The Economics of Generosity

By Nilofer Merchant on March 2, 2013 in Market Power, Social

One of the most powerful talks this last week at TED centers on adapting to a new era, the Social Era.

Amanda Palmer has been a disruption in the music industry for some time. (By sheer coincidence, I was sitting at the conference next to some senior executives in the music industry and got to observe them as they gasped at each truth she said. I only checked out their badges after hearing the gasp-after-gasp to confirm my suspicion.)

The message of the talk is that it’s not only important for musicians or artists to be OK and asking for help, but audiences – especially given what’s happening on the Internet – be OK with being asked. Actually, what I think she was talking about to creators of products is this: trust that things will be okay. And what I think she was saying to all consumers of those creative acts is: Don’t abuse the creators of things you value because that’s what makes the world go round. This is a new set of economics. An undervalued set of economics. One that lets people give and take, and to honor one another.

(Please don’t take this as pollyanna. This is a hugely complex issue. But the issue is not going to go away and we need to move on from the question of “is this happening?” to “how do we make it work”… look to how Andrew Sullivan and Brainpicker as two creative creators who have built viable systems.)

This new set of economics is going to require new measures. This one isn’t adequately measured by GDP. And it is also isn’t measured by the number of people on the payroll. As work is freed from jobs, we’ll need to find a new way to measure the economics of the day. It is the economics of generosity.