Argentina's Barter Network: New Currency for New Times?

Long before the current acute phase of the economic crisis in Argentina, the Global Barter Network, an initiative which began in the Buenos Aires suburb of Quilmes, was providing a life line to sections of the marginal population - the so called 'new poor' as well as the long term (structural) unemployed and marginalised sections of the population. Since the economic collapse of 2001 journalists and economists have widely reported the expansion of this operation as the severe restriction on money liquidity together with the depreciation of the peso and the fall in real wages has exerted a strong downward pressure on living standards. The New York Times reported that in May 2001 that 'an estimated 500,000 Argentines now barter regularly and up to one million - or almost 5 per cent of the economically active population do so occasionally. A May Day trueque mega-feria in the capital attracted 10,000 people in a single weekend' (Krauss 2001). By mid 2002 some journalists were claiming that up to 20% of the