Summary time banking for social reform

Reviewer's Comments

Cahn, Edgar S. (2004). No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative. Essential Books: Washington, D.C. 226 pages. $13.95 paperback.

Reviewed for THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER by Adam Alleman, BSW.

In No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative, Edgar Cahn describes a tool for both community building and reforming social service systems. It is called “Time Banking.” Co-production refers to clients as co-producers in helping achieve the agency mission. Time banking allows clients to give back to the agency rather than always “consuming” services without reciprocating.

In the book, Cahn details the four core values that underlie time banking. (1) Everyone is an asset. (2) Redefining work allows people to utilize more skills and values civic engagement and community building. (3) Reciprocity: “you need me,” becomes, “we need each other.” (4) Social capital: “no one is an island.”

Having a community to depend on strengthens us as individuals. Competent social workers already value everyone as an asset. The challenge becomes getting the rest of society to value the contributions made by all. By creating a new accounting system, everyone has a chance to participate. “The real wealth of this society is its people. Every human being can be a builder and contributor,” Cahn writes.

Cahn believes we are currently functioning under a bizarre definition of work, “If it earns money, it is work. If it doesn’t earn money, it isn’t work.” Cahn labels two economies, the market economy and the non-market economy, or what he calls the “core economy.” The market economy “works on principles of contract, specialization, and agreement.” The core economy, often overlooked, includes extended family, neighbors, and community. The market economy currently excludes many people, who find themselves redundant. Time banking gives value to the core economy, and thus builds on the strengths of the community.

Reciprocity can be a valuable concept in the social services arena. I work at a food bank and have turned the recipients into “paying” customers. This empowers clients, and the “fee” turns into helping a neighbor or volunteering in the community. Their gift of helping a neighbor is then turned into helping another neighbor, thus allowing one gift of helping to carry through a community and become a crescendo of caring.

Most social service systems are set up as one-way exchanges, with professionals keeping their distance. Time banking and reciprocity makes this relationship one of mutual respect.

Social capital is “informal support systems, extended families, and social networks.” This is what makes one lower socioeconomic community low in crime and another, with a lack of social capital, a crime scene waiting to happen. So how in this world of crumbling infrastructure can we produce social capital? Clearly, the market economy is not the place to turn. Cahn makes the strong case that the market economy strip-mines our social capital. Time banking can give us back our humanity.

No More Throw-Away People should be required reading for all social workers. Time banking gives social workers a tool to strengthen and reform their agency and create a strong fabric within their communities. Social workers should already be striving for this in their practice; Time Banking gives them another means to achieve these goals.

Reviewed by Adam Alleman, BSW, a 2004 graduate of Metropolitan State College in Denver, CO. Adam runs the North West Denver Time Bank on a small grant. The Time Bank primarily serves clients from the Ellen L. Torres Bienvenidos Food Bank and is slowly growing to include members throughout the community.

This review appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER, Vol. 12, No. 2, page 26.