THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

Anthropologists have found that community is based on reciprocity
in gift exchanges.
Community building and the ‘gift economy’
If community were a fabric, what would be the individual thread?
Or, to use another metaphor, if community were a molecule, what
would be its constitutive atom, the smallest act that creates it?
If you need a box of nails, you go to the hardware store and buy
one. There is no expectation by either you or the shop assistant that
any future reciprocity is involved. This is one of the main reasons
why monetary exchanges are so efficient. Each transaction stands on
its own. However, no community has been created either.
Now, assume that you go out for another box of nails, and that your
neighbour is sitting on his porch. When you tell him you are going to
buy a box of nails, he responds, 'Oh, I bought six boxes just the other
day. Here is one, it will save you the trip to the hardware store.' He
also refuses your offer to pay. What has happened?
From a purely material viewpoint, in both cases you end up with
your box of nails. But an anthropologist would point out that in the
second case, something else has happened as well. When you meet
that neighbour again, you will definitely say hello. And if ever on a
Saturday night he rings your doorbell because he forgot to buy some
butter, you will most likely share some of yours. The gift of the box of
nails is a community-building transaction. Its purchase is not.
A commercial transaction is a closed system, the nails versus the
money. In contrast, a gift is an open system. It leaves an imbalance in
the transaction that some possible future transaction completes. The
gift process creates something that the monetary exchange does not.
A new thread has been woven into the community fabric.