Not Free, Part 21

Not Free
A children’s book about the Gift Economy.
By Genevieve Vaughan
Illustrations by Liliana Wilson

About the Exchange Economy

The interaction of exchange where someone gives in order to receive an equivalent in return, is ego-oriented. The exchanger is trying to satisfy his or her own need, not primarily the need of the other person. Exchange makes people into adversaries, because each person tries to get more than the other. Each person has to count how much he or she has given or gotten back. It seems that people who have more money are better than people who have less, and that everything has a price. A whole world view is based on exchange, and people who give for free seem to be inferior. Let’s hope that Nature doesn’t learn from people.

– Genevieve Vaughan