In the plenty paradigm, participation in the time economy is the root of public good, and all community-supporting work is valued equally. "Anti-quota" labor systems such as in cohousing communities, some community land trusts and ecovillages, and at Rainbow Gatherings involve no minimum labor requirement for a person to maintain their standing in the group. In "egalitarian" communities one hour is worth one credit regardless of who is working or what is done, and involve either a "fair-share" labor system requiring a labor contribution without labor accounting, or "labor credit" systems requiring a "labor quota" and the accounting of a minimum labor contribution for a person to maintain membership in the group.

Communal economics involves forms of time-based, plenty-paradigm economies while barter and monetary systems are forms of exchange economies. Barter systems and local currencies have been used to increase local self-reliance, as well as to help monetary economies out of depression through supplementing official scarcity-paradigm currencies. "Time dollars" and "service credits" are also exchanged hour-for-hour as forms of "labor exchange," while in communal economies no exchange is involved as labor does not earn personal property but access to all of the common wealth.