Skills swapping etc can work well on a small scale I know, and I think it's a very interesting idea, but in *reality* that's as far as it can be used.
Quite. No banks and no money means "exchange" is reduced to a trickle - OK in a peasant culture thousands of years ago but there's too many of us need feeding and sustaining these days.
The point about how would you barter for a medical operation is good. Money is the only way either of pricing things or of having appealing stuff to exchange. Your bag of carrots appeals only to the carrot-challenged, my fiver will buy me anything from anyone.
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