What is Gift Culture?
This topic emerged in discussion with my friend @komal a while ago. I was discussing the possibility of next steemit meet based on gift culture and she posted about it in a steemit blog and people started liking this idea.
I was not very confident that everybody knows the depth of Gift Economy so I decided to write about it.
I have been introduced to the Gift Economy at very early stage of my exploration with the world of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) around 3 years ago. I was in a NVC workshop where I was allowed to pay much less then the fees because of my financial capacity and willingness to learn. Then for next 3 years I dived deep into the concept and now I had taken a commitment to not let a single chance to experiment gift culture.
Gift Economy is also called gift culture, gift exchange or giftivism. In the gift economy, our relation with money exchange is not in a way we see today. Here goods and services are not exchanged with money but rather given without explicit expectation to get something in return. Gift economy is based on the idea that there is abundance and trust in the universe. It is totally opposite of capitalism which operated on scarcity and fear.
In capitalism, people have tendency to accumulate for the future which leads to the scarcity for some people in present. Whereas in gift culture, people believe in compassionate giving to those who is in the need at the moment without any expectation to getting anything in return. Giving could be of money, work, time, energy and human resources.
However, the world now have forgotten then language of gift with compassionate giving. So the gift economy can be exercised fully or partially gift economy depending on the time place and circumstances.
In full gift economy, who have resources beyond their personal consumption, they give it to someone who needs it at the present moment without any expectation to get anything in return.
In partial gift economy or semi gift economy, people are asked to give money based on their capacity in exchange of any services or goods. A sliding scale of amount can also be set up instead of one fixed amount for everyone. Yet the amount is up to them. In theory, someone will give at the higher side of scale and some might give on the lower side of the scale. By combining all the amounts, the overall target can be approached. This type of experiment gives choice and freedom to people which can be exercised based to their personal capacity to contribute and overall requirement.
By writing this article I am imagining to create a radical shift in the consciousness around the money capitalization has built around us. Fixing the prize for any goods or services gives privilege to certain number of people and others are thrown out. However if we want to create a world where everyone's needs are taken care of irrespective of their financial condition then we need to radically think about our relation to money.
I am fully committed to share my skills about NVC to anyone and everyone in the world based on the gift economy only. I am highly confident that I can create a world where people can contribute to each other's lives with or without money.
-Inspired by the work of Charles Eisenstein.
For more information on the topic read Charles Eisenstein's book Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition
Click to Read my previous blogs...
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- The story of Old Stuffs
- School: The weapon of mass disconnect
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