Gift economy

=== RESPONSES === //How do you monitor who is abusing the system?// In that method of the system one could not take out of the system without first having their identity validated. Your identity would include the information on whether you are a contributor or not and possibly what specifically you are contributing. There could possibly be several levels of contribution which would each allow you more to take. //Not a reliable way to keep people in check.// In a localized system it would be quite easy. Especially in this era of communication technology. //Explain// If the system was organized so that an individual station was put in each housing group area for the certain people in that area then it would be easier to keep track of people since they use things locally. It's easier because everybody knows each other and their jobs. But again, like I said before, this would be in the context of some relatively small commune-like gift-economy popping up somewhere. In a scenario where it was larger, or even global, an identification system may become more necessary. Or it may actually work to keep out abuse some other way that I haven't thought of. The specific way it works isn't set in-stone for an Anarchy, the best solution is collaborated upon by everyone involved. And it doesn't even need to take place in an Anarchy, though that's what I would personally prefer and what would probably be most likely if it did happen. //So I can carve one wooden bird per month...give it away. Then I can have all the food I want.// Haha no, most likely not. The amount of contribution which qualifies would have to be decided upon. In an Anarchy it would be collectively collaborated by everyone involved. //People would simply take advantage of your services. People love free labor.// It's true that people love free labor. But the human mind has been hard-wired by evolution with Altruistic tendencies. Helping others makes us happy. This is precisely why I'll go through with this; it makes me happy and other people will find happiness in helping me. [1,2,3,4,5] I don't think we should live in a system where our own success often depends upon the demise of others. ===ADDITIONAL ARGUMENT === The implementation and sustainment of a gift-economy has succeeded before: It is called the Spanish Revolution. Here are a few words from the French Anarchist historian Gaston Leval who was an active participant in the Spanish Anarchist Revolution: "In Spain during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties (republicans, left and right Catalan separatists, socialists, Communists, Basque and Valencian regionalists, petty bourgeoisie, etc.), this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high salaried managers, or the authority of the state. Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity... This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other." [6] This bold new system of the Spanish Revolution was wildly successful until stamped out by much larger enemy forces. === SOURCES === 1. http://www.psychologytoday.com... 2. http://www.psychologytoday.com... 3. http://happinessblog.com... 4. http://www.livescience.com... 5. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... 6. http://en.wikipedia.org...