As Tacoma’s collective cash flow dwindles, it seems appropriate that we begin to look elsewhere for ways to keep the economic gears grinding. Enter Barter Tacoma. Sparked by a small group of local professionals who recognize that cash isn’t the only foundation for exchange, the movement hopes to revive the age-old practice of trading goods and services directly.



I don’t know about you, but the way my cash flow situation is going, bartering is starting to look pretty damn good.



“Ask yourself what you want to do,” suggests local artist, designer and business owner Mark K. Johnson. “Seriously, stop right there and ask yourself.”



OK, I want to build a Web site. Shit. I don’t have enough money to pay someone to build me a Web site. For most people, not having enough money equals end of conversation.

But for people with professional skills, or some cool stuff to trade, bartering opens up a whole new world of possibilities, says Johnson.



If bartering sounds a little parochial for 21st-century capitalist America, consider that 400,000 International Reciprocal Trade Association member companies used modern bartering methods to earn an estimated $10 Billion dollars last year. That’s in excess of the billions these companies already made. Even within the context of our bloated, credit-and-cash-based system, bartering makes business better.



“Bartering can fit into any one of these to strengthen them,” says Johnson, referring to existing economic systems and their agents, such as business associations and networking groups.

“The act of bartering could function as a Band-Aid to the cracking financial infrastructure. When supply slows, when orders are held up, when employers experience the inability to pay, it is the lower-rung employees that suffer. But not if those same employees or small business owners recognize and harness their existing supply, their service power, or their stagnating stored goods, and re-introduce them to the system for trade.”



In Tacoma, the barter system starts at Mad Hat Tea Company, where Johnson and fellow founders Linda DeSantis Lapping and Maureen McHugh have created a bulletin board for folks to throw up their skills and offerings. It’s a simple beginning, but one that is likely to grow with the help of local volunteers and visionaries.



“It’s a grass roots, play if you want sort of thing,” says Lapping. “There’s no competition. If you want to give Wal-Mart your money then go right ahead. If you want to go trade with your friend you’re welcome to. No one is making a profit here.”



Not making a profit? Are you mad!?



“Currently the build-up of credit debt doesn’t serve us, it adds to the problem and the burden,” says Johnson. “A consumption-focused economy relies on a steady flow of money. That steady flow of money has slowed and stopped up in several ways over the past few years. This doesn’t need to cause a crisis state of mind. We can see our situation as an opportunity to branch into our community via direct trade. This plague of layoffs encourages individuals to walk away from the lifestyle that keeps us separate and distracted by virtual living through sit-com TV and junk brain food available at all times online. It encourages individuals to go find something real in their communities, by finding real relationship through conversation and through trade.”



For more information, go to bartertacoma.com.



[Mad Hat Tea Company, 1130 Commerce St., Tacoma, 253.441.2111]