Summary of the benefits so far

At this point, hopefully, I've made a case that a giftmoot economy would not only work, but would have a variety of benefits that an exchange economy does not have. I have a little bit more to say about this, some of it a little more abstract, but I thought that it would be good to include a brief reminder here of some of the benefits I've talked about so far.

Reduced poverty and wealth inequality

One of the clearest benefits is reduced poverty and reduced wealth inequality. In an exchange economy people need to have something to exchange in order to get the things they need, but in a giftmoot economy, this isn't necessary, so there are fewer imagined barriers to getting people things like food, shelter, medicine, and so on.

In addition, things don't have exchange value, and abstract wealth - money, stocks, bonds - doesn't exist. Moreover, work would be volunteering, because people would be sustained without work. This would mean that people with assets like mansions and yachts would have more trouble convincing people to maintain these assets for them. Instead of being a source of value, they would start to be a cost, and perhaps not worth keeping.

Finally, when disaster strikes in an exchange economy, people's needs increase but their exchange capacity decreases, meaning that they have difficulty getting themselves out of disadvantageous circumstances. This doesn't occur in a giftmoot economy, because the victims of disaster and disadvantage can be immediately helped if there are the resources for it, rather than having to rely on their ability to labour, their savings, or their assets.

Better labour and business practices

When work is volunteering and people are sustained without it, labour has power over employment circumstances. Given that they can safely quit at any time if the circumstances are bad, employers need to make circumstances sufficiently comfortable and attractive. Workers will also only work when they believe in the purpose of the work, meaning that they would not compromise their morals for money, either out of greed or desperation.

Businesses would also have less need to promote continuous production to sustain sales and make a profit (or even continue to survive). Instead, they would be sustained by their purpose. This means they would not need to cut corners, make inferior products, implement planned obsolescence, have deceptive behaviour toward customers, or drive demand. Businesses would focus on making things that are beneficial to society.

Increased economic stability

In an exchange economy, goods and services have prices associated with them, as do financial instruments that are derived from those goods and services. These prices, ultimately, are guesses, and financial instruments like stocks are guesses at future prices. When those guesses are dramatically wrong, the market "corrects" and the value of these financial instruments crashes. Even when the guesses are not dramatically wrong, the debt of incorrect guesses adds up over time and contributes to the "business cycle" of expansions and recessions.

A giftmoot economy does not have money or prices. While economic downturns can happen when resources are mismanaged or disaster strikes, it would only occur from real resource issues and not from the layer of abstraction placed over them. This means that a giftmoot economy would be a more stable economy.

Increased efficiency

An exchange economy has a variety of inefficiencies. First, it has gaps in satisfying people's needs that it tries to correct for with things like insurance, loans and taxes and other fiscal and financial strategies. Second, it requires a lot of work to implement the exchange, including extra resources directed to financial markets, property rights enforcement, contract law arbitration, and payment systems. Third, it pressures people into work and creates busy jobs, taking more effort to produce less output. Fourth, it motivates labour exploitation and profit-driven maladaptive practices such as planned obsolescence. Fifth, it requires regulation, monitoring and enforcement to counteract these tendencies.

None of these things are necessary in a giftmoot economy. The gaps do not exist, it is less work to implement non-reciprocal gifting rather than the exchange, and there are no busy jobs. Businesses are motivated to behave in a more socially beneficial manner. A giftmoot economy is more efficient.

More social and moral consideration

When making an investment in an exchange economy, one of the biggest questions is what the investor will get out of it - and because investors (and other economic actors) are motivated to accrue exchange capacity, investors will want to prioritise businesses that make a profit.

In a giftmoot economy this motivation doesn't exist. Instead, investors will be motivated to prioritise other concerns, such as whether the project will be socially beneficial or fulfil some moral purpose. There are investors in exchange economies who consider, for example, the environmental or social impact of their investments, but there are also investors who put these concerns aside due to profit margins. Because a lot of people who need resources and infrastructure have no way to pay for them, these people are more likely to miss out on investments in an exchange economy. A giftmoot economy, however, can cater directly to them.

Better recognition of invisible work

An exchange economy draws a line between paid work and unpaid work, which tends to consciously or unconsciously value certain types of unpaid work as less important, or perhaps to not even be considered work at all. With all work being volunteering, the distinction between these two types of work would no longer exist, and previously invisible work would start to be recognised as equally significant to other visible work. This should have an impact on the treatment of such workers and the time and effort that they put into this type of work. Because a lot of this work is caring for others, including raising children and looking after the sick, the elderly and those who leave the home to work, and because these types of work have traditionally been considered women's work, this change should increase recognition of the role of women as essential workers that sustain society.