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In
times of hyper-capitalism, where everything is naturally seen
as for sale, the idea that anybody does anything without expectation
of financial compensation is considered absurd. Where examples
exist, they are first explained away, then, if possible, brought
into the market economy. To the extent that exchange happens outside
the money economy, it detracts from economic efficiency (and the
carefully calculated numbers of economists). The Internet is an
example of this problem. Many writers, graphic artists, designers,
programmers and others create things that are shared without money
changing hands. What motivates them to do this?
Ego,
say traditional economists: they can show off their intellectual
abilities, or, perhaps, that they are good people who know how to
share. Not so, say others: the Internet is an example of a gift
economy. Howard Rheingold, in Virtual Communities, was one of the
first writers to make the connection between digital communications
and gift exchange; since then, it has been repeated in the popular
press so often, the connection is taken for granted. We freely circulate
information on the Internet in the expectation that we will benefit
from the information freely circulated by others.
There's
only one problem: gift economies don't work this way. In traditional
anthropological studies, gifts are given on ceremonial occasions
to members of one's tribe, or the tribe of somebody else to which
one wants to affiliate. At weddings, to take one example, there
can be a complex arrangement of gift giving between various members
of the two families involved. Although somewhat altered, gift giving
at occasions such as weddings and birthdays remains a common practice.
Notice
that the gifts are exchanged between people who know each other;
indeed, the purpose of gift giving is to cement relationships between
people. This may have been true of the very early Internet, which
was small enough that researchers could know each other and direct
their work to specific people. However, it is not sufficient to
explain the behaviour of people who, to use one current example,
put pages on the World Wide Web, since they may never know (and,
therefore, have no relationship with) people who see their work.
Worse,
in traditional theory, gifts are alienable; this means that when
you give a gift, you give up ownership of it. Ownership of the gift
is transferred to the person to whom you give it. However, by its
very nature, ownership of information is inalienable. When you send
a copy of a document to somebody, you can keep a copy for yourself.
Alienability is an important aspect of gift culture; we wouldn't
think much of somebody who had given us clothing, for example, if
they kept asking if they could borrow it! If the Internet is not
a gift culture, we have to return to the question: why do so many
people work so hard on something for which they receive no financial
compensation?
One
more recent theory is called "generalized exchange of goods." In
this theory, digital communication networks contain a store of knowledge
that is common to all who have access to them. People contribute
to the common store without expectation of compensation because
by drawing on the common resource, they get more out of it than
they put in.
One
of the advantages of generalized exchange is that, by emphasizing
the relationship between individuals and resources, it avoids gift
theory's emphasis on the relationship between individuals. It also
avoids the question of alienability, since the common resource is
considered to be shared by all members of the community that has
access to it.
Generalized
exchange has historical precedent. "Common lands" were widespread
throughout Europe in the Middle Ages; farmers took turns grazing
their livestock in pastures that were considered the property of
all. Each in his turn had to maintain the quality of the land for
the good of all. Common lands, whatever their virtues, aren't economically
efficient in the modern sense, and an entrepreneurial class developed
which believed it could put them to better use. In Britain, successive
governments passed laws that enclosed more and more of the common
lands, the best of which, once individually owned, were quickly
bought up by the entrepreneurs. The collective good was sold out
to business.
A similar
process happened with the Internet. The American government, under
pressure from corporations, decided to privatize the system's backbone,
opening the door to the commercialization of the Internet. The result:
in 1995, only 3% of the traffic on the Internet was commercial;
by 1999, this had skyrocketed to over 60%. To be sure, there are
still individual exchanges of information (email, for instance,
or personal Web pages), but they are being marginalized, pushed
to the edges of a commercial communications system.
Although
it fits the facts better, general exchange of goods hasn't been
promoted in the popular media. Why? Hyper-capitalism is also about
hyper-individuality, where people are valued primarily as consumers.
General exchange is a collective activity that undermines this ethos.
If people are freely exchanging information as artists and/or citizens,
they are not consuming the products of information or entertainment
producing corporations. The market has to take over all forms of
exchange if it is to grow.
Just
ask the farmers of the common lands.
Copyright
© 2001 Ira Nayma. All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------------------------- Ira Nayman
is a Canadian iconoclast.
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