Sharing a reaction here from Gen Vaughan at her request:
Dear Brian,
Let me see if I can answer the question about your three fundamental shifts.
I believe that it is important to put #2 first. We need to find the reason why things are going so wrong. It's not just that our behavior is bad, it's that something is causing it. I see gifting as the real human way, beginning with the model of gifting that the motherer provides to the child
and that I think is established epigenetically as a kind of 'operating system' in infancy and early childhood.
Children do not even begin to understand exchange, money and the market until they are around 3 years old so by default almost, they live in a gift economy. Learning about exchange, quid pro quo, do ut des, ego-oriented giving only in order to receive, imposes a second operating system, a second logic, on top of the gift logic, and this is where our problems start. The two systems conflict with each other, but since we do not realize gifting is basic, we normalize exchange and it takes over as the explanation of our behavior. It has some corollaries like reward and punishment that in our capitalist society are foisted upon children very early but in matriarchal societies seem to be used much less.
The gift economy is a continuation of the early maternal giving and receiving relation and In our society it coexists with the exchange economy, which takes it over and discredits and exploits it.. Profit is a gift given to the capitalist by the worker, that comes from the free care work of women, the gifts of nature and what Marx calls 'surplus value', the value of the product over and above the salary paid to the worker. So the exchange system is actually parasitic on gifting.
I believe exchange may come from the categorization aspect of language. I write a lot about it in my very long book, The gift in the heart of language, the maternal source of meaning. I mention that because I want it to be clear that I don't think exchange is a defect of our species but only a mistake that we have made historically and that we can stop making. Money is a part of that mistake that makes it worse. There are a number of other corollaries of exchange. Deserving is one. In deserving it seems you have to have given in order to be able to receive - so it is an exchange.
As to flow, I believe that happens when we are doing gifting, and the attention is on needs (of all kinds) and satisfying them. Self-referencing, reflexive exchange obviously stops the flow. But the two are tangled together in our society. For example someone can receive a loan which she will have to pay but she can use it for giving to her children or to create an exchange based business with the profits of which she can give to her children - or others. Gifting is dependent on the exchange economy in order to access the means of giving. This is like the workers in Marx's analysis who do not have access to the means of production, which are owned by the capitalists, so they are dependent on them. But there is so much to say about all this I really can't do it justice here.
Going back to the maternal model allows us to trace the two logics or paradigms and see where they intersect and how the parasitism happens. it gives us a guideline of meaning, which has been made invisible by patriarchal and market-based thinking.
I'd just like to add - If we only do practice it is hard to know what to do and hard to generalize it.
And finally -We are not a cruel, greedy profit-mad species, we have just made some wrong interpretations of the world, and these are making us collectively insane.
Let me know what you think.
Peace,
Gen
PS Here is an article I wrote for an academic economics journal. You can download it free here
I’m really loving this. I want to thank you for this post, and in particular for sharing Marshall Rosenberg‘s masterful video. That is extraordinarily inspiring!
What a gorgeous weaving of the various thinkings and experiments in this vital space! My housemates and I practice Miki's (Domonic Barters original idea) money piles to pay our rent and it involves facing all 4 of her barriers - I find it so useful and moving that she has managed to distill the range of complex emotions and attachments we find ourselves with.
damn. i love so much about this. thank you for writing. might drop some more detailed responses later but def wanted to not wait to share my gratitude. 🙏
Thanks for the provocations Brian. This is a thought I sit with very often and as I figure my own way through it, appreciate your guidance and direction.
“I don’t want to erase the self; nor do I want to privilege it.” I really love this line. It encapsulates so well the balance we need to create, and elides the more usual conclusions, in which the answer to a supposed problem (the “entitled millennials” discussion comes to mind) is to simplistically encourage its opposite, again to excess.
The problem of the scaffolding and the foundation has itched at me a long time. Fix what we can within the system as it is, because people are suffering now. And also, dismantle the system. How do you do both?
The idea of “money as a tool of love” comes close to answering that, and is slowly transforming how I personally think and do around money. I wish I had more courage for this work. I find it exponentially easier to be someone who gives than someone who relies on receiving. But we all need to be both, as our changing situations warrant. That’s my challenge to grow into.
Hi, Brian. It's an unexpected gift to return to this!
And a bit wistful: I remember sometimes that I used to be articulate in prose. :p The last couple of years have left me, frankly, depleted, and I think that shows in my ability to focus long enough to read deeply, consider deeply, and respond thoughtfully in writing. So, speaking of challenges to grow into, this is me taking the opportunity to try. :)
Though it's slow work (and what work that is good, that *sticks*, is not slow?), I do think I've moved further in the direction of conceptualizing money "as a tool of love." Love is an active verb so much of the time -- something you *do*, not something you feel -- and it's good to realize that I now tend to think of money in terms of what it can do, right now, to *do* love for myself or for someone else. That $20 in my wallet can help that guy on the street buy a bus ticket, or whatever. My savings can help me try out a better living situation. My job brings money that directly translates into shelter, food, clothing, leisure, space for art, the ability to do unpaid work we love -- for me, and for my house family. I don't have to translate this anymore; it's the reality of how I think most of the time. That feels good.
I do still find myself wanting to grasp the old paradigm when I'm anxious or afraid.
For example, I've struggled for three+ years now with the inability to get out of a housing situation that is, while good and loving, also absolutely wrong and exhausting as a baseline for me. For a long time, my husband and I spoke of the difficulty in capitalist economic terms: everything is so expensive; how can we afford X solution, what if I lose my job, etc. Recently, I tried to articulate to him that I wanted to stop using that language. Not that it was wrong, but that money/capitalism was not the lens I wanted to use to focus the problem -- or the potential solutions. And as I'm reflecting on it now, the current (positive) shift in my living situation may have began with that shift in thinking:
a) money as only one consideration, not *the* consideration, and
b) money as tool rather than money as limit.
Although I think in terms of tool and gift much more consistently now, I do still find it easier to be someone who gives than someone who receives. Money, yes, but also time, skill, practical help. It's still uncomfortable to claim (or just accept) the generosity of others. There's a persistent narrative in the background here of weakness versus strength, and both of those as existing in fixed relation to each other. I think that narrative is wrong...but I often can't *feel* that. I guess I can extrapolate from the idea of love as doing and not feeling, and choose to behave my way into an alternate paradigm. The specifics feel a little murky at present.
mmm. thank you for taking the time to come back and reflect and respond. I'm sorry about your situation, and the feeling of depletion in the face of everything. I admire the courage to name the stuckness and to experiment with different ways, including language and metaphors, for how we get free. my current thinking around money is more as energy than medicine: something that only has value in flow and in contributing to life and relationships. I haven't yet written about this, but my core Epiphany about capitalism is that it saves us from the vulnerability of having to ask for help (or at least, it gives us the illusion that we can buy our way to safety and security... and of course, this illusion is only plausible for some of us at the expense of others). and yet we know that vulnerability is essential to intimacy and connection, and therefore belonging. yet another reason that true belonging is not possible under capitalism... sigh. wishing you all the best.
It's such a deeply good thing to be trying to think about money in _any_ other way. I appreciate this conversation very much.
Energy: absolutely. Which also speaks to the way that you can't _keep_ money. Or: you can, sometimes, but the natural consequence of that is that money becomes the focus, and then you get stuck, and maybe other people because of you. Energy stops moving. So, as you said: capitalism. :p At least the way it's currently practiced.
Man, I _love_ the idea of a system that saves me from having to ask for help! And of course, in practice, I don't love that at all; this is just an old paradigm that has its poisonous roots deep in my heart. It masquerades so effectively as good values: self-reliance, self-discipline, self-control. It takes all those things to a hideous extreme, of course, which ultimately invalidates the good they can give. Because the point is to give.
Re-reading your original post, the metaphor that resonates now is this one: "We can think of money as medicine; its only value is to serve life." I like the idea of turning such a historically-damaging concept toward healing.
Much to love and apply here, thanks Brian. Here’s to building a new foundation which later generations can build upon. Here’s to true abundant life and the healing of the earth and ourselves in it.
This article comes at a perfect time as we are thinking about how to sustain the Wellbeing Movement. It is dense and full of relevant insights, as always! I am going to come back to it again to read all the material you have referenced.
My own exploration with the Wellbeing Movement led us to the same conclusion - that a community that is built on relationships of care for each other and the cause is far more potent a force than a community that is anchored in money. Money serves the role of just medicine and offers some temporary scaffolding.
We have applied the first principle, are beginning to explore the second more in practice, but still grasping the third. What you said here is true and challenging to embody - "There are at least three components: learning to identify our own needs, then learning to express them, then learning to receive others’ gifts to help meet those needs… these are three different skillsets, each of which most of us have very little practice at."
We will hopefully find a way to realize this together!
And charity is not how it gets done either. The non-profit industrial complex covers so much horrifying behavior by the wealthy. We need to find ways to ensure that everyone has what they need, whether that's care, food, housing, education - etc - we need to ensure that at least the base of Maslow's hierarchy is something everyone has. The meritocracy/plutocracy will kill us all.
Women have been held in a "gift" economy - free labor for centuries upon centuries. I think this is a ridiculous idea and doesn't solve real economic problems, especially for women and others who have been surviving in this give it or else system set up.
Thank you for this, Brian. My favorite line: "The irony, of course, is that those who are accumulating financial resources — particularly for retirement — are doing so in order to be able to pay for human care… fearing that no one will be there to provide that support for us in our senescence."
But, that's the reason Social Security began. Because people - many widowed women - were being left destitute with no one to care for them, Then, most couldn't own property or get a loan or anything. Of course, the wealthy had no need for that, so they created all these financial instruments to make more profit from people just trying to prevent abject poverty in their old age. Too many are dealing with it now. Social Security payments for most can't even get a person an apartment. If people were lucky enough to rebuild retirement savings after the banking industry harvested our houses and so much else, they might have a bit of a nest egg now - but then inflation...................and the wealthy take it back from us again. Also, as a PCA working in this time of incredible shortages of workers and ridiculously low pay, and now they plan to GPS monitor us in our own homes if we PCA for people who live with us, people have good reason to fear there will be no one to care for them. And, for retired people who need PCA care and are poor because SS doesn't cover much, if they access the social service programs to get the care they need (and they have no other way to do it), the state will take their home after they die. Universal Healthcare could help with that but everything is so incredibly underfunded. Did you know that for a disabled adult who was never able to work, the law says that their SSI has to be set at 75% of the poverty level? That means 25% less than poverty. That means the program intends for disabled people to live in abject poverty. Why? So many layers.
The reality is that family caregivers - whether they are caring for their own kids or their elderly parents or disabled family members - can't afford to work 30-40 hours a week caring for family members AND work an outside job to bring in the funds to keep themselves out of poverty. The model of women providing all this care for free never supported the women doing the work. It's hard work - some of the hardest people can do, it has its own rewards, but it would be impossible to strike and leave people without the care they need, So we go on as best we can. But none of this should be this hard. It's not ironic - it's barbaric.
Sharing a reaction here from Gen Vaughan at her request:
Dear Brian,
Let me see if I can answer the question about your three fundamental shifts.
I believe that it is important to put #2 first. We need to find the reason why things are going so wrong. It's not just that our behavior is bad, it's that something is causing it. I see gifting as the real human way, beginning with the model of gifting that the motherer provides to the child
and that I think is established epigenetically as a kind of 'operating system' in infancy and early childhood.
Children do not even begin to understand exchange, money and the market until they are around 3 years old so by default almost, they live in a gift economy. Learning about exchange, quid pro quo, do ut des, ego-oriented giving only in order to receive, imposes a second operating system, a second logic, on top of the gift logic, and this is where our problems start. The two systems conflict with each other, but since we do not realize gifting is basic, we normalize exchange and it takes over as the explanation of our behavior. It has some corollaries like reward and punishment that in our capitalist society are foisted upon children very early but in matriarchal societies seem to be used much less.
The gift economy is a continuation of the early maternal giving and receiving relation and In our society it coexists with the exchange economy, which takes it over and discredits and exploits it.. Profit is a gift given to the capitalist by the worker, that comes from the free care work of women, the gifts of nature and what Marx calls 'surplus value', the value of the product over and above the salary paid to the worker. So the exchange system is actually parasitic on gifting.
I believe exchange may come from the categorization aspect of language. I write a lot about it in my very long book, The gift in the heart of language, the maternal source of meaning. I mention that because I want it to be clear that I don't think exchange is a defect of our species but only a mistake that we have made historically and that we can stop making. Money is a part of that mistake that makes it worse. There are a number of other corollaries of exchange. Deserving is one. In deserving it seems you have to have given in order to be able to receive - so it is an exchange.
As to flow, I believe that happens when we are doing gifting, and the attention is on needs (of all kinds) and satisfying them. Self-referencing, reflexive exchange obviously stops the flow. But the two are tangled together in our society. For example someone can receive a loan which she will have to pay but she can use it for giving to her children or to create an exchange based business with the profits of which she can give to her children - or others. Gifting is dependent on the exchange economy in order to access the means of giving. This is like the workers in Marx's analysis who do not have access to the means of production, which are owned by the capitalists, so they are dependent on them. But there is so much to say about all this I really can't do it justice here.
Going back to the maternal model allows us to trace the two logics or paradigms and see where they intersect and how the parasitism happens. it gives us a guideline of meaning, which has been made invisible by patriarchal and market-based thinking.
I'd just like to add - If we only do practice it is hard to know what to do and hard to generalize it.
And finally -We are not a cruel, greedy profit-mad species, we have just made some wrong interpretations of the world, and these are making us collectively insane.
Let me know what you think.
Peace,
Gen
PS Here is an article I wrote for an academic economics journal. You can download it free here
https://arpejournal.com/article/id/177/
I’m really loving this. I want to thank you for this post, and in particular for sharing Marshall Rosenberg‘s masterful video. That is extraordinarily inspiring!
What a gorgeous weaving of the various thinkings and experiments in this vital space! My housemates and I practice Miki's (Domonic Barters original idea) money piles to pay our rent and it involves facing all 4 of her barriers - I find it so useful and moving that she has managed to distill the range of complex emotions and attachments we find ourselves with.
thank you! x
damn. i love so much about this. thank you for writing. might drop some more detailed responses later but def wanted to not wait to share my gratitude. 🙏
Thanks for the provocations Brian. This is a thought I sit with very often and as I figure my own way through it, appreciate your guidance and direction.
“I don’t want to erase the self; nor do I want to privilege it.” I really love this line. It encapsulates so well the balance we need to create, and elides the more usual conclusions, in which the answer to a supposed problem (the “entitled millennials” discussion comes to mind) is to simplistically encourage its opposite, again to excess.
The problem of the scaffolding and the foundation has itched at me a long time. Fix what we can within the system as it is, because people are suffering now. And also, dismantle the system. How do you do both?
The idea of “money as a tool of love” comes close to answering that, and is slowly transforming how I personally think and do around money. I wish I had more courage for this work. I find it exponentially easier to be someone who gives than someone who relies on receiving. But we all need to be both, as our changing situations warrant. That’s my challenge to grow into.
hi Tara, i was returning to this today, and wondering how you are holding it two years later... would welcome any updates! I hope all is well.
Hi, Brian. It's an unexpected gift to return to this!
And a bit wistful: I remember sometimes that I used to be articulate in prose. :p The last couple of years have left me, frankly, depleted, and I think that shows in my ability to focus long enough to read deeply, consider deeply, and respond thoughtfully in writing. So, speaking of challenges to grow into, this is me taking the opportunity to try. :)
Though it's slow work (and what work that is good, that *sticks*, is not slow?), I do think I've moved further in the direction of conceptualizing money "as a tool of love." Love is an active verb so much of the time -- something you *do*, not something you feel -- and it's good to realize that I now tend to think of money in terms of what it can do, right now, to *do* love for myself or for someone else. That $20 in my wallet can help that guy on the street buy a bus ticket, or whatever. My savings can help me try out a better living situation. My job brings money that directly translates into shelter, food, clothing, leisure, space for art, the ability to do unpaid work we love -- for me, and for my house family. I don't have to translate this anymore; it's the reality of how I think most of the time. That feels good.
I do still find myself wanting to grasp the old paradigm when I'm anxious or afraid.
For example, I've struggled for three+ years now with the inability to get out of a housing situation that is, while good and loving, also absolutely wrong and exhausting as a baseline for me. For a long time, my husband and I spoke of the difficulty in capitalist economic terms: everything is so expensive; how can we afford X solution, what if I lose my job, etc. Recently, I tried to articulate to him that I wanted to stop using that language. Not that it was wrong, but that money/capitalism was not the lens I wanted to use to focus the problem -- or the potential solutions. And as I'm reflecting on it now, the current (positive) shift in my living situation may have began with that shift in thinking:
a) money as only one consideration, not *the* consideration, and
b) money as tool rather than money as limit.
Although I think in terms of tool and gift much more consistently now, I do still find it easier to be someone who gives than someone who receives. Money, yes, but also time, skill, practical help. It's still uncomfortable to claim (or just accept) the generosity of others. There's a persistent narrative in the background here of weakness versus strength, and both of those as existing in fixed relation to each other. I think that narrative is wrong...but I often can't *feel* that. I guess I can extrapolate from the idea of love as doing and not feeling, and choose to behave my way into an alternate paradigm. The specifics feel a little murky at present.
mmm. thank you for taking the time to come back and reflect and respond. I'm sorry about your situation, and the feeling of depletion in the face of everything. I admire the courage to name the stuckness and to experiment with different ways, including language and metaphors, for how we get free. my current thinking around money is more as energy than medicine: something that only has value in flow and in contributing to life and relationships. I haven't yet written about this, but my core Epiphany about capitalism is that it saves us from the vulnerability of having to ask for help (or at least, it gives us the illusion that we can buy our way to safety and security... and of course, this illusion is only plausible for some of us at the expense of others). and yet we know that vulnerability is essential to intimacy and connection, and therefore belonging. yet another reason that true belonging is not possible under capitalism... sigh. wishing you all the best.
It's such a deeply good thing to be trying to think about money in _any_ other way. I appreciate this conversation very much.
Energy: absolutely. Which also speaks to the way that you can't _keep_ money. Or: you can, sometimes, but the natural consequence of that is that money becomes the focus, and then you get stuck, and maybe other people because of you. Energy stops moving. So, as you said: capitalism. :p At least the way it's currently practiced.
Man, I _love_ the idea of a system that saves me from having to ask for help! And of course, in practice, I don't love that at all; this is just an old paradigm that has its poisonous roots deep in my heart. It masquerades so effectively as good values: self-reliance, self-discipline, self-control. It takes all those things to a hideous extreme, of course, which ultimately invalidates the good they can give. Because the point is to give.
Re-reading your original post, the metaphor that resonates now is this one: "We can think of money as medicine; its only value is to serve life." I like the idea of turning such a historically-damaging concept toward healing.
Much to love and apply here, thanks Brian. Here’s to building a new foundation which later generations can build upon. Here’s to true abundant life and the healing of the earth and ourselves in it.
Hi Brian,
This article comes at a perfect time as we are thinking about how to sustain the Wellbeing Movement. It is dense and full of relevant insights, as always! I am going to come back to it again to read all the material you have referenced.
My own exploration with the Wellbeing Movement led us to the same conclusion - that a community that is built on relationships of care for each other and the cause is far more potent a force than a community that is anchored in money. Money serves the role of just medicine and offers some temporary scaffolding.
We have applied the first principle, are beginning to explore the second more in practice, but still grasping the third. What you said here is true and challenging to embody - "There are at least three components: learning to identify our own needs, then learning to express them, then learning to receive others’ gifts to help meet those needs… these are three different skillsets, each of which most of us have very little practice at."
We will hopefully find a way to realize this together!
And charity is not how it gets done either. The non-profit industrial complex covers so much horrifying behavior by the wealthy. We need to find ways to ensure that everyone has what they need, whether that's care, food, housing, education - etc - we need to ensure that at least the base of Maslow's hierarchy is something everyone has. The meritocracy/plutocracy will kill us all.
Women have been held in a "gift" economy - free labor for centuries upon centuries. I think this is a ridiculous idea and doesn't solve real economic problems, especially for women and others who have been surviving in this give it or else system set up.
Thank you for this, Brian. My favorite line: "The irony, of course, is that those who are accumulating financial resources — particularly for retirement — are doing so in order to be able to pay for human care… fearing that no one will be there to provide that support for us in our senescence."
But, that's the reason Social Security began. Because people - many widowed women - were being left destitute with no one to care for them, Then, most couldn't own property or get a loan or anything. Of course, the wealthy had no need for that, so they created all these financial instruments to make more profit from people just trying to prevent abject poverty in their old age. Too many are dealing with it now. Social Security payments for most can't even get a person an apartment. If people were lucky enough to rebuild retirement savings after the banking industry harvested our houses and so much else, they might have a bit of a nest egg now - but then inflation...................and the wealthy take it back from us again. Also, as a PCA working in this time of incredible shortages of workers and ridiculously low pay, and now they plan to GPS monitor us in our own homes if we PCA for people who live with us, people have good reason to fear there will be no one to care for them. And, for retired people who need PCA care and are poor because SS doesn't cover much, if they access the social service programs to get the care they need (and they have no other way to do it), the state will take their home after they die. Universal Healthcare could help with that but everything is so incredibly underfunded. Did you know that for a disabled adult who was never able to work, the law says that their SSI has to be set at 75% of the poverty level? That means 25% less than poverty. That means the program intends for disabled people to live in abject poverty. Why? So many layers.
The reality is that family caregivers - whether they are caring for their own kids or their elderly parents or disabled family members - can't afford to work 30-40 hours a week caring for family members AND work an outside job to bring in the funds to keep themselves out of poverty. The model of women providing all this care for free never supported the women doing the work. It's hard work - some of the hardest people can do, it has its own rewards, but it would be impossible to strike and leave people without the care they need, So we go on as best we can. But none of this should be this hard. It's not ironic - it's barbaric.
This is the patchwork system that people in need of care have to navigate and the article talks about the immense costs to family caregivers in a general way. https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/info-2017/you-can-get-paid-as-a-family-caregiver.html?intcmp=AE-CAR-CAH-EOA3