On May 14, 1607, the English settlement of Jamestown was established with 124 colonists. Little did these colonists know that only one short year later that only 60 of them would still be alive. While there were many factors that led to the the demise of the original Jamestown landing, one of the most commonly noted factors centers around the town's consumption policy.
124 people had their designated roles in society, some to farm and hunt, a few to search for gold, some to chop wood, a couple to make clothes. The produce of their efforts was compiled and split among the town for them to all share equally. However, this socialistic model failed due to the number of people wanting to pursue the discovery of gold and neglecting their initial responsibilities. As I said earlier, there were other circumstances that contributed to the fall of Jamestown. These factors included war with native peoples, starvation and disease. However, it was this initial model of collaborative consumption (CC) that failed.
In Rachel Botsman's and Roo Rogers' book, What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (WMIY), the observation is made and presented with a myriad of statistics that our culture is in fact shifting from a mindset of conspicuous consumption to one of collaboration, a community in which we no longer crave and consume an item solely for our personal enjoyment only to dispose of later, but an environment in which we share, barter and gift those goods in which we possess.
But is this concept of collaborative consumption not reminiscent of Jamestown and the original settlers? It's time to analyze the difference between these two cases of CC and to look closer at this symbiotic relationship between socialism and capitalism that is leading to a whole new blend of life in the realm consumer practices and ritual. Jamestown has three critical differences that ultimately defines the differences in the collaborative consumption of today and 1607. These differences are size of the populous, occupation of the individual and the collective surplus of the society.
The most basic need of Jamestown during the original founding was people. This community needed more than simply 124 colonists to survive some of the harshest winters on record. Commonly people state that the more people, the more mouths there are to feed and therefore there work does nothing for the society. However, if you needed ten houses, five barns and a meeting hall built in three months time, would you want one man constructing it by himself or two? In WMIY we understand the populous investing in CC to be an industrious one that actively participates in sharing in their abundance. This also touches on the quality of work, which leads us to the next ingredient for success, occupation of the individual.
Occupation of the individual is perhaps one of the most critical issues with Jamestown because of the level of productivity that is produced when a citizen is pursuing something they are interested in. True interest allows for more efficiency when producing and completing a specific task. With Jamestown we do see many individuals that maintained their occupation from their former home, however, there were unbalanced numbers that failed to make the work productive as well as discrepancies in the amount of work some had to do compared to others. In modern CC we see the population pursuing their "trade" or occupation and being extremely productive in what they do. But how do we know that there is this "extreme" level of productivity? Because of the final difference in CC of Jamestown and today, the collective surplus of society.
Collaborative consumption of today only exists due to the surplus that society is producing. During Jamestown, as an individual, you were completely dependent on every single citizen for every item you consumed except for the service or good you were producing. Today, we can provide for ourselves many of the goods we need in order to survive but also those in which we gain pleasure. But why not start sharing? In a world of 24/7 interconnectivity and social media it is more possible than ever before. There is a new era in which we will not be defined by the objects we consume and own but by an era that is focused on the experience of the individual and what we can gain personally through interaction with others.
I leave this opinion and viewpoint with only a quote,
"What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from."
-Marilyn vos Savant
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Elaborated Version - April/May 2011
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After finally reading Rachel Botsman's and Roo Rogers' book The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, I have concluded that it is simply a more refined form regurgitation of the principles associated with the event known as Burning Man. Burning Man is an annual seven day event held out in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada and is a segment of counterculture that focuses on sharing and gifting as a means to surviving in some of the harshest summer conditions America has to offer. Founder Larry Harvey claimed that Burning Man is founded upon radical self-expression and radical self-reliance.
What I see in CC is the development of basic principles that are sugar coated in order for society to except the change that is needed for us to progress as humans. While I find for there to be no problem is helping society progress, I remain cynical and skeptical of Botsman and Rogers simply because their ideas are not novel, they are making a profit, and if they really wanted to get on board with the CC idea, why not put your book out there on the internet for free?