It’s that time of year when people buy consumer goods to express their appreciation that other people exist. Yet, the world around us in suffering from consumerism-led climate change, what is a person to do? The simple solution is to not buy physical gifts, but that’s not always practical. Tanja
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Things Are Good: Don’t Give Gifts this Year
If you care about people and want to demonstrate that care through the acquisition of material wealth: stop. This holiday season you should try something different by not buying material gifts for those you love and get them something else instead, like tickets to a play. The spirit of gift
Continue readingThings Are Good: Wrap Experiences Instead of Objects
Finding the perfect physical gift for someone can be hard so don’t do it. Instead you can gift someone an experience through UnWrapIt. A friend of mine (clearly I’m biased) created the company to make it easier to gift experiences to one another. The goal is to reduce the amount
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Economic history in the present: Potlatch and tax
This post inaugurates an occasional series I’m calling, “Economic history in the present”. This series will look at vignettes from global economic history with an eye to current phenomena or particular events. Some will be more speculative, drawing on anthropology and philosophy; some will be more rigorous. Hopefully, both aspects
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