Editing Time-based currency (section)

===20th century===

[[Teruko Mizushima]] (1920-1996) was a Japanese housewife, author, inventor, social commentator, and activist credited with creating the world's first [[Timebanking|time bank]] in 1973.{{sfnp|Lietaer|2004|loc= 4}}{{sfnp|Lebra|2007|loc= 169}}{{sfnp|Hayashi|2012|loc= 33}}

Mizushima was born in 1920 in [[Osaka]] to a merchant household.{{sfnp|Miller|2008a|loc= 5}} She performed well in school and was given the opportunity to study overseas in the United States in 1939. Her stay was shortened from three years to one due to rising tensions between the US, Japan, and China. Mizushima opted to pursue a short-term diploma course in sewing.{{sfnp|Miller|2008a|loc= 6}}

After returning home, she married. Her first daughter was born at the outbreak of the [[Pacific War]], and her husband was soon conscripted into the army.{{sfnp|Miller|2008a|loc= 7}}

Mizushima's sewing skills proved invaluable to her family during and after the war. While the Japanese population was suffering immense material shortages,{{sfnp|Dower|1999|loc= 87-112}} Mizushima offered her sewing skills in exchange for fresh vegetables. It was during this time that she began to develop her ideas about economics and the relative value of labor.{{sfnp|Miller|2008a|loc= 11, 12}}{{sfnp|Lebra|2007|loc= 169}}

In 1950, Mizushima submitted an essay to a newspaper contest as part of a national event titled “Women's Ideas for the Creation of a New Life.”{{sfnp|Mizushima|1984|loc= 191}} Her essay received the Newspaper Companies’ Prize''.''{{sfnp|Lietaer|2004|loc= 4}} While it has since been lost, the ideas in the essay attracted widespread press attention.{{sfnp|Miller|2008a|loc= 20}}

Mizushima soon became a social commentator, with her views being aired on the radio, in the newspapers, and on television. She frequently appeared on the [[NHK]], the country's national broadcaster, and toured the country giving talks about her ideas.{{sfnp|Miller|2008a|loc= 25}}

In 1973 she started her group the Volunteer Labour Bank (later renamed the Volunteer Labour Network). By 1978, the bank had grown to include approximately 2,600 members. The membership included people of all ages, from teenagers to women in their seventies. The majority of members were housewives in their thirties and forties. Members were organized into over 160 local branches throughout the country, coordinated by the headquarters located on Mizushima’s estate.{{sfnp|Lebra|2007|loc= 169}}

By 1983, the network had over 3,800 members organized in 262 branches, including a branch in California.{{sfnp|Lietaer|2004|loc= 4}}

The political activist and philosopher [[Cornelius Castoriadis]], after criticizing the incoherency of capitalist, Leninist, and Trotskyist justifications of wage differentials in his 1949 [[Socialisme ou Barbarie]] text translated as “The Relations of Production in Russia” in the first volume of his ''Political and Social Writings'',<ref>{{Cite book |last=Castoriadis |first=Cornelius |url=https://files.libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v1.pdf |title=Political and Social Writings Volume 1 |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |publication-date=1988}}</ref> responding to the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]], advocated that workers “proclaim the abolition of work norms and instaurate full equality of wages and salaries” in his 1957 ''Socialisme ou Barbarie'' text translated as "On the Content of Socialism, II".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Castoriadis |first=Cornelius |url=https://files.libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v2.pdf |title=Political and Social Writings Volume 2 |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |year=1988 |pages=151}}</ref>  He elaborated further on this advocacy of an “absolute equality of wages and incomes” in his 1974 text, "Hierarchy of Salaries and Incomes",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Castoriadis |first=Cornelius |url=https://files.libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v3.pdf |title=Political and Social Writings Volume 3 |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |publication-date=1993 |pages=207-215}}</ref> and in the “Today” section of “Done and To Be Done” (1989).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Castoriadis |first=Cornelius |url=https://www.notbored.org/cornelius-castoriadis-crossroads-5-done-and-to-be-done.pdf |title=Crossroads in the Labyrinth. Vol. 5. Done and To Be Done |pages=90-96}}</ref>

[[Edgar S. Cahn]] coined the term "Time Dollars" in ''Time Dollars: The New Currency That Enables Americans to Turn Their Hidden Resource-Time-Into Personal Security & Community Renewal'', a book co-authored with Jonathan Rowe in 1992.<ref>{{cite book|last=Cahn|first=Edgar|title=Time Dollars: The New Currency That Enables Americans to Turn Their Hidden Resource-Time-Into Personal Security & Community Renewal|year=1992|publisher=Rodale Press|location=Emmaus, Pennsylvania|isbn=978-0-87857-985-3}}</ref>  He also went on to trademark the terms "TimeBank" and "Time Credit".<ref>{{cite web|title=TIME BANKS Trademark|url=http://www.markhound.com/trademark/search/Pa02vdZ9S|work=TrademarkHound|publisher=US PatentOffice|access-date=2013-04-07|archive-date=2016-07-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702054916/http://www.markhound.com/trademark/search/Pa02vdZ9S|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=TIME CREDITS Trademark|url=http://www.markhound.com/trademark/search/OismJ6wRy|work=TrademarkHound|publisher=US Patent Office|access-date=2013-04-07|archive-date=2016-07-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702054546/http://www.markhound.com/trademark/search/OismJ6wRy|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Timebanking is a community development tool and works by facilitating the exchange of skills and experience within a community. It aims to build the 'core economy' of family and community by valuing and rewarding the work done in it. The world's first timebank was started in Japan by [[Teruko Mizushima]] in 1973<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue17/miller.htm|title=Intersections:Teruko Mizushima: Pioneer Trader in Time as a Currency|website=intersections.anu.edu.au}}</ref> with the idea that participants could earn time credits which they could spend any time during their lives. She based her bank on the simple concept that each hour of time given as services to others could earn reciprocal hours of services for the giver at some stage in the future, particularly in old age when they might need it most. In the 1940s, Mizushima had already foreseen the emerging problems of an ageing society such as seen today. In the 1990s the movement took off in the US, with Dr Edgar Cahn pioneering it there, and in the United Kingdom, with Martin Simon from Timebanking UK and David Boyle, who brought in the London-based New Economics Foundation (Nef).

[[Paul Glover (activist)|Paul Glover]] created [[Ithaca Hours]] in 1991. Each HOUR was valued at one hour of basic labor or $10.00. Professionals were entitled to charge multiple HOURS per hour, but often reduced their rate in the spirit of equity. Millions of dollars' worth of HOURS were traded among thousands of residents and 500 businesses. Interest-free HOUR loans were made, and HOUR grants given to over 100 community organizations.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://paulglover.org/hourintro.html|title=Introducing HOUR Money|website=paulglover.org}}</ref>

The first British time bank opened in 1998 in Stroud, and a national charity and membership organisation, Timebanking UK, started in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Overview|url=https://timebanking.org/overview/|access-date=2021-03-03|website=Timebanking UK|date=9 March 2020 |language=en-GB}}</ref>