🍲Why Choose the Gift Economy?
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Highlights
- “There is always a balance between self and society. In some ages the pressures of the group become stifling and crush the self, and individuals feel a desperate need to break free and express their individuality. In our age, by contrast, the self is inflated and the collective is weak. We have swung too far in the direction of individualism. The result is a loss of connection — a crisis of solidarity.
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In this way, hyper-individualism gradually undermines any connection not based on individual choice—the connections to family, neighborhood, culture, nation, and the common good. Hyper-individualism erodes our obligations and responsibilities to others and our kind.
- Robin Kimmerer writes, “The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds which enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.”
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“In nature, headlong growth and all-out competition are features of immature ecosystems, followed by complex interdependency, symbiosis, cooperation, and the cycling of resources. The next stage of human economy will parallel what we are beginning to understand about nature. It will call forth the gifts of each of us; it will emphasize cooperation over competition; it will encourage circulation over hoarding; and it will be cyclical, not linear. Money may not disappear anytime soon, but it will serve a diminished role even as it takes on more of the properties of the gift. The economy will shrink, and our lives will grow.”
- How have I been gifted? What do I have in abundance in my life today? How can I share this with others? Where is there need for what I have? I hope this Serving has provided you with the chance to reflect, feel gratitude, and share more generously today.