If the monetary system was failing, people reasoned, then they would find a way to complete transactions outside of the system. The government, in the form of the federal reserve system, lurked inside any cash transaction. But bartering would sidestep the government entirely, as historian Amity Shlaes writes:
One late summer day in 1931 in Salt Lake City, the money ran out. Not just the money in the banks, and not just the money in the town coffers - the money that citizens had to spend. Locals reached into their pockets and, finding nothing, began to trade work and objects. Barbers traded shaves and haircuts for onions and Idaho potatoes. From there, the trading spread to other products. Life in Utah had always been a desert when it came to water. Now it was a desert when it came to money, as well. People in Utah knew how to survive in a desert. Maybe they could find a way to manage in the money desert as well.
The nation’s economy, under the influence of various programs designed to improve it, would deteriorate further, conditions in 1937 being worse than in 1931. But ordinary citizens invented ways to avoid government influence and maintain some element of productive economic activity.
Government efforts, however well-intentioned, generated the opposite of the desired effects: President Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ made the misery of the Great Depression worse.
Bartering, and in some cases even ‘black market’ activity, provided the necessities of life - food, clothing, housing, medical care - despite government strategies.
