a review by Bill Ellis
“Reciprocity is the Basis of our Future Culture” suggests Dominique Temple in issue No.31 of Golias: Le Journal Catho Tendre et GrinĂant (Golias, BP4034, F-69615 Villeubanne FRANCE, (in French)).
Reciprocity is a form of economics practiced by most indigenous people in many parts of the world. Unlke “exchange”, “trade” or “barter”, reciprocity is based on prestige gained by gifting. Ownership, accumulation, competition and materialism, are not recognized in reciprocity societies instead the are rooted in giving, cooperation, human relationships, and ecology. “Self-interest is replaced by “public interest”; the individual’s well being is dependent on the well being of the community, so the individual’s whole life and purpose is devoted to community well being.
Dominique bases the main article in this publication on an examination of the Native American economy since Columbus. Columbus’s logs for the first three years are filled with wonderment at the Native’s proclivity for giving, and their lack of interest in exchange. In a few passages Columbus seems to almost understand the radical different basis of the cultures he’d discovered. But he succumbs to his search for gold, and his cultural roots in exploitation and domination.
But through the ages the Native Americans have maintained their roots in a culture of reciprocity. In spite of the repressive efforts of the early colonists and the later neo colonialists to press them into the EuroAmerican economic system, they have held on to their own means of distributing goods and maintain relationships, except when dealing with outsiders. Their tenacity has been read by the U.S. government and others as a turn toward Marxism, and led to further repressions during the Cold War. But, Temple points out, that unlike Marxism, the indigenous system is not based on class struggle or government ownership. For the Native American had no interest in “property”, “ownership” or “accumulation” which is as necessary for Communism as it is for Capitalism. The native Americans “wealth”, or assured well being, was dependent in his “poverty”, or the amount of goods s/he had contributed to others in the community.
With the end of the Cold War there is a growing leniency toward the Native Americans, and toward other cultures. New studies have shown that almost all cultures, except the EuroAmerican, based their roots in human relationships, reverence for the Earth, and reciprocity. These are the same qualities gaining precedence among a growing number of progressive thinkers and Gaian philosophers. Temple sees this as a hopeful sign, and believes that we will learn that a different culture and a different economic system is not only possible but in the making.
This review is reposted from TRANET #81(Aug.1993)
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