The Gift Economy

Here's a picture of the bookkeeper at church weighing up the morning's offering.  People bring plastic bags full of rice from their own harvest, and put them in the basket.  Then the bookkeeper (not sure if that's really the right word for this job, though) measures out all the rice and then the church sells it to other members for cash that is used to run its operations.

This, it seems to me is the most basic of economic activities: the gift of one's own produce.  It's not exchange that makes an economy, it's giving.  That's the foundation of all other economic activity.

Have you ever given a loan that you were pretty sure would never be repaid?  How does it feel?  When I've done it, I've felt at first a reluctance to "loan" under those circumstances.  But when it's over and done with, it feels right.  Giving and loaning and sharing are supposed to be community-supportive activities, and ways to enhance the lives of other people.  That's what economic activity is for in the final analysis.  Enhancing life.

What can we do to restore the foundation of our economic life that has been so eroded by the demand for repayment and exchange that it is now having trouble holding us all together?