What was the Deal for the Participants of the Argentine Local Currency Systems, the Redes de Trueque?

Abstract

Local complementary currency systems (LCCSs), like the Local Exchange Trading System scheme in the English-speaking world, are one of the alternative economies organised to overcome the exclusionary aspects of the regular market economy and support those short of money. I analyse the benefits for the poor and unemployed of the Argentine variant, called Clubes de Trueque. I conclude that the Clubes de Trueque were a meeting point of social strata and gender groups. They became a market space “for us, women”, rather than a second-class market “for us, the poor”. In economic terms they facilitated the access to goods and services for the disenfranchised middle class and the unemployed, but did not correct the exclusionary mechanisms that affect the poorest of the poor. These findings suggest that LCCSs can help some low-income groups to protect and improve their lifestyles but are not a general tool for poverty reduction.