The gift economy in practice

Original post: November 18, 2010

In order to develop my projects, I’ve been researching a lot about “The Gift Theory“. Apparently, there are some societies where the big part of the economy is based on spontaneous exchange of goods and services which are performed without any specific reward in mind. But, since it’s part of the culture, those gifts are always circulating. Is that old story of what goes around comes around, but within specific cases.

The interesting part of it is that, if you receive a gift, you’re supposed to spend it, because in case you use it to generate profits, you’re ruining the chain. The same way that if you return a favor directly to the person who gave it to you, you’re not creating a chain either. The idea is always to expand the gifts the most you can.

Today, it was my turn to receive an unexpected gift:

Every week I go to Le Pain Quotidien to have lunch. In fact, I go there so much that the waiters already know my order by heart (lemonade, tuscan white bean salad and a mini brownie). This time, however, I skipped my favorite part: the dessert. I was starting another diet that I know I won’t follow, but this is the first day so I was trying to be good.

When I was already paying the bill, the waitress left a mini-brownie on my table and said: – This is for you!

She completely made my day! And it made me think that maybe the karma I got from my ‘chocolate’ interventions are returning to me, with positive interest! Isn’t it wonderful? Time to think for the next intervention, then…