Gift Circle

Description

Charles Eistenstein:

"Given the cir­cu­lar na­ture of gift flow, I was ex­cited to learn that one of the most promis­ing so­cial in­ven­tions that I've come across for build­ing com­mu­nity is called the Gift Cir­cle. De­vel­oped by Alpha Lo, co-au­thor of The Open Col­lab­o­ra­tion En­cy­clo­pe­dia, and his friends in Marin County, Cal­i­for­nia, it ex­em­pli­fies the dy­nam­ics of gift sys­tems and il­lu­mi­nates the broad ram­i­fi­ca­tions that gift economies por­tend for our econ­omy, psy­chol­ogy, and civ­i­liza­tion.

The ideal num­ber of par­tic­i­pants in a gift cir­cle is 10-20. Every­one sits in a cir­cle, and takes turns say­ing one or two needs they have. In the last cir­cle I fa­cil­i­tated, some of the needs shared were: "a ride to the air­port next week," "some­one to help re­move a fence," "used lum­ber to build a gar­den," "a lad­der to clean my gut­ter," "a bike," and "of­fice fur­ni­ture for a com­mu­nity cen­ter." As each per­son shares, oth­ers in the cir­cle can break in to offer to meet the stated need, or with sug­ges­tions of how to meet it.

When every­one has had their turn, we go around the cir­cle again, each per­son stat­ing some­thing he or she would like to give. Some ex­am­ples last week were "Graphic de­sign skills," "the use of my power tools," "con­tacts in local gov­ern­ment to get things done," and "a bike," but it could be any­thing: time, skills, ma­te­r­ial things; the gift of some­thing out­right, or the gift of the use of some­thing (bor­row­ing). Again, as each per­son shares, any­one can speak up and say, "I'd like that," or "I know some­one who could use one of those.

Dur­ing both these rounds, it is use­ful to have some­one write every­thing down and send the notes out the next day to every­one via email, or on a web page, blog, etc. Oth­er­wise it is quite easy to for­get who needs and of­fers what. Also, I sug­gest writ­ing down, on the spot, the name and phone num­ber of some­one who wants to give or re­ceive some­thing to/from you. It is es­sen­tial to fol­low up, or the gift cir­cle will end up feed­ing cyn­i­cism rather than com­mu­nity.

Fi­nally, the cir­cle can do a third round in which peo­ple ex­press grat­i­tude for the things they re­ceived since the last meet­ing. This round is ex­tremely im­por­tant be­cause in com­mu­nity, the wit­ness­ing of oth­ers' gen­eros­ity in­spires gen­eros­ity in those who wit­ness it. It con­firms that this group is giv­ing to each other, that gifts are rec­og­nized, and that my own gifts will be rec­og­nized, ap­pre­ci­ated, and rec­i­p­ro­cated as well.

It is just that sim­ple: needs, gifts, and grat­i­tude. But the ef­fects can be pro­found.

First, gift cir­cles (and any gift econ­omy, in fact) can re­duce our de­pen­dence on the tra­di­tional mar­ket. If peo­ple give us things we need, then we needn't buy them. I won't need to take a taxi to the air­port to­mor­row, and Rachel won't have to buy lum­ber for her gar­den. The less we use money, the less time we need to spend earn­ing it, and the more time we have to con­tribute to the gift econ­omy, and then re­ceive from it. It is a vir­tu­ous cir­cle.

Sec­ondly, a gift cir­cle re­duces our pro­duc­tion of waste. It is ridicu­lous to pump oil, mine metal, man­u­fac­ture a table and ship it across the ocean when half the peo­ple in town have old ta­bles in their base­ments. It is ridicu­lous as well for each house­hold on my block to own a lawn­mower, which they use two hours a month, a leaf blower they use twice a year, power tools they use for an oc­ca­sional pro­ject, and so on. If we shared these things, we would suf­fer no loss of qual­ity of life. Our ma­te­r­ial lives would be just as rich, yet would re­quire less money and less waste.

In eco­nomic terms, a gift cir­cle re­duces gross do­mes­tic prod­uct, de­fined as the sum total of all goods and ser­vices ex­changed for money. By get­ting a gift ride from some­one in­stead of pay­ing a taxi, I am re­duc­ing GDP by $20. When my friend drops off her son at my house in­stead of pay­ing for day care, GDP falls by an­other $30. The same is true when some­one bor­rows a bike from an­other per­son's base­ment in­stead of buy­ing a new one. (Of course, GDP won't fall if the money saved is then spent on some­thing else. Stan­dard eco­nom­ics, draw­ing on a deep as­sump­tion about the in­fi­nite up­ward elas­tic­ity of human wants, as­sumes this is nearly al­ways the case. A cri­tique of this deeply flawed as­sump­tion is be­yond the scope of the pre­sent essay.)" (http://www.nationofchange.org/build-community-economy-gifts-1325082127)

FAQ

"What is the purpose of a gift circle?

Its to allow for the people to help each other and to create a sense of community. And to further the gift economy.

What is a gift economy?

A gift economy as we define it is where people give something without the expectation of anything in return.

What are examples of gift economies?

Burning Man, Rainbow gatherings, Wikipedia, open source software

What is the format of a gift circle?

The format is still a work in progress. People are still experimenting with the best form." (http://opencollaboration.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/gift-circle-faq/)

Discussion

Does the Gift Economy undermine economic growth?

Charles Eisenstein:

"Why don't we need each other? It is be­cause all the gift re­la­tion­ships upon which we once de­pended are now paid ser­vices. They have been con­verted into ser­vice work which the mar­ket con­verts into cash. What is there left to con­vert? Whether fos­sil fuels, top­soil, aquifers, the at­mos­phere's ca­pac­ity to ab­sorb waste; whether it is food, cloth­ing, shel­ter, med­i­cine, music, or our col­lec­tive cul­tural be­quest of sto­ries and ideas, nearly all have be­come com­modi­ties. Un­less we can find yet new realms of na­ture to con­vert into good, un­less we can find even more func­tions of human life to com­modi­tize, our days of eco­nomic growth are num­bered. What room for growth re­mains—for ex­am­ple in today's ane­mic eco­nomic re­cov­ery— comes only at an in­creas­ing cost to na­ture and so­ci­ety.

From this per­spec­tive, a third con­se­quence of the gift cir­cle and other forms of gift econ­omy be­comes ap­par­ent. Not only does gift-based cir­cu­la­tion sub­tract from GDP, it also has­tens the demise of the pre­sent eco­nomic sys­tem. Any bit of na­ture or human re­la­tion­ship that we pre­serve or re­claim from the com­mod­ity world is one bit less that is avail­able to sell, or to use as the basis for new in­ter­est-bear­ing loans. With­out con­stant cre­ation of new debt, ex­ist­ing debt can­not be re­paid. Lend­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties only occur in a con­text of eco­nomic growth, in which the mar­ginal re­turn on cap­i­tal in­vest­ment ex­ceeds the in­ter­est rate. To sim­plify: no growth, less lend­ing; less lend­ing, more trans­fer of as­sets to cred­i­tors; more trans­fer of as­sets, more con­cen­tra­tion of wealth; more con­cen­tra­tion of wealth, less con­sumer spend­ing; less con­sumer spend­ing, less growth. This is the vi­cious cir­cle de­scribed by econ­o­mists going back to Karl Marx. It has been de­ferred for two cen­turies by the cease­less open­ing up, through tech­nol­ogy and col­o­niza­tion, of new realms of na­ture and re­la­tion­ship to the mar­ket. Today, not only are these realms nearly ex­hausted, but a shift of con­scious­ness mo­ti­vates grow­ing ef­forts to re­claim them for the com­mons and for the gift. Today, we di­rect huge ef­forts to­ward pro­tect­ing the forests, whereas the most bril­liant minds of two gen­er­a­tions ago de­voted them­selves to their more ef­fi­cient clearcut­ting. Sim­i­larly, so many of us today seek to limit pol­lu­tion not ex­pand pro­duc­tion, to pro­tect the wa­ters not in­crease the fish catch, to pre­serve the wet­lands—not build larger hous­ing de­vel­op­ments. These ef­forts, while not al­ways suc­cess­ful, put a brake on eco­nomic growth be­yond the nat­ural limit the en­vi­ron­ment poses. From the gift per­spec­tive, what is hap­pen­ing is that we no longer seek merely to take from the planet, but to give back as well. This cor­re­sponds to the com­ing of age of hu­man­ity, tran­si­tion­ing from a mother-child re­la­tion­ship to earth, to a co-cre­ative part­ner­ship in which giv­ing and re­ceiv­ing find bal­ance.

The same tran­si­tion to the gift is un­der­way in the so­cial realm. Many of us no longer as­pire to fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence, the state in which we have so much money we needn't de­pend on any­one for any­thing. Today, in­creas­ingly, we yearn in­stead for com­mu­nity. We don't want to live in a com­mod­ity world, where every­thing we have ex­ists for the pri­mary goal of profit. We want things cre­ated for love and beauty, things that con­nect us more deeply to the peo­ple around us. We de­sire to be in­ter­de­pen­dent, not in­de­pen­dent. The gift cir­cle, and the many new forms of gift econ­omy that are emerg­ing on the In­ter­net, are ways of re­claim­ing human re­la­tion­ships from the mar­ket.

Whether nat­ural or so­cial, the recla­ma­tion of the gift-based com­mon­wealth not only has­tens the col­lapse of a growth-de­pen­dent money sys­tem, it also mit­i­gates its sever­ity. At the pre­sent mo­ment, the mar­ket faces a cri­sis, merely one of a mul­ti­plic­ity of crises (eco­log­i­cal, so­cial) that are con­verg­ing upon us. Through the tur­bu­lent time that is upon us, the sur­vival of hu­man­ity, and our ca­pac­ity to build a new kind of civ­i­liza­tion em­body­ing a new re­la­tion­ship to earth and a new, more con­nected, human iden­tity, de­pends on these scraps of the com­mon­wealth that we are able to pre­serve or re­claim. Al­though we have done griev­ous dam­age to earth, vast wealth still re­mains. There is still rich­ness in the soil, water, cul­tures and bio­mes of this planet. The longer we per­sist under the sta­tus quo, the less of that rich­ness will re­main and the more calami­tous the tran­si­tion will be.

On a less tan­gi­ble level, any gifts we give con­tribute to an­other kind of com­mon wealth – a reser­voir of grat­i­tude that will see us through times of tur­moil, when the con­ven­tions and sto­ries that hold civic so­ci­ety to­gether fall apart. Gifts in­spire grat­i­tude, and gen­eros­ity is in­fec­tious. In­creas­ingly, I read and hear sto­ries of gen­eros­ity, self­less­ness, even mag­na­nim­ity that take my breath away. When I wit­ness gen­eros­ity, I want to be gen­er­ous too. In the com­ing times, we will need the gen­eros­ity, the self­less­ness, and the mag­na­nim­ity of many peo­ple. If every­one seeks merely their own sur­vival, then there is no hope for a new kind of civ­i­liza­tion. We need each oth­ers' gifts as we need each oth­ers' gen­eros­ity to in­vite us into the realm of the gift our­selves. In con­trast to the age of money where we can pay for any­thing and need no gifts, soon it will be abun­dantly clear: we need each other." (http://www.nationofchange.org/build-community-economy-gifts-1325082127)