I'm looking for the name and author of a short sci-fi history. I read the story years ago and I can’t remember the title of it.
This is a society with no concept of cash. Things are acquired when the “seller” owes a favor to the “buyer.” An individual accumulates favors when she performs a useful task for somebody else.
And thus one of the “wealthiest” people is a guy who repairs bicycles, as everybody uses them for transportation.
This is "and then there were none" by Frank Russell. You can read it online here. The favors are called "obs" (as in obligations) and are used as an anarchy type economy. Skimming over the story, someone is offered a lucrative (in terms of obs) motor-bike sales job, based on his existing bicycle.
While probably not the answer, as it is likely too recent (only 10 years for the first book), and the favor system is only a side-story, you'd likely remember a lot of other things before that one.
In "long earth" serie of books, at some point, a parallel society starts to depend on favors (the term is used explicitly) as a currency, due to the lack of central banking system to back up fiduciary money.
Could this be Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. This was published in 2003, so 20 years ago. It is 208 pages long, so a short novel.
The story is set in the Magic Kingdom, AKA Walt Disney World. No money exists in the story, all is paid for by "Whuffie", which is basically good-will or happiness that people give to others in return for their service/work/entertainment/goods.
The story is told by Julius, who works at his childhood-dream job of Disney world which is run by teams of people competing to provide the best experience for the visitors. Julius wishes to die, but has low Whuffie and doesn't want to die in that state. People are able to regenerate/revive after they die and there is a complicated plot involving murder that allows a rival team to take over one of the Disney exhibits so that they can revamp it (and thereby generate lots of whuffie for themselves), which Julius exposes and somehow results in him going a bit "off the deep end".
It's been many years since I read it, so my summary may be a little mixed, but it was a decent story.
