We are born into a Gift Economy practiced by those who mother us, enabling us to survive. The economy of exchange, quid pro quo, separates us from each other and makes us adversarial, while gift giving and receiving creates mutuality and trust. This website provides a discussion of the gift economy and its culture as a way to peace and abundance for all. We distinguish between gift and exchange, in order to understand them both and to finally phase out exchange altogether.
Articles & Essays
Discussing the Gift Economy
A discussion of the gift economy and its culture as a way to peace and abundance for all. By Genevieve Vaughan
Books
Books & Anthologies on the Gift Economy
The Gift in the Heart of Language, For-Giving, Homo Donans and others.
Videos
Maternal Gift Economy Breaking Through!
Presentations on the Gift Economy and Matriarchal Studies
by Genevieve Vaughan
The Gift in the Heart of Language: The Maternal Source of Meaning
The author offers a paradigm-shifting view of the structure of material and verbal communication, based on the mother-child experience and confirmed by recent research in infant psychology. This view justifies a relational epistemology that informs the material gift economy, as well as the structure of language itself. READ MORE
Salon #49 - The Gift of Organizing Women's Conferences
It is important for women in many parts of the world to gather together to form a common consciousness and solidarity as a 'class' of people who practice a significant amount of unilateral gift-giving work. In recent centuries we have been separated in nuclear families...
Salon #48 - The Gift of the Truth in a World of Lies
There are many off-shoots and look-alikes of unilateral giving to satisfy needs. One of these is telling the truth. In fact, the truth is an other-oriented gift that satisfies the need of the listener to know, while telling a lie follows the ego centric pattern of exchange...