ABSTRACT
Two main economies operate in the world today. One is visible and validated while the other is hidden and discredited. One is based on quid pro quo market exchange and the other on unilateral maternal gifting. The two economies and the paradigms that accompany them are locked in a parasitic relation that seems to be a symbiosis. Free nurturing is a mode of distribution. Profit is made by taking the unpaid gifts of reproductive labour, surplus labour and nature services. The maternal logic and its paradigm have not been recognized as such in Western culture. Restoring them gives a distinctly different view of language, life and what is to be done to avert human and environmental disaster. Early identities formed in the maternal gift mode have had to adapt in later childhood to the quid pro quo exchange mode. Using recent research on infancy, interpersonal neurobiology and mirror neurons, giving/receiving are shown to be a basic epistemological and ethical key which has been overwritten by the exchange paradigm. Absenting the absence of the gift paradigm is necessary for human and planetary survival. Beginning with early childhood, global education should build on the values of free nurturing and deeply criticize exchange.
