In My Country, Underpants Trade for You

Russia has seen a small but noticable increase in larger-scale (i.e. companies and corprorations, not just individuals) bartering, due to a shortage of hard available currency.

"All this evokes a bit of déjà vu. In the mid-1990s, barter transactions in Russia accounted for an astonishing 50 percent of sales for midsize enterprises and 75 percent for large ones.

The practice kept businesses afloat for years but also allowed them to defer some fundamental changes needed to make them more competitive, like layoffs and price reductions. It also hurt tax revenues.

The comeback is on a small scale so far. The most recent statistics available, from November, showed that barter deals made up about 3 to 4 percent of total sales, according to the Russian Economic Barometer, an independent bulletin. Nevertheless, economists are taking note."

I am especially interested in the ways that the internet has widened the potential of bartering from a largely local or word-of-mouth dependent activity into a more widely accessible practice... i.e. the marriage of the oldest form of trade with the newest. I am also always curious as to how our modern concept of bartering would be forced to change if the internet were removed from the equation.

Under current economic conditions in most 1st world countries, bartering is just another incarnation of the second-hand economy, usually less preferable to sale of items for outright cash and sometimes seemingly an avenue of last resort to rid oneself of items that cannot be sold any other way. However, in a shortage of currency or lack of retail purchasing opportunity, I think bartering could quickly come to the forefront as a dominant force in local economies, especially when married to specialization and small-scale production/manufacturing, as a substitute for traditional retail markets.

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