Friday, October 14, 2011

Mixing and matching to loosen the strangehold

If, as David Graeber has said, we already — and always — are communists (assuming people operate, quite often, on the idea: "each according to their ability, each according to their need)... and the gift based economy — as outlined by Mauss in The Gift (PDF), and explained in slides here by Dmitry Orlov — is also, to some degree, always present...

Then, how do we accentuate, what do we encourage? How do we bolster one piece of the ever-present whole, while minimizing the less desirable parts of the whole (for instance: the current dominant model of getting stuff you want and need: impersonal consumer capitalism).

Don't be afraid to mix n' match, right? If you can get a good deal from the impersonal capitalist system, take it, and spin it into supporting more exchanges based on reciprocal gifts. An example: I stroll into a bakery, and find a big pile of "day old" breads and muffins or whatever at 1/2 price. Maybe I just baked some bread, and don't feel like I really need it, but perhaps I consider a neighbor or friend who does (and it just so happens, I'll be walking past their place later). So I buy the loaf, I give the loaf away (obviously asking for no payment, and refusing an offer... I don't want this to be a complete transaction, right? It's better that other people owe you favors, just as you want to owe them favors).

Now, this is, quite obviously, not a "fix", or a way to eliminate impersonal consumer capitalism — because that will (probably) never completely go away. But it's a move. And a move I'd bet most of us already make... maybe we try to make it a little more often? Until reciprocal giving inches towards a more common practice. 

So yes: if all these systems of exchange are out there, feel no fear in mixing them together.

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