An Excursion Into Economic Possibilities I add my breath to your breath. That days may be long on the Earth, That the days of our people may be long. — Old Keres Song The vitality of the economy lies in the robustness of the exchange between all of the participants. Rather than talking about being “self-made” and “autonomous,” economics can pursue how people can mutually support each other. It might make more sense to envision the economy as a cluster of relationships or even as stars in a constellation rather than competing factions. Perhaps the greatest failing of the current market exchange is how it has impoverished our relationships. One enters a hardware store, buys a hammer and walks out. The sale of the commodity leaves no necessary relation between the participants. This disinterestedness is even considered a virtue in the current market. No one expects the clerk to talk to you about your family. If s/he does, you might take your business elsewhere. This disconnection is evident in the dominant approach to nature. Wetlands, rivers, the air we breathe, and just about every aspect of the natural world is subject to an accounting procedure to determine its merits. Yet the most simple economy involves a form of reciprocity (re and pro, back and fourth). An economy is not just people acting individually, but should be more like a circle, a round dance. How can one influence the participants, you and I, to preserve the connection, and under what circumstances is it diminished? How can we begin to recognize that we are each participants in webs of life? We do not want to romanticize native ways of life, but examination of cultural practices different than our own serves to remind us of the constructed nature of our actions and the possibility of forming an economy with entirely different goals and means. Lewis Hyde’s wonderful book. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property discusses how many of the American Indian tribes that once occupied the northwest Pacific coast of North America shared a fundamentally different sort of economic exchange than what we have accepted as normal. These tribes depended heavily on the ocean to provide their sustenance — eulachon, herring, whales and especially salmon, that annually enter the coastal rivers to spawn. “The first salmon to appear in the rivers was always given an elaborate welcome. A priest or his assistant would catch the fish, parade it to an alter, and lay it out before the group (its head pointing inland to encourage the rest of the salmon to continue swimming upstream). The first fish was treated as if it were a high ranking chief making a visit from neighboring tribe. The priest sprinkled its body with eagle down or red ochre and made a formal speech of welcome, mentioning, as far as politeness permitted, how much the tribe hoped the run would continue and be bountiful. The celebrants then sang songs that welcome an honored guest. After the ceremony the priest gave everyone present a piece of fish to eat. Finally...the bones of the first salmon were returned to the sea...The skeleton of the first salmon had to return intact; later fish could be cut apart, but all their bones were still put back into the water. If they were not, the salmon would be offended and might not return the following year with their gift of winter food.” These tribes developed a relationship to the natural abundance of their environment based upon a cycle of gifts. In their mythology the salmon will remain plentiful because they are treated as gifts. It is easy to dismiss such examples of a gift cycle as nostalgic, but in doing so we indicate how far removed the contemporary economy is from operating under a vision that would keep the cycles of nature abundant. Although state-socialist programs are certainly no more sensitive in this regard than capitalist markets, Karl Marx (despite being a product of the nineteenth century) made a number of observations that offer clues to what a more humane economy might look like. In his Paris Manuscripts he writes of a future society rooted in intimate relationships. He used two models of relationships. In his artistic model, he points to how the artist does not create in a competitive manner. What the artist creates for himself is created for others. For the artistic work to be completed, it must be seen, heard, and touched by others, and thereby reproduced again. Furthermore, the artist awakens what is creative in the others, so that they can participate in creating their own works of art. The truly rich man and woman are social persons, erotic persons, connected to their creative sources, each other, and the world around them. Thus to be connected is to be social, is to be erotic, is to be rich in an infinite possibility of human manifestations. Likewise, in authentic sexual relations, human beings discover that they need other people not as objects, but as complements to themselves. It is in the midst of erotic sexual love that human beings catch a glimpse of what true community is all about — intimate, cooperative, social. In this intimate mutual fulfillment, the old dichotomies are overcome: Man vs. Man; Man vs. Nature; freedom vs. necessity; self-affirmation vs. objectification; alienation vs. authority. Marx was justifiably angry that an economy based on capital had permeated even our sexual relations. By turning women into sexual commodities, he understood that all of us were reduced to objects. What we become is due to the quality of our relationships. This sort of mutual, creative exchange is impossible when transactions occur over many miles, despite the increasing capacity of communications technologies to form linkages between people. Face-to-face encounters are still necessary. Through import substitution programs, community supported agriculture projects, barter networks, cooperatives, and even in lending a rake to our neighbor, or in countless other instances, we get a glimmer of the convivial communion possible in a greater economy. — MB RAIN Spring 1993 Volume XIV, Number 3 Page 23
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