Gift based economy

Look at Wikipedia. Search "Gift Economy". See how all those people that write those articles do it because they like it. Nobody pays them for it. The same way you can look at this forum. They want to contribute to something , to be part of something, to be appreciated by others from that community. At the same time they are totally free. But they obey the rules of that community, and they stay there because they like it. That was how a tribe was like. Now it can be the same for a country for example. That is what people really seek, what I underlined above.

Nobody wants to destroy the planet mining for oil in the tar sands. People who like to destroy the land as a hobby - haven't seen yet. They don't do it because they like to, they don't do it for "the progress of civilization". They only do it for money. No money - they don't care if you have gas or not for your car. The only thing they are allowed to obtain in this capitalist economy. And with money they try to obtain all the things I said above - but they can't.

People can be like that again -as a country or as a planet. And there is no need to renounce what we know and the things that make life easy. It's about a way of life not about technology. No more money. Make people cooperate to obtain the basic things like food and clothes. That is very little work for all, including maintaining and building the machines that do the work, people work in turns. Say you work for 4 years then you are replaced and then you have food and clothes for free for the rest of your life. Today 0.6% work in farming in USA. 0.6% of the workforce not population.

Then people will be free to create a gift economy. Free to do what they like and gather with others that like the same. Let's say some like science. They gather in a science group. Anybody is welcome to join, not like today. Any help is appreciated. The entire world can join that society if they like. The basics are taken care of trough that 4 year period of work, then people are free. Also anyone is free to leave such a society if he gets bored. Not like the jobs of today. He does not depend on them for survival.

These societies share their results - knowledge, stuff they build with others, also because they want to contribute to something and be appreciated. Nobody forces them to share or not tho share. I see such a world as a true free world. "Free time" means real freedom. "Freedom to vote" is a joke. This is how I imagine advanced alien civilizations to be, if they exist. Also the environmental damage would be at 10% of today. Nobody would take from nature more than he needs because there is no way to sell it. Anyway in time people would look with disgust at such things as "selling" or making another work for you. Having the basics nobody would be willing to work with someone else for something unless he wants to, and does it for pleasure or to obtain that thing he works for. No way to force him.

In a tribe of Sioux nobody told another what to do, that was very rude.
Imagine someone telling you what to post here, in this "forum gift economy"...And paying you for it and conditioning your survival on writing what he wants. No longer fun, no longer doing it because you like to..Not how life should be.
I want to show here that people are not "lazy" they just need a different organization to behave as complete humans.

www.ascentofhumanity.com...

To most of the roles society offers, I say, "You are made for more than that." We inhabit, in the words of Ivan Illich, "a world into which nobody fits who has not been crushed and molded by sixteen years of formal education." The very idea of having to be at a job "on time" was appalling to early industrial laborers, who also refused the numbing repetitiveness of industrial work until the specter of starvation compelled them. What truly self-respecting person would spend a life marketing soda pop or chewing gum unless they were somehow broken by repeated threats to survival?

Tribal organizations similar to what I said above :
Sitting Bull - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sitting Bull also knew techniques of healing and carried medicinal herbs, though he was not a medicine man.

Because of his status as a wichasha wakan, Sitting Bull was a member of the Buffalo Society, a dream society for those who dreamt of buffalo. He also was a member of the Heyoka, a society for those who dreamed of thunderbirds.[10]

Gift economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And some other threads of mine, don't want to write here again all that I wrote there

"Work for all", page 1

For those who say "get a job, or you are useless", page 1

"Advanced civilization" - the hunter gatherers, page 1

The Lakota way of life, page 1

Why capitalism can never work, page 1



[edit on 18-6-2009 by pai mei]

Getting back to going beyond money would solve a lot of the worlds problems and destroy the main tool of dominance of the psychopathocracy. Many communities have gift based economies working alongside the normal monetary based goods exchange system, and I urge people to keep up and even enhance the practice, it could very well save your lives in the mid term.

Star and flag.