Sunday, January 4, 2004

The Gift Economy I am fascinated by the thought of a gift economy. Even more intriguing is that it already exists... A gift economy is where each individual shares what they have (material goods, services, information) with the others in society with no expectation of being paid or receiving something in return. For instance, since I have knowledge about holistic health practitioners and where to find them, I might share that information with you free-of-charge, with no expectation of repayment in the future. Thing is, you'd be doing the same with what you had. Maybe you have a great garden, so you share the vegetables and fruits from it with anyone you like. Each non-monetary transaction connects you deeper and deeper with this society. You really appreciate each time you get something from someone else, and you are appreciated each time you perform a service for someone else. The gift economy is alive and well. The biggest example of it is the scientific community. Professors do studies and share their findings with the rest of the community without charge, without patent. The others can read about it, enrich themselves, criticize, use it in further work. The next largest example is the world of open source computer software. Hundreds of thousands of computer programmers around the world dedicate their spare time to creating new software for various purposes. In fact, the Internet runs mostly on open source software created by these volunteers. The way your e-mail gets from you to your recipient is by using a program called sendmail. Most Web servers run an operating system called Linux, a huge open source endeavor that has toppled Microsoft as the Web server king. There is an alternative to Microsoft Office called OpenOffice.org, absolutely free-of-charge and available to everyone. An alternative to Adobe Photoshop is called The GIMP, and it is full of features and is very stable. What if these gift economies take over other parts of society? I can easily imagine music and movies becoming a gift economy. The tools to create great music and movies are now so inexpensive and easy to use that I could see a whole community of amateurs sharing good quality music and movies with each other and the world without ever needing to exchange money. What else would be possible? The world of consulting is ripe for a gift economy. I know that in my work I supply hours and hours of free consulting to people, just because they are doing great things to make the world of holistic health a better place and I want to help them do that. 7:33:19 PM

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