Volunteer activities are important for any community. Yet many take forms which make them impractical to designate as formal transactions that include monetary compensation as a part of GDP.
That said, there are important exceptions which might gain validation in the near future. From a wealth creation perspective, the greatest economic significance of social interchange is due to specific voluntary transactions between individuals which can be directly reciprocated. After all, these activities may contribute to the personal welfare of both participants, since both are included in the identity enhancement process of voluntary provision.
The most beneficial social exchange for economic purposes, consists of two participating sides in specific and timely transactions. By way of example: While the positive nature of "pay it forward" processes could be loosely considered a two sided voluntary exchange, its tendency in groups is infrequent in nature, while providers and recipients are not directly reciprocal. This helps explain as well another name for paying it forward: "random acts of kindness". Consequently, paying it forward may not occur frequently enough to strengthen trust or group cohesion. What's needed are regular and ongoing patterns of reciprocal volunteerism, for mutual assistance to become a replicative and spontaneous process.
Many who have felt powerless at some point in their lives, instinctively understand the value of mutually agreed upon negotiation for the supply and demand of time based services. Well designed platforms for services supply and demand, could help individuals go beyond efforts they might normally expend for their own families and friends. People especially need such patterns when they lack employment which encourages negotiation and social interchange in the workplace. Yet too much of this activity has been assigned to rigidly formal patterns in present day institutions. When specialists and professionals do most of the negotiating on behalf of the average individual, there are few remaining possibilities for voluntary reciprocity, or the identity reinforcing nature of mutual assistance which keeps us civil and humane.
What about forms of volunteerism which continue to function best informally - especially insofar as GDP is concerned? When we volunteer to help someone without a request on their part, we also (generally) don't expect them to reciprocate. While our assistance may still have positive results, random services supply without expectations on the part of recipients, can make it difficult to discern whether group social circumstance are positively evolving over time.
Also, domestic responsibilities in the home tend not to be the best candidates for the measure of GDP. Indeed, much of this activity revolves around personal preferences for spending time in one's own home environment. In other words, while work is certainly involved, it is generally of a much freer nature than most workplace norms, even to the extent of functioning as a form of positive experiential product. Fortunately, home for most individuals, at least during many stages of life, continues to be the main place where people actually have the most freedom to do as one wishes. The better part of home obligations today are choices, rather than absolute necessities.
Nevertheless: As more aspects of production continue to shift towards automation and technological support, societies will need to reconsider the relatively informal terms by which neighbors might provide voluntary services for one another. For that matter, the more that mutual assistance is spread among as many participants as possible, the less likely that anyone ends up taken for granted in such exchanges. It's easier for everyone concerned, when maintaining one's self respect is feasible in services exchange. Only recall that when individuals lack social norms re reciprocating for assistance, many will refuse to ask or accept - sometimes even if they are in dire need.
Another factor in terms of potential reciprocity, involves economic options such as guaranteed jobs or a basic income. Guaranteed jobs present problems in terms of external decision making as to what "needs" to be done, or what is "worthy" of being done. Without adequate input and negotiation on the part of all participants, guaranteed jobs miss the point. For instance, when external decision making determines the jobs provided, few are going to be willing to give up their own meaningful work, just so that others might have employment.
Likewise, some assume that a basic income could allow recipients to "do their own thing". Alas, while this approach could help in the short term for unexpected emergencies, long term it would be little more than an existential path to despair. Being expected to "do "one's own thing" indefinitely, is still social isolation, with little hope of returning to meaningful interaction with others. Indeed, the basic income approach would mean the least amount of group alignment among all possible economic options, in terms of local supply and demand for mutual assistance.
Granted, it would take considerable effort to decipher the supply and demand possibilities which individuals might seek to voluntarily provide one another. But once such processes are set into motion, the rewards could eventually prove worth the effort, for it would give individuals the chance to rediscover their natural inclinations for mutual exchange.
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