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https://github.com/luandro/tribo

TribO is a manager for economic abundance that facilitates gift exchange relations
https://github.com/luandro/tribo

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TribO is a manager for economic abundance that facilitates gift exchange relations

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README 

        
#TribO



**TribO is a manager for economic abundance that facilitates gift exchange relations**



##Translations

*[Portuguese – Brasil](https://github.com/luandro/TribO)



##About

>“Economy is about people not objects” Manfred Max-Neef



>“Swapping one thing directly for another while trying to get the best deal one can out of the transaction is, ordinarily, how one deals with people one doesn't care about and doesn't expect to see again” David Graeber



Famous communications theorist [Marshall McLuhan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan) once noted that with electronic communications, humanity would retribilize. Meaning that we would become less individualistic and go back to being community driven. Thus the famous term: [global village](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_village_(term)). And this new form of social structuring will greatly effect the way we approach economic relations from the traditional normative approach.



Together we create great abundance, but it is the difficulties brought by monetary relations of exchange  that cut our access to the plenty, thus creating scarcity.



Our system of economic relations is based mainly on the story of barter, made popular through a myth told in Adam Smith's [The Wealth of Nations],(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations), that has now became common sense. It is basically the old story we've all heard: before money people used to exchange 30 chickens for a cow. But, if you wanted to have a cow, your neighbor would have to want something you had, at the exact moment, and with the exact quantity that would equal to his cow. Wouldn't that be difficult? Duh! That's why money was invented! 



But was it really?



Let me tell another version of the story. You want a cow, but your neighbor wants nothing you have at the moment. He simply gives you the cow, and you feel obligated to return the favor. Whenever you have something your neighbor wants, you give him, and slowly but surely you return what you received.



Now, what makes more sense? Creating an elaborate financial system to make possible for you to get your neighbor's cow, completely alienating the fact that you have social relations with him. Or simply accepting the cow as a gift, strengthening your social bonds, and on slowly paying him back in the form of gifts?



The anthropological fact is that societies throughout history, and some still today, have used gift and communal exchanges more often than barter or financial relations. Then why did we stop? Well that's a long story, and you can find about more in the [Further understanding](#Further%Understanding) section.



All this was to give you a mild understanding on the idea behind this application.



##What is TribO?



**TribO is an economic manager**:  it helps give value to goods and services, and helps keep the balance of exchange inputs and outputs, and of haves and needs.



**TribO is a crowdsourcing platform**: it connects people. If you have a service to offer, it helps you connected to people who need it. And if you need goods, it helps you connected with people who offer it. If you have an idea, it connects you to people who believe in it.



**TribO is based on gift exchanges**: it expects users understand the principles of gift exchange. Goods and services have no numerical value. When you receive, you have the moral duty to give back, but not necessarily to the same individuals who gave you.



**TribO is based on Fundamental Human Needs**: its goal is to facilitate our needs being satisfied. Consumerism culture has been a master at making us desire what we don't need, but _TribO's_ principle is to help us pursue needs before wants.



**TribO is about collaborative consumption**: if I have a set a tools, there's not really a need for my neighbor to also have one if we don't occasionally use them all the time. _TribO_ makes it easy for people within communities to share their time, their skills and their resources with each other.



**TribO strives for political modularity**: in order for culture to grow plurality, political power must once again reside within the individual. _TribO_ makes this possible through a consensus based voting system, in order to maintain local rules independent from outer authorities.



##What TribO is not



**TribO is NOT against businesses**: it's open for any institution to join the gift economy circle, thus strengthening it's scope. But is must be conscious that this systems logic if very different from a market or state rational.



##Further Understanding

###Books

*[Debt, the first 5000 years – David Graeber](http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Debt,_The_First_5000_Years)

*[Human Scale Development – Manfred Max-Neef](http://130.233.249.11/courses/sub12/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Max-neef_Human_Scale_development.pdf)



###Videos



*Charles Eisenstein

*David Harvey



##Development



A development plan still needs to be drafted. For this projects, NodeJs along side mongoDB seem to be the best choices for creating an application suitable for scalability.



##Contributing

Check out the contributor's guide.



##Where are we at?



The project is trying to get on it's feet. This is the list of things we already have, and the next steps.



##What we already have

- So far these are the sketches that the creator has made available.

- a first sketch of the app's design (needs reviewing)

- a first sketch of the apps flowchart (needs reviewing)

- a first sketch of the app's database structure (needs reviewing)



##What we need

[![Join the chat at https://gitter.im/luandro/TribO](https://badges.gitter.im/Join%20Chat.svg)](https://gitter.im/luandro/TribO?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge&utm_content=badge)



- We're in urgent need of designers and developers. But anyone who would like to review the project is very welcome to join through [Gitter](https://gitter.im/luandro/TribO).

- reviewing all we have so far

- a development plan

- a manifesto

- more translations



##Maintainers

[Luandro](https://github.com/luandro/)