Edgar Cahn and Paying it Forward

On Tuesday I went to a talk given by Edgar Cahn, a US civil rights activist who set up timebanking. He had some interesting things to say about the limits of (and the damage done by) our ability to value things being limited only to money and the money-system.

There's lots that's exciting about timebanking (personally, I'd love to see it go even further than asking if we can find new ways of valuing exchange, to see if we couldn't get beyond the idea of exchange altogether) but what struck me most in what Edgar Cahn said was the story of setting up a law centre for people involved in civil rights often without any money to access legal services. At the time, he was lecturing in law so didn't need to make any money out of this offer of legal services. So when he'd finished representing someone he sent them a bill - not in money but in time, and he asked the person he'd been representing to 'pay forward' the time they'd been given by volunteering in their local community. One of the interesting things about this embryonic form of timebanking (as distinct from traditional money or letts schemes) is the way it values everyone's time equally - an hour of Edgar Khan, legal professor's 'expert' time is equal to an hour of time spent doing the shopping for an elderly neighbour.

The idea really took off and when his legal department was facing cuts, 20,000 people who had benefited directly or indirectly from his services or who had paid forward their time, wrote and told the politicians that if they lost the funding they would never have their votes again. They've not struggled with funding ever since.

So, inspired by Edgar Cahn, we're going to try an experiment at Common Ground. Parties often tell us how much they've appreciated the time they've been offered by our volunteers and if there's any way they can repay the gift they feel they've been given. Our database keeps track of the time that goes into each case, so when we close a case, we're going to let parties know how many hours have gone into their case and invite them to 'pay forward' the time that they've been offered. Not everyone will take up the offer but we're going to start collecting the stories of those who do. Who knows where this could lead?

You can watch the talk Edgar Cahn gave here. Let me know what you think below.