Bob
Fiske
Reciprocity – Like Water to Fish, Part Four
CLICK HERE to go to Part Three
An Experiment. The value of reciprocity is very hard to
shake off. To make the point, we can try
a little experiment. Suppose you find a
penny on the sidewalk. Then you pick up
the penny and put a nickel in its place.
Then you tell all your family members what you did and suggest that they
do the same. I predict that the large
majority of them will look at you like you are crazy. Even if you are able to
explain to them why you did it (see below), they will not get it.
If you do this experiment, be prepared for responses like
this: “You idiot, you just lost four cents.”
“Are you nuts? You picked up a
penny!” “No wonder you can’t pay your
bills, look how you handle money!”
“What? Where’s your payoff for
that?”
By the way, there are other ways you can act “crazy”. Got a little spare change? Put it in a vending machine when nobody is
looking. Or walk down a street that has
parking meters. See a meter set to
expire, and add a quarter to it. These
senseless acts can do you no good and earn you no profit. (Unless you count the possibility of making
someone a little bit happy as profit.)
The world is imbalanced because the human system of
exchanges is imbalanced. We have been
taught that nothing that people do happens without a payoff. We are conditioned to judge the payoff before
we choose. Why does that make for a
broken system? Because while we are busy
with our value exchanges, which we regard as fair, we are ignoring the debts we
owe to the earth, to its people and to all other forms of life. That is not
fair. Our economic system, that we
designed to keep exchanges fair has no room in it to account for “invisible”
debts. We mortgage the welfare of poor
countries, the earth, the biosphere, and the future condition of the world that
our descendants will inherit every time we make value exchanges that ignore the
true costs of production and disposal.
The Other Side of
the Coin. If reciprocity is the
underlying deep value that guides our value exchanges, and if it is not a
trustworthy guide, then what might we establish in its place? In a word, “non-reciprocity”. Allow me to explain. I am not talking about selfishness. Nor do I mean a breakdown in a lawful society
such that “might makes right”, and the strongest take from the weakest. In fact, I would suggest that our
reciprocity-based system has already
moved us in these directions.
As members of one of the world’s “Major Economies”, we have
bought the rights to natural resources buried in the ground of “Minor
Economies”. We have exploited
impoverished workers by paying factories to hire them at non-living wages. Who is going to stand in our way?
As big-brained humans, the smartest species on the planet,
we have over-exercised our might and our right to take from the earth. In the name of inexpensive meat, we burn
forests. In the name of our personal
health, we plunder the fish stocks of the oceans. In the name of housing tracts and business
development, we crowd out endangered species.
Who is going to stand in our way?
As a perpetually fertile animal, we have a natural ability
to procreate. We do this in the name of
giving our children a better life than our forebears had. We do it in the name of immortality. Unlike other species, we have no predators to
keep us in check. And the earth itself
cannot stop us from despoiling it except by damaging living conditions in
general, both for us and countless other species. Who is going to stand in our way? (Perhaps the physical limits of spaceship
earth will, if you choose to adopt such a belief. Even then, it is not a pretty picture.)
Non-reciprocity. Here is what I mean by non-reciprocity. A non-reciprocal act is giving without
receiving. To many people, this idea is
such a great departure from the norm that it would be rejected outright without
being given any further consideration.
How can you give without receiving?
Why if we did that all the time, we would have nothing left and would
end up as paupers! And that is nonsense!
So who said anything about doing it all the time? Let’s try to embed this idea in a larger
framework in which it makes more sense.
In spite of the principle of reciprocity—which many equate with
fairness—we already live in a society that has forfeited generosity for selfish
gain. How can I support such an
assertion? Perhaps through some
examples.
How many people wait until driving a large automobile is economically unfeasible to switch to a
small automobile? How many people take the time to find out who they are
really voting for instead of letting political advertisements decide for
them? How many well-to-do taxpayers use
a tax-write-off as their excuse for
making charitable donations? How many of
us get impatient, or even angry, when a cashier has a long line of patrons, and
we have to wait a little while to
reach the front of the line?
Far too few live by the
true equation of life: if you take, you must put back, otherwise you doom your
own existence. It is a strange
irony that indigenous cultures, such as the Maasai nomads in northeast Africa,
know this better than we do. In a land
where water is precious, they guard this resource. They manage vast herds of livestock, but they
are careful to keep regional collectives of families from growing beyond
resource limits. Even their children learn that each water source must not be dirtied, and must be preserved. (Source: Masood E., Schaffer D. (eds.), 2006. Dry: Life Without Water.)
Observing them you would describe their economic system as, “Put something back so that there will be something to take in the future.” That is what non-reciprocity buys you.
Observing them you would describe their economic system as, “Put something back so that there will be something to take in the future.” That is what non-reciprocity buys you.
The Unbalanced
Economy. In short, we have
become so accustomed to reciprocal trade-offs that this has become the
unspoken, unquestioned assumption in all of our dealings. Unfortunately, this approach to dealing with
life uses only one-half of our humanity, the taking half. Meanwhile, our giving half atrophies. Our consuming society has conditioned us to
ignore this half.
This is like exercising part of our body while allowing the
rest of it to wither. Imagine the human
species as a weight-lifter who has built up his left arm’s musculature and
strength while ignoring completely his right arm. The picture that comes to mind reminds me
more of some aquatic crab with its asymmetrically enlarged claw than it does of
a normal, well-balance person.
In fact, this is exactly like the philosophy that underpins
most economic models and government policies.
According to these models the only rational and desirable outcome is to
raise the general welfare of the citizenry and to promote growth of the
economy. These models have an unchallenged
assumption that “good” equates to raising the bar, in general.
There is no room in that discussion for lowering the
bar. Yet, the time to lower the bar is
upon us, and our definition of economic welfare is seriously in need of
reformation.
Summary of Part
Four. We have become conditioned
to give only for the sake of payoff. Yet
our system of exchanges mortgages the welfare of exploited countries, the
existence of other species and the future that humanity will inherit. Our system of exchanges is based upon the strong
drawing upon the weak and the power to ignore invisible debts. These are uneven exchanges, yet they are
deemed “fair”. If this is what we mean
by reciprocity, then the proper thing would be to call for “non-reciprocity”. This is defined as a giving act that does not
expect a payoff to balance the loss. This
is defined as taking from the present world only enough, and putting back what
you have taken to preserve the opportunity to take in the future. Economic models in modern societies do not
grasp this concept. They are couched in
terms of raising the bar. In these
models no credence is given to lowering the bar.
CLICK HERE to go to Part Five.
