A Punch in the Face to Consumerism: The Art of Free Exchange Networks |
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| Written by Sabrina Bowman |
| Thursday, 08 January 2009 15:55 |
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Year after year during Christmas, I reflect on the amount of stress, money and time that is spent on buying useless gifts for people who don’t really want or need them. Christmas is symptomatic of a societal cycle of rampant consumerism, fueled by advertising and subtle, though incessant, marketing. The result of this is a society-wide addiction to buying, which contributes to the perceived importance of massive wealth and allows us to downplay our addiction’s destructive forces on environmental and labour conditions worldwide. But fear not, my friends! There are alternatives to mindless purchase of goods. Alternatives that say “pow!” to advertising, “bam!” to marketers and “shazam!” to monetary commerce. Welcome to the world of non-monetary exchange - aka a punch in the face to consumerism. All over the world, free-exchange networks are setting up online, the most well-known of which is “freecycle.” This network allows members to make web postings for goods they want to give away, and allows them to get things they need for free. These networks challenge the idea that everything has a set value: one person’s unloved couch becomes the showpiece in a newlywed’s first apartment. It keeps these items out of the landfill and gives them a second life. There are also bartering networks, an historic concept currently experiencing a reemergence, in which goods or services are exchanged for other goods and services. These transactions occur at many levels, from informal bartering on sites such as Craigslist to business-oriented bartering brokers that connect businesses interested in trading their services with others. One of my favorite means of non-monetary commerce occurs at a much smaller scale: the clothing exchange. The basic premise is that one person hosts the event, and invites their friends to bring all the old stuff they don’t want, particularly clothing (although the exchange can include books, decor, art, etc.). During the exchange, otherwise reasonable individuals turn into treasure-hunting virtuosos. Pants go flying amid flailing arms and excited laughter. Old purses are tossed aside by one person, only to be jumped upon by two others. When more than one person wants an item, the dispute is resolved either through calm, collected discussion or through more fun means such as fashion shows or arm wrestling matches. The clothing exchange also provides a bonus that you don’t get at the mall: almost guaranteed public humiliation of your dearest friends. Someone always has an item purchased during their misguided youth. Whether it’s a monstrous collection of Seventeen magazines or a special edition Backstreet Boys unitard, the clothing exchange is rife with mockable items. At a deeper level, the exchange attaches interaction and humanization to commerce, the opposite of our in-and-out, don’t talk to the cashier, hurry, hurry, hurry approach to shopping. By the end of the exchange, everyone has gotten rid of their old stuff, acquired some “new” goods, and whatever’s left over goes to the local charity. In some ways, the clothing exchange plays scavenger to our wastefulness. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the clothes we are giving away, but, like so many good things, we’ve grown tired of them. Nonetheless, the exchange, like other forms of money-free commerce, allows us to recycle old items rather than seeing them go to the landfill, and associates the concept of worth to the item based on what the receiver thinks it is worth, rather than what the market reflects. Despite all the money-free options, avoiding monetary-commerce can be difficult. It’s much easier to go to Zellers and pick up what you need than to try and hunt it down at a clothing exchange or through a freecycle network. But the reward is great - money saved, unique items found, human interactions encouraged, and mindless buying drop-kicked to oblivion. Besides, can you really put a price on a Backstreet Boys unitard?
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It will be post-Christmas by the time you read this – amidst piles of credit card bills, discarded wrapping paper, half-finished bottles of eggnog and questions as to where your sanity went. But right now it is December, a few weeks before Christmas, and despite the bad economic news, the disarray of the government, and the auto manufacturers asking for 6 billion dollar bailouts, the malls and stores are just as crowded as always, with harried shoppers buying cheap, sugary chocolates and shiny quickly-breaking toys for children who will find more joy in the paper they were wrapped in than the gizmo itself.
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