What is a non-reciprocal gifting economy?

In this section, having finally completed my critique of the exchange, I want to propose and develop an alternative economic model based on non-reciprocal gifting. I've laboured over the point that I believe we've imagined an economy - the liberal market economy - that causes a variety of problems, and here I want to outline and explore a different way of imagining the economy.

So, first I am going to go over the basics of the design, including what non-reciprocal gifting is, and what very foundational motivations and impacts an economy based on non-reciprocal gifting would have. Then I want to tackle some of the flow-on effects for workers and businesses, domestic labour, poverty, wealth inequality, market stability, sustainability, quality of life, and so on.

I will also be tackling the two major questions that I think people immediately consider when they hear such a proposal: Would people work? and Would things get to where they need to be? Having enough people labour and having resources get allocated to the right areas are two essential ingredients of a healthy economy.

I'll also look at the idea of free riders, methods of resource allocation, and notions of justice.

When I think I've established a well-rounded look at what a non-reciprocal gifting economy would be like, I'll then move on, in the next section, to answering a further question about economic calculation, which would be resolved by a type of association I'm going to call "giftmoots".

Overall, I want to propose that this style of economy would be more beneficial but, also, I think it would be simpler. The exchange needs all sorts of extra things to make it work, but a non-reciprocal gifting economy would be more straightforward and likely more transparent.

But, first things first, what is a non-reciprocal gifting economy?

A very brief overview

A non-reciprocal gifting economy is an economy where resources are transferred through non-reciprocal gifting. That is, resources are transferred from one party to another simply by having one party give them to another without asking for or expecting anything in exchange.

This sort of economic transfer already exists in current exchange economies, though it is often considered an exception to the rule, non-preferred case, or is overlooked as non-economic. For example, charity is often considered a special case, welfare is not the preferred way in a liberal market economy to transfer resources, and parents giving food and clothes to their children is overlooked as not an economic activity.

In a non-reciprocal gifting economy, one party giving resources to another without anything in return would be the normal case. It would have a few fundamental impacts. First, people would not need exchange capacity to trade for resources, so people without savings, assets or the ability to labour would not be excluded or special cases. Second, all work would be volunteering, because there would be no remuneration. And third, there would be no money, because there is no requirement for a medium of exchange.

So, how would a non-reciprocal gifting economy work? Well, if someone needs food, people would be motivated to gift them food. The person would not need to have enough money or provide labour in order to get that food. Conversely, all work would be volunteered labour, with no pay. And these things have an enormous flow-on effect to the rest of the economy that can dramatically reshape it. Poverty can be reduced, because there is now no reason to prevent excess food getting to hungry people, and, indeed, less ability to have copious amounts of food and labour directed to the wealthy rather than the disadvantaged. In addition, workers would not be pressured by businesses, but could place pressure on businesses instead, improving labour conditions, business practices and business goals.

I'll examine each of these things in the next few pages, bit by bit.

What is non-reciprocal gifting?

There are a lot of different conceptions of gift-giving in economic and anthropological literature. Before I survey them, I'll give a breakdown of the form of gift-giving that I'll be focusing on in this project, which is non-reciprocal gifting.

A non-reciprocal gift

• is voluntary for the gifter
• is voluntary for the recipient
• transfers some resources from the gifter to the recipient (goods or services)
• places no obligation or expectation on the recipient to provide anything to the gifter
• allows the gifter to transfer resources as they choose, which means that they may do so only under certain conditions of their choice

So, for example, if I give an apple to a person because they say they are hungry, and they accept it, and I place no obligation on the recipient by giving them the apple, then this is a non-reciprocal gift. However, if I gave them the apple and they didn't want it, or they took the apple from me, or I asked for something in exchange, then this would not be a non-reciprocal gift.

I'll dig into a few more details about what a non-reciprocal gift is in the next article, but hopefully this is a meaningful overview.

How does it compare to traditional gifting?

Traditional forms of economic gifting differ from the description of non-reciprocal gifting that I have given above. The biggest difference is that in a traditional gifting economy - at least according to the majority of economists and anthropologists, though there is a little bit of contention here about whether they are project modern economic concepts onto ancient society - is that traditional gifting creates an obligation for reciprocity from the recipient to the gifter.

That might sound a lot like an exchange, and to some extent, it is. But it is also quite different from the modern exchange. In the modern exchange, the agreement about what is going to be transferred by each party, and when, is almost always agreed in advance of the exchange taking place. Furthermore, the exchange itself is usually backed by the force of law - if you don't pay up, you might have to go to court. In a traditional gifting economy, the terms of the reciprocation are usually not determined in advance, and nor is the timeframe. There is also no legally binding obligation to reciprocate. However, there is a social obligation to reciprocate that is placed on the recipient.

Non-reciprocal gifting therefore differs from this significantly, and this leads to a host of implications for a non-reciprocal gifting economy compared to a traditional gifting economy. This is significant for a few reasons. First, it means that there is no good example of a non-reciprocal gifting economy in history that we can draw from - it is an idea that has not been implemented before. Second, it means that we are limited in the lessons that we can learn from traditional gifting economies. There may be more lessons that we can evaluate from more recent exchange economies, because these economies have examples of non-reciprocal gifting in them. Third, it means that I have to be careful about terminology. If I say "gift economy", most academics would probably believe that I am talking about a traditional gift economy and that is, of course, not what I mean. So I will continue to distinguish the two forms of gifting here as "non-reciprocal gifting" and "traditional gifting".

Diffuse reciprocity

I also don't want to give the impression that a non-reciprocal gifting economy has no kind of reciprocity in it. The name might sound like reciprocity is specifically missing, and so it is worth a little clarity. I've defined a non-reciprocal gift as a certain type of activity where resources are transferred from one party to another - it is a particular and single activity that takes place between two different parties. A non-reciprocal gifting economy is an economy where the way resources are moved around is by the activity of non-reciprocal gifting. And while non-reciprocal gifting contains no reciprocity in it, a non-reciprocal gifting economy can.

This type of reciprocity is called "diffuse reciprocity". Diffuse reciprocity occurs when doing something - like gifting food or clothes or volunteering - indirectly produces benefits for the gifter, which they may or may not expect. For example, a person might clean rubbish out of a park, which makes the park more attractive for others to visit, and encourages them to build parrk benches there, which the first person could use. Or a person might gift food which goes to a person who performs surgery, who saves the life of novelist, who writes a book that the food gifter thoroughly enjoys.

In each case, the person who provides the original gift may not know what benefits they will receive from it specifically, but could guess that there will be benefits in improved quality of life. The indirect relationship between their contributions and their benefits is diffuse reciprocity. In comparison, specific reciprocity would have to come from the recipient of their gifts - the surgeon would have to provide something immediately to the gifter in return for their food.

This point is critically important because diffuse reciprocity plays a big role in people's motivations in a non-reciprocal gifting economy, which I will get to.