Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
In modern Hawaiian history, the culture has given, given, given and the economy has taken, taken, taken. Now, with the gift of geothermal, we have an opportunity for the economy to give, give, give and the culture to receive, receive, receive. If we can make this happen, it will indeed be a Happy Thanksgiving for all of us.
My friend Gail Tverberg wrote about the “gift economy” at the Oil Drum blog. The gift economy is a good thing. It makes us all feel good.
Thanksgiving: A Time to Think about Gift Economies?
Posted by Gail the Actuary on November 25, 2010 – 10:40am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
This post was published earlier. But Thanksgiving (in the US) seemed like a good time to think about the ideas again.
When I sat down to research this post, I thought I would write a post about barter, since it seemed like if our current financial system failed, barter would be one possible form of back-up. But when I started to research barter, the first thing I came across was this statement:
Contrary to popular conception, there is no evidence of a society or economy that relied primarily on barter. Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economics. When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or would-be enemies.
So I decided to step back a bit, and look into gift economies. Read the rest of the post.
I recognize the gift economy in the Hawaiian style of interaction. No wonder Gail was so well received by the Kanaka Council. When I saw Mililani Trask’s photo at one of the links, I was not surprised. And it is no wonder that Dawn Chang and I hit it off so well. Chef Alan Wong is like this, too.
Many, many folks walk on both sides of the issue. And I see that most really want to be on the side of the gift economy.
I had no idea there was a name for such a thing, until I read Gail’s post.
I can see now that 50 years ago my Pop, as rough and tough as he was, was a “gift economy” kind of guy. When he told us kids stories, he would sometimes make “mean face” and growl at an imaginary person: “No mistake kindness for weakness!”
Finally, I understand what he was doing. It was his way of teaching us how to operate in both systems.