THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

Monasteries knew all about monetary exchanges, as these regularly
occurred between the monastery and the rest of the world. It is,
therefore, quite intentional and significant that the Benedictine rule
explicitly prohibits any monetary exchanges among members of the
community.
Non-Christian monastic traditions have gone even further in the
same direction, without the benefit of knowing the Latin etymology
for the word 'community'.
For instance, 'According to the Buddhist monastic code, monks and
nuns are not allowed to accept money or even to engage in barter or
trade with lay people. They live entirely in an economy of gifts. Lay
supporters provide gifts of material requisites for the monastery,
while the monastics provide their supporters with the gift of
teaching. Ideally this is an exchange that comes from the heart,
something totally voluntary. The returns in this economy do not
depend on the material value of the object given but in the purity of
heart of the donor or the recipient.
Traditional societies
In the early 1950s Lorna Marshall and her husband lived with a
band of Bushmen in South Africa. As a farewell gift, they gave to
each of the women in the band a bracelet of cowrie shells. Cowries are
not available in the area, and had been bought in New York. Marshall
wondered what that might do to future archaeological research in the
area.
When the Marshalls returned a year later, they were surprised to
find none of the cowries in the original group. 'They appeared, not as
whole necklaces, but in ones and twos in other people's ornaments at
the edges of the region.' The gifts of the cowrie seashells had spread
like water through the wider community.