cross-posted from: https://wolfballs.com/post/36282
https://infogalactic.com/info/Gift_economy
A gift economy, gift culture, or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. This contrasts with a barter economy or a market economy, where goods and services are primarily exchanged for value received.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
It can and does exist in limited contexts, but those contexts are limited because it doesn't solve the two major problems a broad market needs to solve: Who gets limited stuff, and what limited stuff is worth making?
The places it works best are circumstances where there is no marginal cost of production, or where the producer doesn't have any need to optimize creating the most useful thing.
The web is a good example of that, especially websites that don't run ads. You basically get those websites for free because there's no marginal cost of an additional page read, and the people running the websites basically don't care if their website is really productive or not, for a number of reasons. They might be giving the website to you because they are using it as a loss leader to a paid service. They might be providing the website to you because they value their words being out there more than getting paid for it. They might just be philanthropic and want to help people out. They might value being part of a community they feel they're contributing to.
But let's say there's a limited resource like farmland, and a limited resource like food. Sure, if you're in a party atmosphere like burning man, a few people can contribute a bit more for a week, and a few people can contribute less, and it doesn't matter if the guy who brought a cooler full of onions or something nobody wanted. On the other hand, if you have a bunch of people who work harder than everyone else, they're going to stop at some point because why keep contributing a bunch when there's going to be free riders in a large society? Moreover, if I really like growing roses but society really needs potatoes, and there's no real reason for me to grow potatoes, that's going to be a problem.
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Well I had a different thought as I was posting this, I think the idea of the gift economy is often someone produces something and then anyone is entitled to take it
but if the gift giver is free to deny giving the gift and coordinate gifts, this can end up looking like barter basically
so, I do think that gifts are given most easily in more limited contexts, yes
to speak of a wider economy, hypothetically:
the producer of the stuff decides who to gift to
the producer could decide based on feedback of people around him
This does kind of shift my view of how gift economies would be in practice and I haven't really thought of what it means too much in depth
idk where gifts have a place in a market economy, I mean there is plenty of gifting going on already so maybe it is like markets at the core with gifting on top of that