Non-monetary economy

The non-monetary economy represents work such as household labor, care giving and civic activity that does not have a monetary value but remains a vitally important part of the economy. With respect to the current economic situation labor that results in monetary compensation becomes more highly valued than unpaid labor. Yet nearly half of American productive work goes on outside of the market economy and is not represented in production measures such as the GDP.

The non-monetary economy seeks to reward and value work that benefits society (whether through producing services, products, or making investments) that the monetary economy does not recognize. An economic as well as a social imperative drives the work done in this economy. This method of valuing work would challenge ways in which unemployment and the labor force are all currently measured and generally restructure the way in which labor and work are constructed in America.

The non-monetary economy also works to make the labor market more inclusive by valuing previously ignored forms of work. Some acknowledge the non-monetary economy as having a moral or socially conscious philosophy that attempts to end social exclusion by including poor and unemployed individuals economic opportunities and access to services and goods. Such community-based and grassroots movements encourage the community to be more participatory, thus providing a more democratic economic structures.

Much of non-monetary work is categorized as either civic work or housework. These two types of work are critical to the operation of daily life and are largely taken for granted and undervalued. Both of these categories encompass many different types of work and are discussed below.

It is important to point the microscope on these two areas because only certain people are very civically engaged and very frequently a certain group of people tend to do housework. Non-monetary economic systems hope to make community members more active, thus more democratic with more balanced representation, and to value housework that is commonly done by women and less valued.

The social economy refers to the space between public and private sectors (sometimes called the "third sector") occupied by civil society, including community organizations, volunteering, social enterprises, and cooperatives. In academic circles the term represents “a wide family of initiatives and organisational forms – i.e. a hybridisation of market, non-market (redistribution) and non- monetary (reciprocity) economies”. Rather than being fringe activities at the margins of the formal economy, this amounts to a significant level of activity, as a range of studies indicate. UK civil society sector for example employs the equivalent of 1.4 million full-time employees (5% of the economically active population) and benefits from the unpaid efforts of the equivalent of 1.7 million full-time volunteers (5.6% of the economically active population), and contributes 6.8% of GDP.

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