<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">In many parts of the world, people are searching for alternatives to
the cash economy. In Mali, one of the most cash poor nations in the
world, "Dama" or the "Gift Economy" has been thriving for thousands of
years. This system of exchange is not based on exchange or equivalence
between the giver and the receiver, rather the receiver passes the gift
on to someone else. The gift economy celebrates the value of life,
putting human relationship over profit. <br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ELNsQdSMOc&feature=player_embedded" onmousedown='UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this), "c86c8ede1d38d81f7025c40388f0c7b7", event)' target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span>http://www.youtube.com/wat</span><wbr><span class="word_break"></span><span>ch?v=3ELNsQdSMOc&feature=p</span><wbr><span class="word_break"></span>layer_embedded</a><br><br><br>xfrank<br><br><div><strong>Money economy, exchange, = scarcity,starvation of needs</strong>.<img src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/02.gif"> <font color="#0060bf">exchange is about me,me,me , about winning, it socially excludes people and it physically excludes people. Its death, death to the body, the spirit, and the soul.</font></div> <div><font color="#ff0000" size="4">Gift economy, sharing, = abundance, all fed.<img
src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/01.gif"><font size="1"> sharing is about us, it is </font><br></font>The gift economy, is community, voluntary work, family, co-operatives, open source, scientific knowledge sharing,matriarchical societies, free cycle, green movement, permaculture, forest gardening, the earth. <font color="#ff4040" size="4"><strong>www.gift-economy.com</strong></font> </div><br><br>--- On <b>Tue, 4/8/09, Mark Barrett <i><marknbarrett@googlemail..com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett@googlemail.com><br>Subject: [allgendergroup] Democracy & Full Employment<br>To: project2012@googlegroups.com, civilisation@lists.riseup.net, campaignforrealdemocracy@lists.aktivix.org,
allgendergroup@lists.riseup.net<br>Date: Tuesday, 4 August, 2009, 10:32 AM<br><br><div id="yiv267288254"><div>Hi everyone </div>
<div> </div>
<div>As it's been reported in the press this week that a quarter of the UK budget is now being spent on benefits, could we please have some list discussions about how this money might be harnessed to create a really democratic society, or to use the phrase previously embraced, greater local sovereignty (LS)?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I've sent this message to the three lists above as I've found them to be the most fruitful in terms of discussions on the topic of building a just society. If anyone has any other lists they can recommend for this end, pls let me know. On this subject please can people hit reply to all so that all three lists can take part in any debate that ensues?</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Benefits & Productivity</strong> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>For me this is the next stage of productivity in the industrial economy, the pursuit of a really democratic culture with full employment, freely chosen. So I had this idea that people could do a few hours work each week - what one colleague has dubbed a 'mini-job' - in return for payments. Say, an hour for every £10-15 they receive. Key thing is that this work should be chosen BY the recipient, in collaboration with a local community of their choice, so that the work allows the individual to do what they would rea;y like to do rather than have the state force something on them as is the case with neo-liberal workfare programmes now being experimented with. Obviously these kinds of decisions would need different, decentralised benefits 'purse-string' structures - essentially a breakdown of the currently unwieldy and wasteful nationalised benefits programme into a really democratic, ie each local community owned, public
service. Of course there will be lots of questions about how this will work in practice, which is why I am posting about it now, but for me the huge benefit (sic) in this is that it will allow state expenditure to be directed towards the development of locally based creativity, community fabric building, green jobs, real democracy, individual and collective entrepreneurialship, and a re-embrace of the dignity of work. It will also allow people to wean themselves off benefits as they develop new skills, improved CVs, greater self assertion and confidence, not to mention the huge health benefits in terms of tackling isolation, depression, social breakdown at the root. It will get people off their backsides but not Tebbit "On Yer Bike" style, rather Rumi "Let the beauty that we love be what we do"..</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The way I see it, alongside the present economy, communities should be able to compete with one another for labour, by simply embracing a cultural stance. A mixed economy, two parallel economies inteplaying with one another rather than this monoculture of labour everywhere competing for capital, or else the indignity of the dole. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Here's the story about 186 billion benefits. </div>
<div><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5962510/Unsustainable-social-security-spending-equal-to-a-quarter-of-goverments-budget.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5962510/Unsustainable-social-security-spending-equal-to-a-quarter-of-goverments-budget.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thoughts anyone?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Love </div>
<div>Mark</div>
<div> </div>
</div></blockquote></td></tr></table><br>