At any rate, the critical element of "bootstrapping" is the "Connector" who makes the first links, "to reach out to people in need with dignity and grace, and in return, those people return with what they can offer." There'll always be some moochers in the neighborhood, but they'll tend to get left out of the network after a while. If it works.
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Community-building
Texan99 pointed me to an interesting web site concentrating on building resilient communities. This article is titled "How to Bootstrap a local barter economy", but that's misleading. The financial model of human relationships applies well enough in the larger society, especially among strangers, but it doesn't apply to families, and not very well to friends. The nearer the relationship, the more important non-monetary exchange is.
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3 comments:
The exit of the moochers is often ugly, because they sometimes have legitimate needs and some good qualities. We have a friend who is a wonderful person in many ways, but it never seems to have dawned on her in 20 years that she only calls us when she needs something.
I have a strong tendency toward social obliviousness, so when I notice someone like that among my acquaintances, I try to spend more time examining my own relationship with others. (After I quit complaining bitterly to my husband about them, that is.) Are there people who are justified in having that view of me? People with whom I never even think of making deliberate contact unless I need a favor of some kind? It's not that I would consciously be exploiting them, but that I forget about them entirely at other times, perhaps. I'm thinking about them more as objects than as people, always a bad approach.
Ouch. I just sent an email requesting a favor of someone I haven't communicated with in over a year.
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