What is a 'gift economy'?

[S. Caserio]

I haven't read too much about it, what is it?

The one said being a goal in communism and Communism.

Alternative to the wage labour slavery, and value?

How is it different from other socialisms?
Mainly anarchist society theories.

[ckaihatsu]

Post-Scarcity?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/post-scarcityi-t192593/index.html

[Rafiq]

The gift economy has its basis in the same superstitious historic-metaphysics that sustain market fetishism of the neoliberal bourgeoisie and their intellectual toadies. It attempts to derive a justification for the destruction of the existing order through abstractions of ruling ideology, or this or that society - to tell us that we can do it.

The notion of the gift economy is thoroughly reactionary, because the struggle for Communism rests upon faith in the recognition* that a new order of life can be built independent of this or that particularity present in our society. Adherents of the gift economy desperately attempt to search for the answers of a future, unimaginable society by abstracting characteristics inherent to social formations which are antithetical to a society composed of individuals in free association, to form the basis of a new world. It is comparable to saying that, in an abusive relationship characterized by Stockholm syndrome, the foundations for a healthy relationship are those instances where the abuser is kind and gentle. But any reasonable person could see that this gentleness is just as necessary for the reproduction of abuse as the vicious violence that inevitably follows. Some the examples of "gift economies" we are often given are not egalitarian societies at all, but societies composed of rigid class strucutres, backward social formations like slavery and so on. The point of Communism is that we can, we don't need to trick ourselves with this or that - the new order is the mastery of the social, the social of which constitutes a material reality. A society can exist that can compare itself to nothing seen in history. It MUST.

*When I say faith in recognition, I mean that this is indeed scientifically recognizable, yet one still requires faith to actualize it, to make it an irrevocable component of their reality in spite of ruling ideology.

[Illegalitarian]

That's good and well and all but the gift economy isn't some random abstraction antithetical to classless society, it's been spoken of in the context of communism as a means of fully realizing that free association of individuals quite a bit, actually. It has no basis in reactionary societies bound to slavery and market transactions, not sure what you're on about there. It's the most basic form of mutual aid in an economic sense in a society where the economic maxim is from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.


"something never seen before in history" is the kind of non-answer that gets us laughed at and mocked by liberal shills as counter-culture know-nothings who only know we're against something, rather than knowing what we're for.

[Бай Ганьо]

I haven't read much on the subject, but you might be interested in checking out:

https://libcom.org/files/Mauss%20-%20The%20Gift.pdf

and

https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf

[Tim Cornelis]

"something never seen before in history" is the kind of non-answer that gets us laughed at and mocked by liberal shills as counter-culture know-nothings who only know we're against something, rather than knowing what we're for.

But it's true. Sacrifice accuracy to not be laughed at and mocked by liberals? k

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"Gift economies" are complex, ritualised systems of exchange, which form the basis of the circulation of goods in Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea and so on. What most people on RL talk about when they talk about a "gift economy", though, are not things like prestation, returning more in gifts than was given to establish one's status as a "big man" and so on (one would hope, at least), but free access.

The idea is simple - instead of the goods that comprise the social product being commodities to be bought and sold, or rationed out according to some scheme or the other, every member of society has full and free access to the entirety of the social product. Do you want a banana? Then take a banana. Do you want a shirt? Take a shirt. Do you want a solid gold vibrator? You get the idea.

And yes, it is "something never before seen in history", as no global communist society based on objectively socialised industrial production has existed up to this point. This does not mean that socialism is some kind of holy mystery.

[ckaihatsu]

That's good and well and all but the gift economy isn't some random abstraction antithetical to classless society, it's been spoken of in the context of communism as a means of fully realizing that free association of individuals quite a bit, actually. It has no basis in reactionary societies bound to slavery and market transactions, not sure what you're on about there. It's the most basic form of mutual aid in an economic sense in a society where the economic maxim is from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.


"something never seen before in history" is the kind of non-answer that gets us laughed at and mocked by liberal shills as counter-culture know-nothings who only know we're against something, rather than knowing what we're for.





But it's true. Sacrifice accuracy to not be laughed at and mocked by liberals? k


I'm calling this schism 'negation vs. vision' -- *was* going to name it after *myself* first, for discovering it, but oh well....

[Illegalitarian]

But it's true. Sacrifice accuracy to not be laughed at and mocked by liberals? k

More like sacrificing flowery romantic language for the sake of practicality. It makes it sound like we have no idea what we're doing and things will just kind of neatly fall into place when put in such a way


Xhar-Xhar is correct in his description of the idea of the gift economy as it was written about by people like Kropotkin and many after him.

[blake 3:17]

In my weird punky art anarcho world there is something of a gift economy -- usually with the idea of just doing right by people and OMG I CAN'T SAY IT (but will) - 'pay it forward' -- ick --

Actually it's better to think 'Pay it backwards' -- but not in the sense of any obvious $$ debt debt, but just to honour those those who've good to you or inspired you and your community.

[Rafiq]

"something never seen before in history" is the kind of non-answer that gets us laughed at and mocked by liberal shills as counter-culture know-nothings who only know we're against something, rather than knowing what we're for.

This reflects your own insecurity and inability to reconcile the "apparent" weakness of the ideas of Communism with the theoretical power of Marxism. Which means that this really has nothing to do with caring about how 'others' perceive us, or how damaging this would be in the eyes of other people, but to yourself. The fact of the matter is that in every moment of revolutionary upheavel, never before have any pretenses been made to some other society. The October revoluiton didn't need to legitimize itself in the past - because it was the insistence upon the future.

The question then becomes one of whether we "know what we're doing" or whether a post-capitalist society could only ever be possible with the pre-conception of its particularities in the minds of men. But this rests upon false premises to begin with - the idea of a post-capitalist society is forged through the practical struggles of the proletariat within capitalism, it becomes the insistence for a society wherein real, actual demands reflective of the conditions of wage labor can be met. The "reality' of Communism could only therefore be found with the pre-supposition of capitalist society and its social antagonisms. To be clear, we don't know what we're doing right now. We know that a class society doesn't have to exist, but we have absolutely no vision whatsoever for a post-capitalist society. That is because we have been unable to approximate, or articulate the specific antagonsims of our time into the language of practical politics, it is because we are devoid of a movement with an ounce of maturity in the domain of struggle which could envision a society without exploitation and so on. But that we don't know what we're doing now, does not mean that we can never know. What many fail to understand about Communism is that its only obstacle is compromise. Petty trade union consciousness and other organic inclinations toward struggle don't mature into a Communist movement because, after victory or defeat, they find themselves forced into an eternal cycle of compromise. If the logical elaboration of the interests of the worker is demanded in the long term, even without Communists, then Communism in one form or another would become a logical demand That's why American anarchism was able to develop organically.

[cyu]

Do you want a banana? Then take a banana. Do you want a shirt? Take a shirt. Do you want a solid gold vibrator? You get the idea.



Yep, that's pretty much how I'd describe it. It's what society would look like if there were no such thing as a property law (or if people simply disobeyed all property laws). If this is a given, then it would force other changes in how things are produced.

In some ways, it reminds me of http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people - when even the worst criminals will be out in 21 years, it forces a change in how you deal with prisoners. You know they'll be back in society one day, so society is forced to prioritize rehabilitation. The result?

"The reoffending rate for those released from Bastoy speaks for itself. At just 16%, it is the lowest in Europe."