[Nettime-bold] Re: Potlatch (was: Re: <nettime> Garcia/Lovink: The GHI ofTactical Media)

[Beatrice Beaubien <i2eye@mac.com>]

Richard's well-spotted comments on potlatch touched on a number of important points. Just a couple of small expansions:

>
>* The potlatch was designed to *prevent* abundance not facilitate it.
>Tribal societies were threatened by the accumulation of wealth by their
>leaders turning into fixed class divisions. The potlatch hindered this
>process by encouraging the giving away (or destroying) of surpluses...
>

/snip

>From my reading of Curtis and others' reports of the practices of Pacific Northwest Coast cultures in the 1800's, potlatches were held to distribute excess to "friends". These "redistributions" would include slaves and other accumulated resources. They bound houses together, solidified allegiances and rewarded those close to the benefactors. The concept that they were to eliminate abundance is interesting, however the potlatch gifts were not indiscriminate; they would go to heads of allied houses.

>
>* The Situationists popularised potlatch as a political concept because it
>showed that societies could flourish without any money (or tokens).
>However, social relationships inside tribes were formed between people who
>knew each other and were usually related. In contrast, we live in societies
>where most of our social relationships are with strangers who we'll never
>meet.

Potlatch was/is a seasonal ceremony with the divvying up of the wealth undertaken by the head of the clan, not a day-to-day practice. Before the European traders introduced their own negotiables, these cultures used their equivalent of money, "coppers", for trading outside the clan. Thus they indeed used their own currency, and this was separate from the clans' yearly potlatch events.

Confusing potlatch with the use of currency is based on a misunderstanding of the former's original role, and to assume its function was a charitable elimination of wealth is to to ignore the reality of those cultures that practised it.

Best,

Biti


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