The world’s most ‘primitive’ people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. It has grown with civilization, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation.
- Marshall Sahlins
We are starting a group chat on Signal Messenger to serve as an incubator for a gift economy.
Signal has both a mobile and desktop platform. It does require you to set up your account with a phone number, but after you sync it with your computer you don’t have to access it on your phone anymore, making it easier to manage.
What is the group designed to do?
The primary purpose is to build community. Based on the premise that community cannot thrive in the absence of gift-giving, the group is designed to facilitate the construction of an economy founded in the moral code of the gift. We believe our local culture needs to be “re-embedded” with forms of non-market exchange, namely: reciprocity, redistribution, and householding. Profit maximization is not a goal of this project.
Contact
If interested or if you have any questions, please send an email to ross@vanderharsthomestead.com.