUR FEAST CENTER STEP 1. Gather some friends who you feel would be interested and dedicated to starting a FEAST Center. You need one or more honest persons who have a good sense of business. You need someone who likes to keep books and has a good sense of basic mathematics. You need someone who can answer telephones, communicate with the public (public relations) and someone who wants to work on the listing of goods and services. You need a typist. More people may be added as necessary but these will give you a good start. (One person could do all of this in a small center, and even from a small room if necessary, but that would entail serving a small group, which would limit the quality and quantity of favors available.) STEP 2. By pooling money, time and other energies, try to acquire for your operation the following: A. A place large enough for the staff desks and files, near the area of service. B. File cards, and/or a small computer to keep records of members and of transfers, goods, items, services, skills, properties, and products that are available from, or are needed by, participants. It is not necessary to start out with a computer, but may be helpful as the Center grows larger. C. Telephone(s) for calls to and from participants. ll. Printing or mimeograph facilities, or a copy or print shop that is not too expensive for printing your periodical listings of the favors needed or available from participants. E. Other needs may arise later as your Center grows. STEP 3. Keep track of all money used to pay for the time, travel expenses, mail and telephone communications, rentals, utilities, telephone installations and rates, office supplies etc. and whose money was used. The money you pool for setting up a FEAST Center should be considered as a loan to be returned by the FEAST Center from future income or other means, so long as the agreement is clearly written ahead of time so the parties involved fully understand the terms of the loan. Actually little money is needed to start a FEAST Center, therefore a small loan should be sufficient if even necessary. STEP 4. Send request to CAC, PO Box 115, Olympia, WA 98507 They will send you a package of materials, information, supplies and instructions for starting and operating and maintaining your FEAST Center, and an outline or framework to set your Center up legally. This will include rules and other documents to help minimize any legal work you might otherwise need. STEP 5. Send names, birthdates, phone numbers and addresses of the principle parties planning to organize the FEAST Center. AIso send the name and address of your principle officer or agent to which you want us to mail the packet. (Monies received by U.S.E.S. will be used to inform the public and to perpetuate FEAST Centers)