How to Initiate Change -- Social Reciprocity Begets Cultural Homeostasis

 We've been born and bred into a world based on greed (in other words, consumeristic capitalism). While not every exchange through the capitalistic portal is always a selfish one, it does tend to reward those that are able to have better economies of sale, which is often achieved through selfish, or out right nefarious, means. 

For example, big food manufacturers are able to achieve such immense profits by "cutting corners" and using by-product fillers and industrial preservatives. This reduces the overall cost of the product by making it indefinitely shelf stable. They will tout that this is to ensure "less food waste" when in reality, its so the product can sit in a warehouse and still retain its "value". 

The same can't quite apply to fresh/non shelf stable products. Milk can only be consumed within a relatively short window of time between when it leaves the cow's teat and when it meets a humans lips. This makes milk a less profitable venture, as it can't sit on a warehouse shelf for too long before it becomes unconsumable. Obviously if milk is processed into cheese (especially through traditional methods) it can increase its shelf-stability in a positive way.

Now, how do we initiate change and move towards a society that, instead of being based on "I want to get more in return than what I provide", to "How can I live a balanced life?"

To begin this shift, we must first address the concept of commoditization.  In a capitalistic based society, everything has a "dollar amount". I'm sure air even has a price if we were to ask Bill Gates about it. But, for socio-economic evolution to take place, we must remove this capitalistic lens from our eyes. There are some things that truly have no computable value. Old growth forests, laughter, music, art, poetry, witnessing the flight of a monarch butterfly...these are things that no dollar amount can capture. While some have put evaluations upon these things in order to allocate tax dollars to attempt to "protect" them, the very act of fiat evaluation is the problem.

So what then does a post-capitalism society look like? How do we transition into the new world that is beginning to take form?

To reimagine a world that is not commoditized, we must relearn what intrinsic worth is. Everything has a "value" outside of a fiat money system. This does not mean that the item has to be evaluated with a standardized price, but rather, value is determined by each individual interaction/trade.

To a seamstress that can make pants and shirts quite easily with her own skill set, a pair of worn out jeans is not a wise item to attempt to trade. But maybe that same seamstress needs a pair of shoes, so she meets with the cobbler and they work out a deal -- 2 pair of brand new handcrafted denim jeans for one pair of leather house shoes. 

The cobbler has his two new jeans now, but he also needs some warm gloves for winter. He meets with the local needle worker and commissions a pair of pure wool knitted mittens and a wool winter hat in exchange for a pair of leather boots for the needle-workers child. 

The needle-worker used the wrong wool yarn, so she has an extra pair of mittens, and trades those for 3 dozen eggs. The shopkeeper didn't need the mittens, so they put they in their store. The next week a mother and daughter stroll in, and offer to trade the mittens for an assortment of dried medicinal herbs they just harvested. Now the shopkeeper is able to  restock their herbs for a pair of mittens that was otherwise a "mistake". Nothing is wasted, it just finds the right owner through a network of tangible goods without the intermediary of a fiat currency.

While this imaginary example is just that--fake--it does show that bartering and trade can cause a sort of Cultural Homeostasis to emerge, as each individual is able to leverage their skill sets and specialties with individuals or merchants directly, rather than relying on a fiat currency as an intermediary.  

Systems such as these arise firstly from social reciprocity--the ability for a person with an acquired skill set to  be willing to engage in non-fiat transactions through voluntary equitable exchange. Such systems will be imperfect at first, but as they emerge, they can lead to further non-monetary transactions. Generally an apex level skill can have this effect when it is offered in exchange for trade goods or other skills. An engineer that is willing to exchange his services for a herd-share, could begin a whole cascade of egalitarian rooted transactions.

Would you live in a world where trading and bartering was the primary mode of economic exchange of goods and services?