Bartering returns to Argentina

18th August 2009

Simon Harding

Amid rising unemployment and accelerating inflation, an increasing number of poor Argentines are abandoning cash altogether and joining bartering clubs. Around 100 bartering clubs are currently operating across the country, providing food, clothing and household goods to those hardest hit by the effects of the global economic slowdown on the Argentine economy. ‘In reality, in these past two months, there’s been a big increase’, said Juan Maccarone, President of the La Matanza Barter Club in the capital, ‘For example we now have 400 people every Saturday when we used to have 300. People are travelling here from other neighbourhoods so that they can barter’.

Club members bring items to weekly meetings and swap them for whatever goods are being offered by other members. Everything from clothing, home growth vegetables, fruit and household staples like flour and sugar are exchanged, but only once a fair swap has been agreed by both parties.  ‘I come here because I don’t have a job,’ said Nelly Vasequez, a Buenos Aires resident, swapping shoes and wool for pasta and rice, ‘and it's the only way for me to survive and get the things I need’.

Bartering clubs can now be found across Uruguay, Colombia and Venezuela. But the idea is not a uniquely Latin American phenomenon: several clubs have recently been set up in Spain, as the downturn makes life harder for workers in developed nations.

The first clubs were set up in Argentina during the 1999-2002 economic crisis, which saw the county’s economy decimated. With few people in paid employment and the rendered peso worthless by rapid inflation, bartering clubs boomed: in 2002 around 2 million Argentines bartered on a regular basis. This bartering boom faded from then on as impressive economic growth, averaging 8.5% from 2003 to 2008 and bringing jobs and a stable currency saw Argentines return to cash to buy their groceries.  However, with its 2009 growth forecast down 2% on last year and job offers down 30% in the last quarter of 2008, Argentina looks likely to be harder hit by the downturn than its neighbours Brazil and Chile. Barter clubs could yet play an important role in the everyday lives of millions of its citizens.

Also see: ‘Barter clubs expose Argentina’s weakness’, Brian Byrnes, CNN, 21/5/09, available at http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/05/20/argentina.barter/index.html#cnnSTCText