Are you familiar with the concept of the "gift economy"? You are
probably an active part of it, knowingly or unknowingly. Here is a
rambling regifting, sadly of little economic value.
The gift economy is one of those "pregnant" insights which may itself
provide a kind of 'salvation' to Western society in ways in which
religion has largely failed to do. Wiki now has an entry for this once
arcane concept, which entry may be a little out of focus, but decent
enough to paraphrase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
Typically, a gift economy can be epitomized by various non-governmental
organizations and benevolent trusts, such as the Ford Foundation etc.,
and is the end-result of moral indoctrination or religious teaching
interacting head-on with what can best be described as a lifetime of
wealth-accumulation (greed). But it can also be found in a more modern
and individual form and through ongoing "random act of kindness" even
when the act itself consists mostly of ... well... transitory bits of
"word salad" cast out into cyberspace.
And more specifically, for readers here: the "gift" is when talented
individuals like Jed Rothwell and Ed Storms with LENR/CANR.org, or
Horace Heffner with his brilliant insights, for instance, or Fred
Sparber and many former contributors - give freely of their time and
experience to promote what they consider to be be important goals to
society for energy independence, and Bill Beaty, who makes the forum
possible. Their sacrifices, on someone's balance sheet, may be greater
in terms of personal-expenditure than old-Henry's last-minute-largess.
Karma goes by many names, invented for the peace-of-mind of those who
seek another chance. The gift economy happens within a free-market
subculture grounded in moral dogma and expectations of some kind of
continuance-mythology. The dogma emphasizes social, religious or
intangible rewards for generosity: call it karma, loyalty, redemption or
whatever. In previous generations, this gift has been delayed till a
wealthy benefactor is near death, yet the personal model of Albert
Schweitzer or Mother Theressa have been equally inspiring.
Both Jews and Christians are noted for this type of monetary generosity,
while Roman Catholic nuns and priests often give most in terms of
personal-sacrifice. In terms of specific identifiable ethnicity,
ironically: Scottish Protestants and European Jews, both groups being
among the most frugal in life - are often the most generous and
beneficent to society (at the expense of family and relatives) on death.
But there are newer and constantly changing forms of ongoing gifts,
which serve to mitigate the general failure of government and organized
religion to accomplish what they should.
The major difference between Communism and Capitalism is a contentious
subject, amenable to superficial interpretation, especially when
religion is brought into the fray. The true moral imperative encompassed
within Marxism/socialism can be seen as a great embarrassment to an
avowed meme-enemy- the religious-right in the USA. But the lack of true
democracy or equality in Communism is an equal or greater embarrassment
to the left - as is the irrepressible desire to accumulate wealth. The
Limo-Liberal is now cliche, no? Mao and Stalin probably lived more
extravagant lifestyles than many Wall Street Greed Merchants.
In truth, religion cannot be excluded from any analysis, and no "alien"
observer of world government (i.e. an objective and dispassionate
viewer) would have the least bit of difficulty in seeing through the
layers of dogma, and seeing the glaring crux of the enigma: i.e. that
"Christian morality" is far closer on paper to Marxism than to
Capitalism - i.e. in principle but not necessarily in actuality. Lest we
forget (as is convenient to do in the USA) Christ did teach the value of
*poverty* and sharing of wealth - not wealth accumulation, as the goal
of each individual seeking salvation. This is a fact that is universally
ignored in almost every American Church, regardless of denomination.
Just one more impetus for change towards a NWO (new world order). BTW -
there will always be a NWO on the horizon - no matter what you call it.
It is part of evolution. What it will consist of however - can never be
decided or predicted very far in advance (even by the Bilderberg). The
recent and dramatic shift in the USA from NeoCon to NeoLib is
demonstrating that now. What goes around, comes around.
One solution is to institutionalize and encourage non-profit giving to
an even higher level, and to transfer some government functions there -
even if this involves problems with "separation of church and state".
There are ways to do this if you can cut through the dogma on both sides
of the argument. We have this old "great society" relic still in place:
http://www.peacecorps.gov/
yup ... the Peace Corps. I'm not sure that Bush/Cheney are even aware
that it is still around, since they have been favoring funding for a
"War Corps" by a ratio of about a billion to one. Nice lesson there for
our kids. But once we are finally able to get out of a needless and
wasteful war - why not start shifting a big part of that waste from war
to peace?
In a 'market' economy: capitalism, the highest status belongs to those
who have acquired the most wealth - and the laws tend to reflect and
institutionalize this goal: (the Gordon Gekko mentality: "greed is
good"). But it is easy to change slightly this focus of legal protection
to only those estates and entities which are already committed to
sharing and becoming an eventual active part of the gift economy.
Communism, on the other hand, despite being atheistic in general, tries
to institutionalize what are in effect - the teachings of Jesus as
reinterpreted by Marx -- insofar as societal "needs" are to be
satisfied, independent of work, and work is to be expended, independent
of need, for the common good.
Neither of these two solutions has been ideal. Capitalism works (to some
degree by default) and Communism, which is, in effect, the same as
enforced-Christianity-without-religion, fails, due more so to its clumsy
implementation, perhaps, than to its idealism. Go figure. Funny - and
probably doubly ironic that the only place this credo thrives today is
on the Israeli Kibbutz - which denies both Marx and Christ!
Enter the default solution to the moral dilemma - the Gift Economy in
Capitalism. It is kind of an oxymoron like the "benevolent dictator" ...
Side note: For the "benevolent dictatorship" form of government, there
actually exists a convincing argument to the effect that it is superior
to Democracy, due to much higher efficiency - but only when the "power
corrupts" factor can be mitigated, which is extremely rare in practice,
but may become less a problem in the future if a greater oversight is
allowed to be provided by some form of AI - artificial intelligence..
But what is most important transactionally, is a legislatively-boosted
gift economy in which the gifts must always "move" quickly. They are
like "currency" and need high turnover. This marvelous idea was recently
popularized by the terrific little movie (if you can tolerate an
occasional dose of super-sized-sap) called "Pay it Forward," and also by
that ubiquitous and even sappier bumper sticker: Commit Random Acts of
Kindness & Senseless Beauty. BTW there is even a foundation for
promoting this idea:
http://www.actsofkindness.org/
Every gift is its own reward in a way, but that reward can be multiplied
when the gift is passed along to others - like a chain reaction. And
many small kindnesses are gifts. It does not require money or wealth. An
inspiring story is a gift. An insightful posting is a gift (this one may
be a burden due to length). Blogs are gifts (sometime). Ideas, and
insights, and life-experience teachings, alternative POV and specialized
counseling are all gifts.
If there is one great and overlooked thing about the www as an
invaluable facilitating-phenomenon to society as a whole, in the age of
information -- it is in this ability: being able to quickly "regift" and
rapidly disseminate the most valuable commodity at all: human insight.
Jones
Of course, that particular www-gift: insight - comes with the downside
price - in that much of the info-flux is not very insightful at all
often self-serving or even deliberate disinfo or spam ... and that is
where the individual's "bogosity filter" must be always be activated and
on alert!
