Experiments with giftivism

Dhanesh Sharma

I am a baker. I bake stuff. And I sell the things I bake. I won’t abstract and intellectualize and give an analysis of the gift economy but I can share my story. I did once experiment with gift economy. I was motivated by the thought that money runs in the society as blood runs in the veins of the body. Money was important as it permeates everything we do. To understand society and thus myself, our relationship with money needed to be understood. The way we choose to relate with money is economics and I chose to experiment with economy. I was also inspired by the thought that if I removed money, which is an instant and tangible reward for the stuff I do, I could find a deeper motivation for what makes me do what I do. I would get in touch with the real me. And when I do get in touch with the real me, I could connect with people at a deeper level.

What is gift economy? As I understood it, in a money economy, there is a service provider and a receiver. The receiver is in need of a service/product; she decides what she wants and the service provider, in exchange for services/products decides the price for the same. The receiver is obligated to pay for what she consumes. After the payment, the debit sheet is balanced. There are no other obligations and both supplier and receiver can carry on with their lives.

In a gift economy, the receiver decides the amount she wants to pay and her mode of payment(cash/gratitude/smile/carry it forward*). And the service provider, as the motivation is not entirely money, has the liberty to choose what service she wants to provide and how. There is no obligation for the receiver to pay; yet, once she walks away from the transaction, she has left a part of herself in that transaction. What does that mean? If I were to leave you to decide what you want to pay, say for a loaf of bread, which I freshly baked for you, you would be left in a spot where you would have to think about what the fair reimbursement for the labour should be and consider the cost I have put in to bake that loaf. You would also be forced to think about how much you value that loaf. After paying, you would be left with a thought of whether you have paid enough or if you paid too much. Would you feel good about being involved in this transaction? Or would you feel a sense of discomfort or unease? In gift economy, this is what is valued – the zone of discomfort; in this zone, there is an opportunity to engage. In money economy, the convenience of paying with money makes one skip this zone. You engage, you pay, you disengage. No obligation left. You can cut-off from the service provider. Money allows you to be impersonal. On the other hand, gift economy makes you think, feel, value, and engage. It would make you feel obligated and there would be a sense of a need to reciprocate. Isn’t this the basis of all relationship? For me, moving away from the money to gift economy was a form of moving from the impersonal to the personal; from being aloof to engaging; to connect deeper.

I had recently turned vegan back then and was experimenting with food. I was also researching about healthy food options. In the spirit of all this and among other things, I started baking breads. They turned out decent. Nice, crusty on the top, with a soft crumb within, hollow when you tap it, warm when you touch, you could smell the freshness. They were healthy, as each loaf was baked with wholesome ingredients. The loaf of bread, for me, represented everything that could be good about the world. The loaves personal as opposed to mass produced. They were wholesome as opposed to chemically laden. I decided to share these breads in the mode of gift as opposed to commercialization. A perfect loaf of bread was the way to harmony and I decided to change the world one-loaf-at-a time! I put out flyers in the neighbourhood, describing the virtue of the bread and asked them to order by giving me a call. I would then personally deliver it at their doorstep and I would be happy with whatever they paid or not. I put out flyers and waited for calls. 2000 flyers were sent out and I received approximately 20 calls. I had expected more. After all, my friend had advised me not to put out so many flyers; according to him, 2000 flyers would generate 500-700 calls, and surely I couldn’t bake that much; maybe 200 flyers would be a good start. There was a lurking thought within me, how could only 20 people have responded. There should have been more. Wasn’t the offer tempting enough? And hadn’t my good intentions seeped out of the envelopes? But anyway, I decided to go ahead with the 20 orders and service them. The orders would grow eventually.

Some of the people were moved by the flyer and had ordered the bread to have a chat with me. And when I landed at their doorstep, they invited me in, offered me sharbhat and started to engage. So far, so good. And I could see the possibility of building relations. But there were also people, who I believe, ordered on an impulse. And when I landed at their doorstep, were a little unsure (I guess partly because I grew a big beard and used to wear a Rajasthani pagri in Hyderabad!!) they took the bread, waved me off and paid around 30 bucks, never to order again. Was I comfortable with that? I was unsure. But it was too premature to decide. I decided to carry on with my experiment and I did so for another two months. During those two months, the response varied from people being welcoming and warm to being impersonal about the transaction. The price I was offered was between rupees 150 to rupees 20. But then somehow, I felt a little uncomfortable about the experiment and the dilemmas were for the following reasons:

• Were some people being forced to pay high because they were compelled or felt obligated because of the way I looked, talked, and the way I came across to them? Was it a form of emotional blackmail?
• Was it fair to let anyone pay me 20 bucks for a loaf of bread, where clearly the ingredients cost more than that? Why would I let anybody undervalue my labour?
• Is one transaction on gift significant enough to change one’s perspective and is it even a valid experience? Because, for the receiver, every other transaction is monetary except for the one loaf of bread over the weekend. And for me, although I gave the bread on gift; for me to make the bread, I paid for everything in hard cash…be it ingredient cost, power, flyers, etc.
• Isn’t gift economy an expression of kindness, a statement of intention of privileged do-gooders? And nothing more than that?
• If by putting a monetary value on something the person starts to value it, then why not do that? That’s how we perceive the world now. And what is so pervert about the money anyway?
• Isn’t pricing right (read – correct valuation) a more meaningful skill to acquire than giving things on gift? As a cafe owner now, I not only need to value my work but also my co-workers. What just amount do I pay for their work? I have to constantly engage in these calculations.

The way I am and the way I see the world, I did not feel comfortable with almost 99 percent people ignoring the call (20 responses from the 2000 flyers); and from the remaining 1 percent, more than three quarters undervalued the product I provided them. It occurred to me that if by putting a monetary price on it, people began to realize and have a sense of value for the product I was providing then why not go ahead with it? During my experiment, I was also undertaking a theoretical study of gift economy. I came across this book, Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein on gift economy. The book was a beautiful and liberating read. The book also argued that the currency in the gift economy was also gratitude; the feeling of gratitude a receiver feels on receiving a gift or a service, which may motivate the person to be the link in the chain of gift. While this cannot be denied, one day, I decided in the spirit of experiment, to put a just price on my loaf of bread. The receiver paid for it and I could still see the undeniable feeling of gratitude in the receiver’s eye. I instinctively contrasted this with my experience of gift where many a time, I was given a cold shoulder at the door of the receiver. And I was done with my experiment of gift; intellectually and actively, this was how far I was willing to test the theory.

For me, the world we live in is immersed in money economy. We have also seen the excesses of the economy built around it. I still am averse to the notion of money being the motivation for the stuff we do. I try and look for a deeper source of motivation that makes me do the things I do. The experiment with gift definitely added a dimension to my understanding of the economy and how I conduct myself. But to make “gift” as a dominant mode of economical expression – I am not convinced yet.

But I invite you to carry on your own experiments. Your world is different from mine. Your experience and results, therefore, may be different from mine.

The author, a trained engineer, is now a baker. He runs a café called Terrassen Café in Hyderabad. Before he turned a café owner, the author taught in a small alternate school, Centre For Learning, Hyderabad. He can be reached at chotafattu@gmail.com.