Why You Should Ask for More Favors

neighbors > apps

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

In classic eldest daughter fashion, there’s nothing that makes me quite so uncomfortable as asking for help. I hate the feeling of owing someone—an unexpected Christmas gift is my absolute nightmare scenario. Because a gift is never just a gift, is it? The difficulty and magic of gift giving lie in an expectation of reciprocity.

Reciprocity is one big difference between market economies and gift economies. I think I first learned about gift economies while reading about the culture clashes between European settlers and Native American tribes. The Europeans often gave gifts to indigenous peoples thinking they were bartering; they didn’t take the time to understand that most indigenous cultures had very different ideas about things like ownership and the transfer of property.

In the Seattle area where I live, potlatches were crucial rituals amongst the Coast Salish. These were sprawling, sometimes weeks-long festivals which would culminate in chiefs and other aristocrats bestowing gifts on others. David M. Buerge describes potlatches this way in Chief Seattle and the Town that Took His Name:

[Potlatches were] “dramatic reaffirmations of kinship and association, where individuals could demonstrate their wealth, generosity, and success, [they] enabled native societies to maintain their form and vitality even as they endured wrenching change.”

Potlatches were a way of wielding power, certainly, but I think this mention of kinship is particularly interesting—it’s so different from our market economy attitude of “the customer is always right.”

This may seem like ancient history, but gift economies are all around if you know where to look. I live in a neighborhood primarily made up of low-income Black and Asian American families. At pick up time, our school yard is full of grandparents, aunties, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors collecting each other’s children, while most white families rely on paid options: aftercare programs or nannies.

This is a problem I hear my fellow white middle-class parents complain about often: where is our village? Many of us assumed that our parents would step up to help provide childcare, but most of them have yet to retire. Also a consideration: many middle-class folks have had to move away from extended family in furtherance of their careers.

Some of those folks who had to move away from their support networks to work in Big Tech had the bright ideas to build apps to replace that support. Now if you need a ride to the airport, modern etiquette might dictate you call Uber rather than a friend. If you’re sick and want Tylenol and chicken soup, there’s Instacart. There are apps for childcare and pet sitting, apps for laundry service and to resell stuff you don’t need anymore. And every time we use these apps, Silicon Valley takes a cut. Capitalism eats away at the gift economy in double vicious cycles—the less you ask others for favors, the less reciprocity there is going around. The more these services cost, the more you have to work to afford them, thus making your time less available for performing favors for others.

How do we opt back into the gift economy? Easy. Ask someone for a favor. Set up a babysitting swap. Borrow instead of buying. Join a local Buy Nothing group (there’s even an app!) Participate in the slightly confusing world of Mutual Aid.

I know, I know, eldest daughters don’t need NOTHING from NO ONE! But the surprising truth is that rather than being annoyed, people actually like you more once they’ve done you a favor. This phenomenon even has its own name: the Ben Franklin Effect. And maybe it’s not actually all that surprising? Think of how good it feels to do something nice for someone. When you ask someone for a favor, you’re also granting them an opportunity to ask you for a favor in the future. This is how trust, reciprocity, and all those good community vibes are built.

It takes time to get to know your community and build up trust, for sure. Though to be fair, I once gave a neighbor I’d literally just met my housekey in a moment of desperation when I was leaving for a camping trip and my cat had run outside. It might sound nuts, but it worked out totally fine. I believe things like this tend to work out because most people are kind and neighbors have an especially strong incentive to be so. Now I walk that neighbor’s dog occasionally. It is surprisingly enjoyable.

How comfortable are you asking favors from others? Do you think it’s possible for our market economy to become more like a gift economy? What would that look like?

BONUS MATERIALS:

• Interesting article on how different cultures derive different amounts of pleasure from helping family members

• Need another reason to borrow instead of buying something new? Check out this documentary from HBO.

• Slightly janky Wikipedia diagram showing how reciprocal altruism works

image care of Wikipedia