"Let Me Find Some Money Right Now"
Out in the village of rural Tanzania, "let me find some money to do X" is one of the most common phrases heard when conducting business transactions. Widely used among people who obviously do not have any money with them or at disposal in personal possession, it simultaneously denotes a desire to spend money to get what is wanted and a determination to find the means of getting the needed money through completely flexible yet currently unknown ways. As unsatisfactory as the phrases sound, most of the time, sooner or later, the money is actually somehow "found."
The way that the money is "found" speaks volumes about the way incomes are earned in these rural communities and subsequently, how the money is distributed. The former is straightforward enough. It would not be surprising that incomes in rural communities are primarily agriculture-related, and thus tend to be highly seasonal and unstable. To "find" money, people need to sell agricultural produce (alongside with occasional chickens and cows). The norm is to keep the products in their physical form, stored at home until they can be taken to market whenever money is needed.
When lacking such produce to sell, people find work as part-time labor for others, but even such work is inevitably tied to agriculture. Most work is usually agricultural in nature, such as planting or weeding for big farmers. But even for what seems to be non-agricultural labor, such as the construction of houses and furniture-making, work is only available when big farmers sold produce at good prices and suddenly have money to splurge on these services. Since whether produce can be sold at good prices is an open question, there is no constant stream of such work.
Since no one really knows how much one can earn at what point in time, there inevitably emerges plenty of occasions where somebody in the community urgently needs money, for medical bills, funerals, school fees, to name a few common big spending, but cannot earn any at that moment. Lacking formal financial institutions in the villages, the natural instinct is for the person to borrow from immediate neighbors, friends, and family members, with the promise to repay and/or return in kind when others have similar needs in the future.
Given the compact size, small population, and tight-knit social structure of these villages, it is not too difficult for the individual in need of money to sniff out the few members of the community that happen to have some money to spare at that very moment. And from the perspective of these individuals with money at that moment, it will be the most unwise decision to refuse giving/lending out the cash, fully knowing that, like everyone else, their incomes are unstable and face the realistic need to borrow money from others in the near future when the need arises but income does not.
As such, in essence, the entire village becomes a colloquial "bank" in a sense, pooling together money to give to those in need, in the expectation that every member of the community to adhere to the unwritten rules in order to continue accessing the "service." But unlike a real bank, the financial holdings of this "bank" are always minimal, with outstanding needs from different people always equal or greater than the incomes of the village as a collective. Hence, it can be assumed that every member of the community more or less would not have any cash in possession after lending out.
In such a setup, the most rational, self-interested behavior of an individual is to immediately spend all cash income before others find out that s/he has any to spare. After all, the choice is between getting physical value for the money or giving them out to others in need with only vague and uncertain promises of future repayments or borrowing opportunities. In other words, the best way for one to not get tangled up in a web of financial favors that is the colloquial bank, the best course of action is to be "goods-rich but cash-poor," keeping zero monetary savings by converting all to physical assets.
It is no wonder, then, when emergencies hit, "finding money" becomes such a needed but difficult activity. Physical assets like houses, furniture, electronics, spent in the frenzy of short-term thinking to avoid having to lend or give to others, cannot be easily converted back into cash. But since everyone else also immediately spent their extra cash on physical assets, there is a limited amount of money that can be "found" even when the collective income of the village is not too small. Yes, the money will be found ultimately, but if the perverse logic of "good-rich, cash poor" economics did not exist, the process would be much easier.
The way that the money is "found" speaks volumes about the way incomes are earned in these rural communities and subsequently, how the money is distributed. The former is straightforward enough. It would not be surprising that incomes in rural communities are primarily agriculture-related, and thus tend to be highly seasonal and unstable. To "find" money, people need to sell agricultural produce (alongside with occasional chickens and cows). The norm is to keep the products in their physical form, stored at home until they can be taken to market whenever money is needed.
When lacking such produce to sell, people find work as part-time labor for others, but even such work is inevitably tied to agriculture. Most work is usually agricultural in nature, such as planting or weeding for big farmers. But even for what seems to be non-agricultural labor, such as the construction of houses and furniture-making, work is only available when big farmers sold produce at good prices and suddenly have money to splurge on these services. Since whether produce can be sold at good prices is an open question, there is no constant stream of such work.
Since no one really knows how much one can earn at what point in time, there inevitably emerges plenty of occasions where somebody in the community urgently needs money, for medical bills, funerals, school fees, to name a few common big spending, but cannot earn any at that moment. Lacking formal financial institutions in the villages, the natural instinct is for the person to borrow from immediate neighbors, friends, and family members, with the promise to repay and/or return in kind when others have similar needs in the future.
Given the compact size, small population, and tight-knit social structure of these villages, it is not too difficult for the individual in need of money to sniff out the few members of the community that happen to have some money to spare at that very moment. And from the perspective of these individuals with money at that moment, it will be the most unwise decision to refuse giving/lending out the cash, fully knowing that, like everyone else, their incomes are unstable and face the realistic need to borrow money from others in the near future when the need arises but income does not.
As such, in essence, the entire village becomes a colloquial "bank" in a sense, pooling together money to give to those in need, in the expectation that every member of the community to adhere to the unwritten rules in order to continue accessing the "service." But unlike a real bank, the financial holdings of this "bank" are always minimal, with outstanding needs from different people always equal or greater than the incomes of the village as a collective. Hence, it can be assumed that every member of the community more or less would not have any cash in possession after lending out.
In such a setup, the most rational, self-interested behavior of an individual is to immediately spend all cash income before others find out that s/he has any to spare. After all, the choice is between getting physical value for the money or giving them out to others in need with only vague and uncertain promises of future repayments or borrowing opportunities. In other words, the best way for one to not get tangled up in a web of financial favors that is the colloquial bank, the best course of action is to be "goods-rich but cash-poor," keeping zero monetary savings by converting all to physical assets.
It is no wonder, then, when emergencies hit, "finding money" becomes such a needed but difficult activity. Physical assets like houses, furniture, electronics, spent in the frenzy of short-term thinking to avoid having to lend or give to others, cannot be easily converted back into cash. But since everyone else also immediately spent their extra cash on physical assets, there is a limited amount of money that can be "found" even when the collective income of the village is not too small. Yes, the money will be found ultimately, but if the perverse logic of "good-rich, cash poor" economics did not exist, the process would be much easier.
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