Alternative Economics & Systems
Gift economy
A gift economy , gift culture or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. [ 1 ] In contrast to a barter economy or a market economy , social norms and custom govern gift exchange, rather than an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity . [ 2 ] Gift exchange is frequently " embedded " in political, kin, or religious institutions, and therefore does not constitute an "economic" system per se. [ 3 ] According to Parry, discussion on the nature of "gifts", and of a separate sphere of "gift" exchange that would constitute an "economic system," has been plagued by the ethnocentric use of modern, western, market society-based conception of the gift applied as if it is a cross-cultural, pan-historical universal.
Economy of the Iroquois
Iroquois women at work grinding corn or dried berries (1664 engraving) The economy of the Iroquois (also known as Haudenosaunee ) originally focused on communal production and combined elements of both horticulture and hunter-gatherer systems. The tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy and other Northern Iroquoian -speaking peoples, including the Huron , lived in the region including what is now New York State and the Great Lakes area. The Iroquois Confederacy was composed of five different tribes — a sixth was added later — who had banded together before European contact . While not Iroquois, the Huron peoples fell into the same linguistic group and shared an economy similar to the Iroquois. The Iroquois peoples were predominantly agricultural, harvesting the " Three Sisters " commonly grown by Native American groups: maize , beans , and squash .Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ ( French: [pjɛʁ tejaʁ də ʃaʁdɛ̃] ; May 1, 1881 – April 10, 1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of Peking Man and Piltdown Man . [ 1 ] Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky 's concept of Noosphere . Some of his ideas came into conflict with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church , particularly regarding the doctrine of Original Sin and his views concerning the origin of man .
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies. [ 1 ] Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation [ 2 ] and commissioned by the Club of Rome it was first presented at the 3. St. Gallen Symposium .
