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The economy of goodwill
Dear Editor,
Despite another disappointing, disquieting and dim year for Guyanese many will soon be in a restless search to find the perfect gifts to give to the kids (a copy of the British tale “Roger the Lodger” is a must for children of reading age), the spouse(s), and very dear relatives and friends.
Some are already beginning to focus on home improvements and are aiming to go well beyond the traditional paint and lino job as they convert a house into a home where all the family can gather and be jolly.
As a year of endless financial worry, power failure and water woes recedes we see a fairy light at the end of the tunnel and we embrace it before the next power outage snuffs it out.
This, of course, is what is taking place at Christmas 2009. We forget that for several weeks in August and September the refuse collectors did not turn up to collect our smelly waste and on the few occasions we made our own arrangements we were forced to pay through our very noses.
We forget the postman knocking four times not twice every time he delivered a GPL bill for services not rendered or leaving cherished mail out in the rain wedged unnoticeably in the gate. We forget the repetitive blackouts that made it impossible for us to cool down during the daily heat waves and see the odd chicken bone in our shine rice at night.
All these perennial offenders are forgiven once a year and rewarded too. Ignore their little envelopes at your peril. But this year it is ok not to reward the GPL meter reader by putting the dogs in the kennel.
Surely Christmas is a standing offence to the idea of rational behaviour. Almost the entire population seems to launch itself upon an orgy of gift-giving, card-sending and party-throwing abandoning any rational calculus of self-interest or economic good sense.
Here is a whole array of unpriced economic acts in which people are doing no more than trying to please, to earn goodwill, create social obligations and cement their relationship to generate, in its broadest sense, mutual regard.
They are pitching into the world of social horse-trading and gift-giving without any robust means, except a combination of trust and instinct, of assessing whether their sallies will pay- off.
But will next year’s garbage be collected and disposed of in a timely
manner? Will there be brief periods of electricity between blackouts? Will the water coming through our taps lack transparency and have a ‘use by’ date? Will the postman forget to put the GPL bill in the letter box, return it to sender, or simply tip it into the cluttered trench?
While plainly a gift or contribution is the first step in a hoped-for exchange, with no prices and with psychic rather than monetary gains sought, there is neither a predictable equilibrium nor an internally consistent model to explain what is going on. Christmas is nonsense in economic terms. There is no real reciprocity. Whether you put $1,000 or $10,000 in the little holly decorated envelope fiercely marked “Garbage Men” your Christmas garbage may still be left languishing until the next CARICOM Heads of Government meeting, World Cup Cricket or Queen’s College reunion ( heaven forbid).
As for postie she will continue to drop estimated GPL, invoices in your letter box, along with water bills, telephone bills and, if you’re really unlucky, a few of those hideous long, brown legal envelopes that only Guyanese attorneys-at- law, still use.
Nevertheless, the economy of goodwill is the essential glue of both a society that respects itself and one seeking to better itself. This is understood, if only subliminally by all Guyanese. As a caring people, we are not adrift (yet).
Reciprocity, trust and giving without calculation underpin our sociability. So don’t get angry when you’re broke in January Save it for when your genset also goes broke and GPL asks you to he patient until we get hydro.
You have been playing your part in the economy of goodwill; and your lack of certainty about whether it is all going to be reciprocated is all part of the human condition.
So stand your friends another round of drinks or better still a ‘grenade’ each.
Have a happy and prosperous New Year in the economy of goodwill and remember…after darkness always follows light.
F. Hamley Case
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