[p2p-research] Mali's Gift Economy — YES! Magazine

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Michel mentioned a video related to Mali's gift economy in April, but here 
is a recent article on it and an excerpt:
   "Mali's Gift Economy "
   http://www.yesmagazine.org/economies/malis-gift-economy
"""
   In one study in Bamako, each person gave an average of 1.5 gifts per day. 
Another study found that gifts account for 18% of total expenditures among 
Malian villagers, comprising the largest single category. Presents are 
passed along everywhere: a small household decoration, change to buy a 
school notebook. When a family’s harvest of millet or peanuts is ready, they 
pass on a portion to the homes around them. If a household is hosting 
guests, neighbors will typically send over food. ... Lines of giving are 
complex and often circuitous.
   “You never know how it will come back. But you have to give because you 
can’t let the cord break with you,” explains IEP backbone Maria Diarra. She 
tells of helping a man in the community some years back. Now the man’s 
sister brings Maria’s family gifts of charcoal and food, gives them rides, 
and visits whenever she comes to Kati.
   “Maybe the link gets broken in a larger community," says Coumba. "But 
when you are in a community where everyone believes that, it really does work.”
...
   Western academics are often tempted, as one of them noted, to delineate 
“a radical break between premodern and modern cultures, with the gift 
reserved for the premodern, while we must deal through the market and the 
state.”  We are to believe that, as capitalism developed and exchange 
systems spread, markets supplanted morals and gifting was destroyed.
   Certainly the messages many of us got from childhood to accumulate riches 
and spend them on ourselves, strive to make that theory real. And yet, in 
the most consumptive nation on earth, gifts are given frequently, 
spontaneously, and without thought of reciprocity. One gift advocate offers 
this analysis: “We just don’t have the right glasses on to see the gifting 
happening all around us. We see it as exchange manqué or only a defensive 
position of those who aren’t capable of exchange.”
   In fact, people in the U.S. give infinite forms of services and goods to 
family and friends, neighbors, and strangers without calculation of return. 
We give where there is no emotional tie, no reciprocity, and often (in the 
case of a donation to a community organization, for example) not even a 
thanks from the ultimate recipient. We give anonymously; think of those 
multi-million dollar donations from unnamed individuals reported from time 
to time in the newspaper. We push strangers’ cars, give their batteries a 
jump in a parking lot, shovel snow from elderly neighbors’ walks, leave tips 
for waitresses we’ll never see again. We even donate organs. In 2005, people 
in the U.S. gave $260.28 billion to non-profits and charities, and 61.2 
million volunteered, with each person giving a median of 52 hours per year. ...
   dama is under threat by the neoliberal marketplace that is converting 
much of the gifting sphere to exchange relationships, monetizing the 
economy, and placing a dollar value on many forms of worth. West Africans’ 
challenge today is to keep dama thriving despite the expansion of markets, 
advertising, and cash transactions. A canary in the proverbial coal mine, 
dama is an indicator of how well cultural traditions can hold up under 
conditions of globalization.
   What is certain is that dama will survive in at least a subterranean way, 
as do other gifting and solidarity economies throughout the world. Also 
certain is that dama and other non-market economies will remain strong and 
viable only if organized movements vigorously defend them. ...
"""

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/