GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | Second Quarterly 2013 – North America ...

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES - SECOND QUARTERLY 2013
PERSPECTIVES
Creating New Values Through Gift Economies
By David Andersson*
This is the text of a presentation at a workshop – 'Turning a Crisis into an Opportunity: Humanizing the Economy'
– organised on June 18 by IDN partner Pressenza International Press Agency at the Deutsche Welle Global Media
Forum 2013 in Bonn. It is being reproduced by arrangement with Pressenza.
Gift economies could be very potent and
effective organizing tools for creating
value. We have many examples of gift
economies in our world today, such as
community gardens or free/open software,
where no money is paid for the
creation and maintenance of this resource
but instead people contribute time and
talent and get recognition and respect as
well as shared access to the resources .
Other examples include the Time Dollar
community, where people give their time in exchange for
services or goods, and the donation system (such as blood
donations). It sometimes confounds economists who think
that rational self-interest in a cash economy is the only way
to create value, but it is clear to see in the internet that
sharing is happening all the time: Wikipedia, social networking
communities, collaborative websites and archives
like the Internet Archive website, the blogosphere community,
and of course the Linux operating system with tens of
millions of volunteers around the world who add to its
design without the apparatus of the corporate world. Linux
is ported to more computer hardware platforms than any
other operating system.
The creative world also has developed a Common License
mechanism removing money exchange and opening accessibility
for music, photos, videos, software, and scientific
and educational materials under the Creative Common
License. The Creative Commons organization has the following
goal: “Our vision is nothing less than realizing the
full potential of the Internet — universal access to research
and education, full participation in culture — to drive a
new era of development, growth, and productivity.” It has
grown from under 1 million works in its the first year to
over 400 million at the end of 2010.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), for example, is a major pharmaceutical
company that has surrendered all copyrights in its
malarial data set, which includes more than 13,500 compounds
known to be active against malaria:
By making this information publicly available, GSK hopes
that many other scientists will review this information and
analyse the data faster than we could on our own. Hopefully,
this will lead to additional research that could help drive
the discovery of new medicines. We would also encourage
other groups, including academics and pharmaceutical
companies, to make their own compounds and related
information publicly available.This is
essentially an example of ‘open source’
being applied to drug discovery. We
know that data increases in value
when connected with other data and
that the more eyes looking at a problem,
the more potential solutions may
arise.
The interesting part of gift economies
is that it releases energy, ideas and
commitments that the market economy,
with its legal contracts and focus on accumulation of
money, often can’t. Giving economies have a sense of mutual
commitment and trust, they promote openness, the
sharing of information, and are socially very satisfying and
build community. The challenge is to recognize that we
have such systems already and should give them respect as
coherent value-generating systems.
It's worth recalling the bold vision of James Quilligan – an
analyst and administrator in the field of international development
since 1975 – for re-inventing nation-states and
international relations through commons-based governance:
“The solution does not rest with the sovereign club of
nations or with the club of the world’s elite banks and corporations.
It rests with the people and our ability to create
political accountability for the management and production
of our commons. It involves our ability to create the
new structures that will support sustainability and sharing.”
Quilligan has also collaborated with several United Nations
agencies as well as international development organizations
on global commons issues and has served as an economic
consultant for government agencies in 26 nations.
Quilligan is presently Managing Director of the Center for
Global Negotiations and Chairman of Global Commons
Trust.
*David Andersson is currently the Director of the New York
City chapter of the Humanist Party (HP), member of 'Making
Worlds: a Commons Coalition', a collaborative effort by Occupy
Wall Street to explore the utility of the commons in
creating a better world and the coordinator of the New York
Coalition to Expand Voting Rights (Ivote NYC), Before forming
the HP in 2009, David Andersson was the Director of
Special Campaigns at the Center of Cultures for more than
10 years and co-founded the Diversity Center of Queens in
Jackson Heights. [IDN | June 26, 2013]
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