By Shae Hadden |
Bio
My
habits of reducing and reusing come from a tradition I inherited from
my family, a tradition that firmly believed in the value of sharing and
stewardship. My father used to tell me of Depression days when his
mother would wash the tea bags and dry them for reuse, and when he,
being a ‘middle’ son in a family of 13, could always count on wearing
‘hand-me-downs’. Considering the environmental and economic crises we
face, it’s no surprise that the principles of communal sharing,
stewardship and ‘gifting’ are feeding the move to reduce, reuse and
recycle. People of all ages are looking at ways to keep ‘stuff’ out of
landfill sites.
In the 1960s the hippies of Haight-Ashbury
opened ‘free shops’ to swap clothes, shoes and personal items. In the
US today, ‘giveaway shops’ have evolved into ‘swap sheds’ in rural
towns (where people leave things that are usable but unwanted for
anyone to take) and ‘free stores’ or ‘free bins’ on college campuses
(stocked with donations or items that students have sorted from trash).
Official give-away stores with retail storefronts have existed in
Amherst, Massachusetts and in several locations in the Detroit area.
And The Free Store operated in NYC until March 2009.
An online version of this concept has emerged. There’s a free national website where you can search for items by zip code:
Take Me I’m Free. The global player in this scene, the
Freecycle Network™,
comes out of Tucson, AZ. This online network of 4,836 groups with
6,601,000 members is moderated by volunteers. Of course, there’s always
the FREE listings on
Craigslist as well.
An
‘offline’ development is the Really Really Free Market (RRFM)
movement. Collectives of people commit to creating community around
sharing resources and caring for each other: they gather in community
spaces to share goods and services, clean up afterwards and take home
what they are unable to give away. The first RRFM was organized in
protest of the G8 Summit during the anti-globalization protests of 2004
against the Free Trade Area of the Americas. RRFMs have emerged across
the U.S., and the first Canadian one was started in Toronto earlier
this year.
Next up… how ‘gifting’ influences our lives online.
© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
Tagged with:
free_store
freecycle
gift_economy
really_really_free_market
recycle
reuse
rrfm
By Shae Hadden |
Bio
I’ve
been glancing in shop windows recently as I wander my new neighborhood.
There seem to be more sales and discounts now at the retail outlets
than ever before, as if lowering a ticketed price will lure consumers
in to buy when the prevailing mood is one of restraint and caution.
Experts argue over whether our market economy is going to limp along in
its current form or be remade or redefined. Scarcity thinking seems to
predominate consumer behavior. Meanwhile, what I don’t want us to lose
sight of are the barter and gift economies that co-exist (and continue
to evolve) alongside the regular buying and selling of goods.
A
‘gift economy’ is one in which people give away products and services
without any expectation of compensation. In a way, bartering is a
reciprocal form of ‘gifting’, in which two parties exchange what they
need with each other and eliminate the transfer of money. In a gift
economy, simultaneous giving to others (and not just a back and forth
between two people) is looked on favorably, as it circulates and more
widely redistributes resources within a community. In some societies,
the person who ‘gifts’ is seen as being altruistic and is accorded some
social status for being the ‘giver’. In others, gifting is simply seen
as an expression of a genuine concern for others.
Thinking of
the world in terms of limited resources and little time left to save
the planet can easily lead us into thinking along the lines of “There’s
not going to be enough…”. Conversely, the gift economy rests on a
belief in ‘abundance’. In early human societies (before the existence
of currency), the sharing of food and other perishables ensured the
continuity of the group and the ‘abundant living’ of all. Native
American potlatches allowed leaders to strengthen the community by
sharing their accumulated wealth with their followers. In Tonga, Samoa
and some of the outer Cook Islands, reciprocal gifting is still part of
their culture today.
In North America, we still practice this at
the family level (when we share our time, money, food, shelter and
wisdom with relatives). What I find interesting is that the concept of
‘gifting’ has expanded to include things like:
- Open source software (free access to software code for developers)
- The blood bank system
- The organ donor system
- Gift exchanges
- Regiving networks
- Creative Commons Licences (free access to other people’s creative works)
- Wikipedia (a free online encyclopedia)
- Free schools
- Give-away shops
I
see a connection between this movement and Eldering: a common
commitment to sustainability and a shared future for all. And I'm
reminded of the wisdom of my grandparents and my parents in dealing
with troubled times in their lives. I’ll be writing more about these
and other ways in which the gift economy is showing up in our lives
today in the coming weeks.
© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.
Written by eldering at Leadership
Tagged with:
abundance_thinking
eldering
gift_economy
market_economy
scarcity_thinking
RSS Feeds
