Chris, you are incredible - I love what you are sharing.
Can't wait until you get to chapter four - one of my favorites...
A friend who was a writer and a wonderful letter writer (the old fashioned kind - this was a number of years ago) once told me, after I had apologised for not "returning" her letter with one of my own, that a letter is a gift; one must accept it as simply that (in other words, it did not demand an exchange as if it were a commodity). Jon Husband said recently something about blogging being our collaborative writing; and what you just said about the role of the gift in the creation of community - it could be that at best our collective writing creates community and, at the very least, it's a gift. (Or, perhaps, it one and the same?)
I hope you have lots of time to read...
Susan, you're contributing mightily to the blogosphere through your wonderful words in commments here and there and everywhere. What a gift! 
Ted! How wonderful to hear from you - I wondered where you had gone. Love to hear how your conference went last weekend and how your foldable bicycle is working out. I'll have to learn how you implemented that blogroll so I can readily find everyone...
Apologies if this is terribly obvious, but reading your synopses reminds me terribly of a few works by the French Sociologist George Bataille. The Accursed Share outlines a theory of economy based on excess . . . societies always create a surplus, and the means of surplus reduction (growth, religion, personal indulgences) are important factors in the creation and form of the culture.
One method of surplus reduction, of course, is gift giving. Bataille, too, sees this as a sacred/erotic activity: the gift is never just a gift, but always imbued with some sort of 'sacred' power.
Again, I'm sorry if this was already rehashed in 'The Gift' . . . I was just surprised to read about another work on the topic.
Hi Siona:
Haven't come across Bataille yet, and Hyde hasn't mentioned him...is there a source for Bataille where I can read more?
And thanks for your contributions Susan. A agree that there is something heavily "gifty" about the collaborative nature of writing online. I'm into chapter four at the moment...but it'll take a litle time to digest it down to a couple of posts!
Hi Ted!
hi siona (or anyone else),
i don't really get how these examples (growth, religion, personal indulgences) are means of surplus reduction. can you explain that a bit more and how they are important factors in the creation and form of the culture?
thanks,
ashley
Hm. Bataille. Again, it's been a while since I've read anything by him, but I'll do my best.
Again, he has a theory of economy based on surplus. Economies, he holds, are constantly generating energy: a society will produce more than it
needs. In fact, this may be true of any organized system: bodies, machines, the solar system all produce excess energy, which is dissipated in the form of heat. An economy, though, has to use this energy surplus in other ways. One way to expend this energy is through growth: a country can expand, either through exploration or military exploits or merely by becoming larger in any sense. Religious is another option: excess can be shunted into worship, cathedrals, or other 'non-productive' venues. Gift giving is a final way of expending energy. A nation, or society, can rid itself of excess by gifting.
Bataille goes on to theorize about how giving is also a demonstration of power and wealth, indeed, of sovereignity. In giving, a country (or an individual) shows that it is powerful; rather than a mere object to be acted upon, it is an agent, capable of decision.
While he does tend to focus on the (more cynical) notion of power and gain, there is something to be said for his conception of the role of the gift in the creation, or the affirmation, of agency. Gift giving, for Bataille, is about recognizing and/or creating subjects, and this, I think, relates powerfully to Hyde's conception of the 'spirit' in gifts.
But perhaps not . . . I'm worried now that I'm grasping to make a connection that might not have otherwise existed. Still, there was /something/ that struck me earlier. Perhaps it's more that Bataille (who was, admittedly, not a little insane) grasped the underlying mechanism of the power of the gift (and where this power comes from) which Hyde refines in his book.
Eh. It's way too late for me to be rambling on in this manner. I wish I had a better reference than 'The Accursed Share'; again, I just remember reading selections (and taking lecture notes) for a course back in college.
Anyway, I look forward to reading more of your own review. Apologies for this lengthy and semi-coherent 'comment.'
quite insightful, related AND coherent, siona, thanks for expanding. i notice that i get a little stumped at the word 'subjects', that gift giving is recognizing and creating subjects. what is meant by subjects? receivers?
it's just one confusion after another for me! at least i now understand about using surplus and i am moved by how gift-giving demonstrates power, wealth, sorverignty, self-governing...
thanks!
What is meant here is subjects as opposed to objects; subjects as independent agents. The giver establishes him or herself as a subject (as something acting from his/her/it's own autonomy) rather than being a mere object that is acted upon, or by being something that 'acts' solely a result of, say, market forces.
Looks like you have taken Hyde's book to heart. Me too. It does transform your sense of giving, and of art. Open Space and the gift economy have so much in common, don't you think?
I'm reminded of a forum I recently attended here in Vancouver - blogged a bit about it in the comments on Phil's blog prior to coming to Chicago.
The forum was titled "Humanising the Economy - The Value of Happiness". The first presenting academic noted that prior to the advent of Taylorism, assembly lines, mass production, etc. there was a scarcity of material goods and an abundance of social interaction (social "goods" if you will, and people generally lived in communities, knew each other, interacted daily/frequently and collectively traced the arc of the respective lives together.
Today we have an abundance of material goods, to the point where there is arguably deflation, lowering prices, outsourcing, etc., and a scarcity of social interaction/social goods, and mush less social well-being/social capital.
Continued ...
A small microsmic example of same is what I believe is the rapidity with which we observe the latent desire for connection and community blossoming into tangible interaction and connection, as we all experienced in three short days in Chicago.
Hardly anybody really knew each other prior, and now there is arguably a fledgling community of interested, engaged, heartful people.
We are all so hungry for this, so often and in so many ways ... in a world where the comptrollers 
tell us "time is money", sorry gotta go, can't take the time to engage in conversation, so we don't get to know and valorise (from the French "to value") each other and the collective.
wow, i'm having fun skipping across this conversation in the middle of the night like a flat stone on a big swift river...
tonight i received an email update from the amazing marianne knuth, who is the founder of a learning community in zimbabwe called kufunda village (www.kufunda.org). i recalled something in the latter part of The Gift, where Hyde described ezra pound's crazy idea of "vegetable money" - a currency that actually physically decays so that it can't be stored up!
i was delighted to hear the kufunda is launching into the creation of local currencies, an idea which has long fascinated me though i have not ever participated in this type of deliberate alternative economy. as my own work of village-creation continues to struggle in so many ways at the interface-points with the larger economic system, i pay close attention to enticing reports like the one i'll post below, from marianne...
The most exciting to me is that Tandi Community in Rusape will be our first pilot community to pioneer what, as far as we know, is the first community currency in Zimbabwe. With support from Kufunda they will be launching the Tandi Hour at the end of the year. Pam Pedersen has designed the currency which beautifully depicts rural Zimbabwean scenes and images on three different notes: the ?, 1 and two Tandi Hour notes respectively. If we are able to successfully launch the currency, we believe that we will be able to stimulate the local economy by encouraging local trade and exchange. Ambitious and exciting!
(i'm sure she would have loved to be at the giving conference! her email is marianne@kufunda.org.)
still dreaming late-night dreams...
my understanding of the potlatch traditions in (us) northwest coast nations is that the social and ceremonial culture developed around the idea of giving away surplus wealth. among the coast salish people, i learned that this was also woven-in with the sharing of the songs and dances gifted to individuals on their vision quest initation experiences...there was (and is) a continual infusion of dream/song/dance as gifts from the spirit world, transmitted to any/all individuals, & communicated to the whole in the open space of the winter long-house ceremonies....
...so i am thinking about "the art of hosting" (this is a workshop title that some of our danish friends - i think! - have developed...) and i myself am dreaming a world where our local villages are always hosting, inclusively...and in this way, new manifestations of emerging sustainable culture are shared - gatherings as give-aways...& while there's no substitute for physically being there in the circle, blog-connections like this one are surely part of the awakening culture...(!?)
There is SOOO much richness here...really unbelievable. Thank you all for your gifts.
Siona: I think there must be a lot in Bataille...I was surprised that Hyde didn't mention him, not even in the bibliography. After Googling Bataille and reading your very eloquent summary of his ideas, I think a useful connection can be made, and IS being made (by you!).
Phil: Yes, for sure Open Space and the gift economy are children of the same spiritual parents. The idea for the conference started Wealth Bondage's comments section with a simple invitation to do an Open Space. Months later, in another comments section, you can see why I suggested OST!
Jon: Very powerful observation. You and Chris might be interested in Penny Scott's blog at BALLE BC where she has also writtne about the Italian thing. She is heading over there in November.
More at: http://ballebc.blogspot.com
Thank you all for contributing here. Feel free to add more. I'm going to cut and paste this stuff into my Open Space wiki just to keep it alive after the page scrolls.
Part 1
Following on Sonia and Chris W. I was thinking of Potlatches and Sundances as a expression of Sovereignty, not, “political”, but how the expression of “independence” the way Martin Brokenleg describes it as a core human value, balancing “belonging”. http://www.reclaiming.com So thinking of sovereignty as “independence” and how these ceremonies are from one view (mine for this moment) an expression of the collective expression of independence, which of course only makes sense or gains its value in collectivity. That would certainly not be acceptable from a colonial view.
Part 2
These ceremonies center on “gifts” as participation in the motion of what is valued, so life, as it where, that which is self motivated, but that opens up the whole issue of what is “self”. These ceremonies point to what is most personal and central and most universal and communal, and through the “gift”, the mitzvah if you will, self and other are essentially late categories from our more “primal” origins, which of course are not somewhere else or “other” but in Rudolph Steiners words “real presences…so to particpate in the gift suggests to me an intention or focus on my self renewal and your benefit or vise versa your self renewal as my benefit, so “me” and “you” are in essence turned on our heads. And that exchange of life is a “rebirth” just as the tradition of giving a candle at a birth day was an symbol of the central light, spirit and gift of life we are called to remember, yes let be say re-member….
This post at WB
http://www.thehappytutor.com/mt/
...n_karatani.html
Has a link to something called "The New Association Movement", which in turn has links to some interesting stuff about complimentary currencies. Harry supplies another link in the comments to a site that has the best resources I've come across on community currencies. In the final comment, Phil indicates that NAM may have dissolved already, but there are still some writings online.
Excellent discussion in these comments, thanks everyone.
Continued ...
Also, connecting with what Siona wrote about Bataille, that's why I thought about the NAM links. What I remember is some writing about the MCM' movement of capital where Money is converted into Commodity which is then converted into More Money (M prime in case the quote doesn't take). The basic thesis is that capital appropriates most/all of the surplus to itself.
Growth in terms of material expansion is part of this logic and without it, Capitalism collapses. Capital will just sit on the sidelines if there is no profit (growth) opportunity. It is asserted somewhere within the above links that these new currencies can behave more like gifts (I'll locate the specifics if someone requests).
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