I wrote about FreeCycle earlier this month. So far the experience has been mostly positive. But I thought I’d share some insights I have over our experience with FreeCycle.
The thought of taking and getting “free” stuff almost invariably triggers the idea of “greed”. Brian and I debated over the nature of human a while ago. My position being that the world would probably go into chaos if there was no law imposed upon us. Human greed for power and money alone will probably swallow us whole. And I thought this FreeCycle thing couldn’t idealistically exist in a world of material needs.
I guess I underestimated human nature (or maybe it’s just when the sample size is so small, it skews the objectivity). It turns out that people do give away free and wonderful stuff that they truly don’t need. And as for us, we only take what we truly need and find use in. I mean, what am I going to do with that free book shelf or that free closet… or that free weight bench with weights… etc. if I don’t need them or don’t have a place for them? And I also found out that there’s a moral code of ethics in this FreeCycle community as well — if you were going to sell what you take, you’d have to be upfront about it to the giver so that s/he can decide if you can have it. I guess apparently people do follow that code (as far as we know anyway).
So my conclusion is: when anything and everything is free, maybe the society will be better off. My reasoning is that, because there’s no reason to take more of exactly what you need in the exact amount, there’s no reason to waste anything and there’s no reason to rob, steal or kill over resources. And because you got everything free in the first place, there’s no reason NOT to share whatever you don’t use with others for free! With petty pathetic issues out of the way, maybe then mankind will be able to solve real issues like hunger and poverty (because then there’d be no hunger OR poverty). And because you can’t really sell or buy anything, the “greed” factor just goes away. But of course there’s always the economics of supply and demand… But now I am beginning to think “economics” is actually quite evil because it effectively promotes (and celebrates) greed and unnecessary needs.
This reminds me of one of the StarTrek movies where one modern, naive Earthling asked a Trekkie: “How could you ever afford to build a spaceship like this?” (or something to that effect) The reply was: “In the future, the concept of money doesn’t exist. Everybody works towards the common good of the humanity.” (or sosmething like that). Maybe it’s that kind of idealism that keeps Trekkies like Murdza in the loop of StarTreks.