Gift Economy of Property
Discussion
By 'mutualist' Shawn Wilbur:
"So where and how does the mutualist attempt to swim against the stream of natural and historical development, in order to posit a potentially-mutual something-or-other that might intervene in that development in the name of greater liberty? For over two years now, my suggestion has been that we embrace the notion of a "gift economy of property," that we acknowledge, on the one hand, what is profoundly unnatural about individual rights, and explore the real interconnections that notions of individual property tend to obscure, while, on the other hand, we give to one another the one sort of property that robs no one, the recognition of the other as a unique being, subject to their own law of development, and in many ways incommensurable with all other unique beings.
Over two years ago, I introduced the notion of the "gift economy of property," my intervention in the debate over "self-ownership," as a sort of "foundation" on which a full mutualist property theory might be built:
- My intuition, based in part on some language various places in Proudhon's work and in part on the connections I've been making to other continental thought, is that a "gift economy," in the sense of a system in which something, which can be rightfully given, is given, with no specific expectations of return, could only arise in fairly limited circumstances, and perhaps can only have one application within Proudhon's thought--but that one application may be a bit of a doozy. We know that there is, for Proudhon, some opening for society to emerge as a "pact of liberty" leading towards approximations of equality and finally of justice. We know that freedom rises from the interplay of necessity and liberty, and that property too has its internal contradictions. Proudhon's moi has very little that he can rightfully give, if even his own "property" is theft. But he can, perhaps, give property to the other, through recognition, which steals nothing, robs no one, and is perfectly gratuitous, even if, and this is the character of the gift economy, he cannot be sure of reciprocation. To the extent, however, that commerce is based in equal recognition, if not necessarily any other sort of equality, then this particular gift economy might be strangely (given all we have said, and some of the names we have invoked) foundational."
(http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2011/01/responses-on-mutualist-property-theory.html)