A parent of one of the kids who comes to my Kung Fu classes gave me the details of some people who teach horsemanship humanship workshops on a GFRF basis (although they don’t call it that, it is the same idea. They also have other programs that they have set prices for. You can read their pricing philosophy here).
I am always encouraged when I hear about other people doing the same or similar things. To be honest I am not finding the journey of converting to GFRF particularly easy and I often find myself facing doubts and fears so finding other people doing similar helps to give me a boost of confidence and encouragement.
I will also be contacting them myself as I would like to hear more about their experience using their pricing philosophy. I may be able to interview them and put that on the blog at some point.
I found this well made recent conspiracy theory movie on youtube. It ranges from free energy to suppression of other technologies to the banking system… and so on, linking them all together.
They make a good case for some of their ideas, but what really made them stand out from other conspiracy theory movies was their call for action at the end. There are a lot of nice ideas on those lines in that section of the film. I think though that some of their ideas for change are… well they’re nice, but in some ways don’t go far enough. To me, regardless of whether there is or is not a conspiracy in the world, the root cause of so many of our problems is greed and power seeking. To me, it seemed like some of the proposed solutions would end up in the creation of new power structures that might work well at first, but would most likely still end up becoming corrupted because of the nature of the structure centralizing power to a certain degree and allowing for corruption to occur.
I really liked the movie’s emphasis on individual’s rights and individual action. I think this really is a big part of the way forwards to a better world. I don’t think their solutions really addressed the core problem of rooting the tendency to greed and power seeking out of the individual. While this tendency continues to exist then systems will inevitably become corrupt. Any system is made up of its constituent parts, only when we have a group of people who have removed greed or power seeking from themselves on an individual basis will we be able to have a society with the same characteristics (my next post is going to be on greed by the way, its halfway written at the moment).
The video is below. I think it makes a good watch.
There are lot of people not entirely happy with the current economic system and the inequities that it causes. Different people are trying out different alternatives and ways of living that get around some of these issues. The video below is not how I would want to live. I envisage being able to exchange with people in a fair, compassionate way while still working at normal jobs, living in normal houses and so on. But I understand and respect the thought processes and sentiment behind people trying this sort of thing out.
I thought I would write this post about my broader vision for the potential of giving freely and receiving freely. The main reason I am experimenting with ‘give freely receive freely’ is because it is something I want to do. Somewhere deep inside it is something I feel almost COMPELLED to do. In short it is something that I want to try and see if am able to do regardless of whether or not anyone else does it. But I think there are many factors behind these feelings to do with the current economic environment and wanting to interact with my fellow people in the best way I possibly can, and I think a lot of other people are having similar thoughts and feelings. This leads me to wonder about the possibilities of what could happen if entire communities operated on this basis…
No Offence Intended
In my upcoming posts on this blog I will continue to write about my experiences with GFRF (I think I might use this abbreviation from now on to make it faster to type), and any new developments and also anyone else I find doing similar things. I will also write about theory and underlying concepts behind GFRF. As I do this I don’t want to offend anyone. I will write about ideas for a system of exchange that is very different from how our world now operates. In order to do this I will point out some of the shortcomings of our current system and may make reference to particular professions and industries. I don’t want people in those industries to think that I am leveling criticism particularly at them. I actually believe that almost all people at their core are GOOD PEOPLE and they want to do things for the good of both themselves and others, but our current system shifts the goal posts and means that people feel that they need to put their effort into things that in the bigger picture aren’t that useful. It is the system that has shaped these actions, not necessarily the inner motivations of the people involved. In fact within the current system people involved in these professions ARE very useful and can do a lot of good for people if they choose to, but what I am thinking about is a very different system from what we have now where much of what goes into maintaining our current economic system is no longer necessary.
Hippy Weirdo Fanciful Dreaming
As I write about some of these things, some people will ‘get’ them straight away because they will already be thinking along those lines anyway or it may even seem completely obvious to them like “Duh – of course its always been like that”. Other people will struggle a bit and may think that what I’m talking about is crazy hippy weirdo fanciful dreaming nonsense that doesn’t acknowledge the ‘realities’ of the world. I must admit that I probably fit more into the second category than the first. Like all of us I am a product of my environment, I have been born and raised into our current system of economic control and it has become ingrained in my psyche. In addition to this my undergraduate degree was in Finance (straight A average from the top ranked university in New Zealand – I’m kind of proud of that) and my postgraduate study was in Marketing. So I know the theory of the current system pretty well, and for most of my life have taken it just as a given fact. But deep down I think there has always been something about it which has made me feel uncomfortable. It has taken many years for these feelings to come to the surface into a form that I can begin to understand, and I am still dealing with my past programming as I begin to think and act in different ways. I often still have this incredible doubt and a voice shouting at me ‘that’s crazy’ as I think about trying new things with GFRF, because it cuts against almost everything I see in the world around me and against the aspirations and patterns of behaviour of the population at large. But I think maybe there is a better way, and I want to try and see if I can find it, whether I do it alone or with a community of like minded people.
We Are Powerful As Individuals
In terms of addressing the ‘realities’ of the world and how things work, I have a few thoughts about that. What is it that makes up the ‘system’ as we currently know it? It is the collective action of all of us that contributes to this system. What would it take for the ‘system’ to change. Well the actions of each of us makes a difference, it is up to each individual to decide how they will act, and this in turn affects the whole. Often we think that we can’t change the world, there is no point in trying to change the system because it is too big. But the reality is that each one of us makes up part of the system, as we change how we think and act the system of necessity has to change. This is not a new idea.
“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
The truth is that the world and society is always changing, it has changed massively in the last 100 years and even in the last decade. Many of the things we do now and the ways we interact of many levels (socially, legally, economically, technologically) would have be near inconceivable a mere century ago. The world and society will continue to change and it is up to each of us as individuals to decide how we will act which will in turn shape the future direction of our world and society.
Utopian/Dystopian Visions
What does the future hold? Well science fiction often points towards a dystopian future of one kind or another, or if it does imagine a utopia it is almost always a utopia with rotten core – the facade of a utopia on what in fact is a dystopia.
Some classic examples:
And there are many many others. There is an underlying theme to be careful of wishing for or dreaming of a utopia because it may not turn out to be what we expect. There is this idea that there needs to be conflict, struggle and suffering in order for us to be truly happy. This is classically explained by Agent Smith in the first Matrix movie.
There is also an idea amongst fiction writers that there needs to be this conflict in order for things to be interesting. I personally do not believe this – I think its just a habitual way of thinking we have got into. I see no reason why things can not be interesting without conflict and suffering. I think as humans we need to learn and to grow in order to be fulfilled, but I think we can receive sufficient stimulus for this development in positive ways without the negativity of conflict and suffering.
We Move Towards What We Focus On
It is a fact of life that we tend to move towards what we think and dream about. When steering a boat you look towards the horizon where you want to go as this will keep the course of the boat steady. From time to time you may zig and zag and get blown off course, but if you keep your eyes on where you want to go, that is where you will head. While we continue to believe that it is a requirement for us to have conflict and suffering in order to lead fulfilling lives, that is what we do. While we continue to believe that any possible utopia will actually be a dystopia, we will self-fulfill that expectation.
Why Not Dream of Utopia?
Wouldn’t it be an interesting challenge to imagine a TRUE utopia? To create fiction that depicts this utopia in an interesting way so that it seems compelling and exciting? To look consistently towards this end, even while understanding that we will probably be blown off course frequently and go up and down over many waves along the way? If we could do this as individuals and as a society, maybe that’s where we would end up instead of in one of the dystopias that is currently portrayed in much of our fiction.
I think its interesting that there are common threads that run through much of this utopian/dystopian fiction. The fundamental flaw is often to do with greed, excessive consumption, subjugation of personal freedom and so on. In my blog post I will write about how the GFRF concept addresses these problems and how it can create system wide change right to the core of a society, I think that maybe it can dig out the rot and uncover the true good core of humanity. I know that from a social perspective a lot of what I will write may seem like science fiction, but I’ll put my thoughts out there anyway. I don’t have all the answers by any means, but I do have ideas and I think those ideas are worth sharing, they might spark other ideas in other people which together can add up to something good. I will also document my own experiences with trying to implement these ideas – you’ll get to find out the results, good or bad. I expect a fair bit of trial and error, a fair bit of being blown of course and having to get back on it.
As I mentioned earlier, this is something I want to experiment with by myself anyway, but I will also share with you some of my dreams of how this could effect society as a whole if it were to spread and grow. In my dreams this could lead to a TRUE UTOPIA.
Historic/Fictional Precedents
Is there precedent for this? Do all our stories and histories involve conflict and suffering? I can think of at least a couple of examples that describe groups of people who have achieved a true utopia in their society. They are scriptural accounts from LDS scriptures and I think they offer some insights into what contributes to a true utopia. One of these groups is the people of Enoch (referred to in the bible, but there are additional insights into their history and society in the LDS scriptures) who built a city called Zion. The people of Zion were “of one heart and one mind and dwelt in righteousness; and there were no poor among them” You can read about Enoch and his people here
Another group were the people living on the American continent shortly after the time of Christ (The Book of Mormon is a book of scripture from the people of the American continent that describes the occurrences in that part of the world and a visit by Jesus Christ to these people) These people are described as:
“there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift… And there were no envyings nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of laciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one.”
These people “did build cities” and “did multiply exceedingly fast, and became an exceedingly fair and delightsome people”.
Now that sounds like an interesting time to live in! According to the scriptural account this period lasted for almost two hundred years. You can read about this time and the eventual breakdown of this society here
Now these accounts are from LDS scripture, there are probably others in other scriptures, or maybe even in works of fiction (Shangri La? – I’m not entirely familiar with that story). If you know of others perhaps you can mention them in the comments below. The stories point to the possibility of true utopia and some of what made the society that way. I think this is interesting to think about, dream about and work towards.
I have just got back from my trip to China. My purpose in going was mainly for my kung fu and qigong teaching, to check out the schools there, gain ideas and inspiration, and prepare for when groups from my school may make trips there. But I also found that I had a lot of experiences and saw a lot of things that gave me food for thought about the ‘give freely receive freely’ concept.
The Great Wall of China
One thing that was particularly relevant was that in China there is no fixed price on almost anything. Almost everything is negotiable and the locals expect there to be some haggling before a final price is established at which an exchange will take place. At one of the major markets the vendors will typically ask in the region of 10 times what they will actually accept for what they are selling. Then a drawn out negotiation begins during which they will act like whatever price you suggest is ridiculous, tell you how other people they would normally quote a higher price for but for you they quoted a reasonable price, they will try and show you inferior products and suggest that maybe you could buy one of them instead, they will suggest a price not much lower than they initially offered, you walk away and then they call after you with a better price, they may act sad, angry etc and then eventually you come to a price you a both happy with.
Inside a market in Shanghai
The process can be entertaining I suppose, but also takes quite a bit of time. On the two occasions when I tried to shorten the process and get to a price I was happy with faster (and KNEW I could get from experience with other stallholders), they wouldn’t sell to me. It seems like in order to get a reasonable price I HAD to go through the charade, even though getting to a price we both new was reasonable faster would have saved both of us a lot of time and energy. After awhile I began to avoid the markets because I didn’t want to put so much time and effort into a simple transaction, although I suppose I would still go there if there was something I really needed.
But it doesn’t stop there, even in the big flash department stores with marked prices on everything, apparently things are still negotiable. It became very difficult to know what price to really expect for things.
The bright lights of East Nanjing Road, lots of upmarket big brand shopping.
The one exception was food. I had a long conversation about this with a Chinese lady who made sure to let me know that I should negotiate on absolutely EVERYTHING in China with the only exception being food, for food the price was the price. She probably wasn’t aware that there was a slight proviso to that, the price is the price as long as you are CHINESE. Probably 90% of the time or more I think the people selling me food just charged me the same price as they would anyone else, but there were a couple of occasions at fruit shops where I was charged far more than I should have been. At one of these I know I was charged 10 times the price of a local, because I saw what a local was charged for the same items. I could have entered into negotiations at this point to get a better price, but was quite bemused by the whole thing at the time so just paid the money and left. But while I may have had more money than some of the locals, I certainly did not have enough that I would have been able to afford that price for food on a regular basis, so if I had been staying in the area I never would have bought from that shop again.
A fruit and vegetable stall at Deng Feng (not one of the ones I was ripped off at)
So how does this all tie in to the ‘give freely, receive freely’ concept? Well for a start in many ways I liked there not being a fixed price, it provided a mechanism by which those with more could pay more and those with less could pay less. A lot of the time I am sure that even with some hard bargaining I still paid considerably more than a local would, and I don’t mind that, because it was a price I could afford and was happy with. The bargaining to reach a price though became tedious and time consuming. So much energy was put into the transaction by both sides to make sure they got as much (or gave as little) as possible in the deal. Surely we all would be better off if this energy was put into other productive things. With give freely receive freely, no energy is expended on negotiation, meaning we all have more time and energy for the things we really want and need in life.
It is very hard for us to know the circumstances of everyone we deal with. Sometimes the initial price quoted by a vendor would be so high it seemed ridiculous even to a westerner used to paying more in their home country. They really seemed to have little conception of what would seem like a reasonable price to us. On the other hand, for a foreigner it was very hard to tell where the true local price point was, because many things were so cheap that you could pay two or three times what a local would and still feel like you got a pretty good price. Using a give freely receive freely approach means that we do not judge the circumstances of another but let them give according to what they can. I wonder how some of the stall holders might have fared under such a system. I know there were times when I would have gladly paid more for something, but the whole mindset of bargaining sets you up to try and get as low a price as you possibly can (or have the time and patience to bargain for).
I also respected the fact that for food at least the price was usually the price. I think there is a basic human understanding that there are certain things we need to survive so at least for those things we should deal fairly with each other. While it was possible to pay a lot for food in China, there seemed to always be very cheap options as well, even in the big cities, that I think even the poor would have been able to afford. For the most part I think I was treated decently by the people selling food in China, and I appreciated that. Maybe the exceptions with the fruit could be due to fruit being viewed as a luxury? I’m not sure about that.
Yummy noodles in Deng Feng, apparently the Henan province noodles are quite famous.
When we deal unfairly with someone in our community, it may make us a short term profit, but ultimately in the long run do us harm. In the case of the fruit stands that charged excessively for what I bought from them, they would have really lost out if I had stayed in the area. I eat quite a lot of fruit, but having been ripped of once, I would not go back to that shop, I would find somewhere that charged me fairly and they would get all my business. I am sure this also has wider implications that will affect those involved even if they manage to only overcharge those who would not be returning to their shop anyway. The world is all interconnected and our actions tend to have ripple effects. Others would observe how the shop owner treated foreigners, and this in turn would shape their view of the shop owner and how they interact with them, I’m sure in the end there would be some effect even if not immediately – a bit like the concept of karma.
So all up China was an interesting and thought provoking experience. There were many other things I saw or experienced while I was there that have a bearing on ‘give freely, receive freely’ too, but I think I will write about those more when I get to writing about various specific topics.
As I have started my experiment with giving freely and receiving freely, people have of course asked the obvious question of where the idea came from. As with many ideas, I didn’t really know at first, it had been buzzing around inside my head for quite awhile before I finally figured out how to express it and how I would go about it in practice. As I’ve thought about it more though I have identified a number of sources of inspiration over the last several years that have sat in my subconscious and worked away until I have come to where I am now in my thinking.
International Financial Crisis and Recession
One of the biggest factors I think has been the international financial crisis and the prolonged recession that has followed it. As a result, a lot of people have been having a really hard time financially and some of the inequities and problems with our financial system that normally would go unnoticed or at least not thought about in any detail have become more prominent. I guess the saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it’ is actually pretty good advice a lot of the time, but the recent problems have made it clear that something is broken with our system and the way our society functions.
Occupy Wallstreet
A lot of people have been thinking about this and protesting, advocating different kinds of changes that might address the issues. Probably most prominent amongst these is the Occupy movement. Starting with Occupy Wallstreet, this movement spread all over the world including to New Zealand where protesters occupied various public spaces for long periods of time. One of the things I found interesting about this protest movement was that no-one really seemed to have any specific demands, other than a fairer financial system which didn’t make the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. How exactly they wanted this to be achieved was not made clear and in many ways I don’t think was an aim of the organizers, but the did want people to think about it and I think in that they have succeeded. I didn’t personally pay a great deal of attention to the protest movement, but I think it did trigger some things of in my own mind to get me thinking.
I think maybe the reason that the Occupy movement didn’t have specific demands to address the situation was that the situation is complex and a solution may not be simple, or maybe the solution is simple but we are so ingrained into thinking about things in a certain way that it is hard for us to see it at this point. Maybe when our perspective changes the solution will in fact be clear and simple, we just have a lot of ‘deprogramming’ to do to bring us to a new way of thinking about our world and in particular our financial systems. I’ll write more about this in a future post.
Unease and Action
Anyway, the combination of these factors and probably a host of others has left me with a general feeling of unease about our financial system which has been hard to exactly put my finger on. I think in a way this has been a good thing, because it often takes discomfort to motivate change and action, but what action should I take, especially when I hadn’t really identified the problem fully yet.
Inspiration
Well a few other ideas of things I had heard about in recent times were percolating around in my head as well. One of the high profile ones was when Radiohead released their album ‘In Rainbows’ in 2007 on a ‘pay what you want’ basis. It was a very unusual concept at the time (and still is really) and provoked a lot of media attention. There was a lot of speculation at the time that it had been unprofitable for them, but when figures were eventually released it turned out that the opposite was true and it had been very successful for them. Theres an article about that here: http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/10/radiohead_pay_w.html
Something else I heard about awhile ago was a cafe here in Auckland that was operating on a ‘gift economy’ basis. I recall thinking it was very strange and wondered if it would work (and here I find myself doing basically the same thing). The cafe is called the Wise Cicada cafe and as I was writing this I found an article about them here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/blogs/nick-smith/3795026/Gift-economy-cafe-confounds-some
I don’t know if they are still operating that way now, but I have contacted them to ask so hopefully I will get some feedback from them and be able to write about that in a later post.
Even though this article was after I had begun my experiment, it shows that there is a general zeitgeist around this idea. There are many other factors of course, the prevalence of downloadable content on the internet, open source software and so on. People are looking for different ways to exchange value. The idea is out there floating around and some people are beginning to latch on to it, including at this stage me. While the idea is still very much on the fringes, as I have written this and thought about some of the things that have inspired me, instead of feeling like I’m breaking new ground I’m actually starting to feel a little like maybe I’m actually a bit of a latecomer to the party.
