Arthur Noll
There has been a lot written about gift economies, but I haven't been able
to find many details about how it would work to overcome our problems.
It does seem to be on the right track, simply giving things instead of using
money. What I find lacking is any guidelines on what to give and why.
Something I have read is that status comes in a gift economy by giving away
the most. This could easily be as dangerous to a society as the present
situation, since the amount taken from nature could be the same, people seeking
status taking as much as they can from nature in order to give to others and
gain status. To a large degree, in fact, this happens at the present.
The ads where a beautiful woman receives an expensive gift, with the words,
"you are worth it", is a not so subtle pushing of the idea that a man can
gain status with a woman by giving her more and more. We never see anything
that pushes the idea that a man who treats nature with as much respect as
a prospective partner gets the most regard, the most status. Yet this
makes far more sense for the well being of future offspring.
Society must be a partnership of people and nature, it is not enough to make
society only a partnership of people, and the natural world is given no consideration.
As I have written before, I believe we should consider the sustainability
of what we want to take from nature, and take only as fast as things grow.
Then we use what we can take as efficiently as possible. We freely give
and take from nature and with each other within those limits. We also
limit population to live within these limits of renewable production.
Something that came up recently in a discussion with someone, was the issue
of personal possessions. If we freely give and take, and what is mine
is yours, and what is yours is mine, do we have any personal possessions?
I think we do. We also want to be efficient in our use of resources.
If a person has a tool kit for doing something, it makes no sense for others
to just take tools from that person whenever the whim moves them, saying that
“what is yours is mine”. That would destroy the efficient functioning
of the person with the tools, if his or her tool kit was constantly being
scattered all over. That would also apply to dwellings, clothes, other
similar things. We get used to using certain things, work efficiently
with them, and to constantly be juggling things around would not be efficient.
We could say, these are your tools, your dwelling, your clothes, your shoes.
The products of what you make with these tools, these are freely given and
shared, but the tools themselves become part of you. Certainly they
might be loaned out with permission, but generally, if someone needs a new
tool, then they go to the people who have tools for making tools. If
it fits with sustainability for duplication of tools, -considering many factors
such as space for them to be kept- then it would be OK.
It is really common sense. Your body belongs to you, but you don't
tie your hand behind your back just because you can. We don't put shoes
on our hands, it doesn't work efficiently.
Watching people try and get to these concepts is like watching a new born
kid try and stand up and find the teat. What I see written about gift
economies is like the kid that has managed to stand up and is eagerly sucking
on some hair hanging down. It just isn't quite there yet. People need
to think again. It isn't a gift economy that will sustain us, as I am
reading it. On the other hand, the existing economy is like a mutant
monster baby that has gone from sucking at the teat, to sucking the blood
of it’s mother directly. The gift economy that gave more status with
more giving could just be another version of that. I don't think we
want that, either. We have to get it right, or die.
What do you think? You are welcome to write me Arthur
Noll , and you can read more of my ideas in my online
book Harmony.
