Category Archives: Gift economy

As Things Get Worse

As Things Get Worse

For the last hundred years or so, significant portions of the population within so-called liberal democracies in the global north have known comfort, ease, and personal liberties that have been unprecedented since at least the patriarchal turn. It’s not a new phenomenon for some people within a stratified society to …

How Children Learn About Others’ Needs

How Children Learn About Others’ Needs

In contemporary, patriarchal societies, mothering often leads to mothers giving up on their own needs, because of the lack of a communal context of togetherness and support. One of the results of this is that, as children, we don’t learn about the needs of others as an organic limit we …

Apart and Together: Addressing Needs beyond Market Economies

Apart and Together: Addressing Needs beyond Market Economies

“Each of us lives in and through an immense movement of the hands of other people. The hands of other people lift us from the womb. The hands of other people grow the food we eat, weave the clothes we wear, and build the shelters we inhabit. The hands of …

Can the Social Order Be Transformed through Personal Practice? The Case of Nonviolent Communication – Part 2

Can the Social Order Be Transformed through Personal Practice? The Case of Nonviolent Communication – Part 2

In September of last year, I posted the first part of this piece in response to an article questioning the potential of personal practices like mindfulness to transform, or even challenge, the existing social and economic structures of our social world. I explored three deep questions I have about why …

Matching Resources to Needs: Learning to Receive through Participating in “Money Piles”

Matching Resources to Needs: Learning to Receive through Participating in “Money Piles”

Embracing the consciousness of togetherness, of caring for the whole, of interdependence, is immensely challenging in cultures that are not based on these values, regardless of where we are positioned on the power map of the world. Most especially, I find that those of us living in modern settings are …