I cherish the notion of the gift economy, that we might back away from the grinding system, which reduces everything to a commodity and leaves most of us bereft of what we really want: a sense of belonging and relationship and purpose and beauty, which can never be commoditized. I want to be part of a system in which wealth means having enough to

Continued fealty to economies based on competition for manufactured scarcity, rather than cooperation around natural abundance, is now causing us to face the danger of producing real scarcity, evident in growing shortages of food and clean water, breathable air, and fertile soil.

Ecological economists ask how we might build economic systems that meet citizens’ needs while aligning with ecological principles that allow long-term sustainability for people and for the planet.

What would it be like to consume with the full awareness that we are the recipients of earthly gifts, which we have not earned? To consume with humility?

Giving begets giving and the gift stays in motion.

The prosperity of the community grows from the flow of relationships, not the accumulation of goods.

Our metrics of economic value like GDP count only monetary value in the marketplace, of that which can be bought and sold. There is no room in these equations for the economic value of clean air and carbon sequestration and the ineffable riches of a forest filled with birdsong. Where is the value of a butterfly whose species has prospered for

Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource.

It seems absurd to me that someone could own water, a free gift that falls like the proverbial manna from heaven. Could you sell manna without spiritual jeopardy? I don’t think so.