Fuck the IOU. Small business tyrants will take out their rage over every stolen item on the one person who left an IOU and get them kidnapped and imprisoned by pigs after everything’s over.

It might work for small family businesses (actual small ones, not part of a local fiefdom) if there were a system in place with the understanding that the community would help rebuild businesses and make people whole after everything was done, but everyone would have to stick with it and trust it, including the business owners. That’s a hard sell and there aren’t many cities or towns in the US where it’s even worth trying anymore.