One of the most commonly questioned conventions of burns is the prohibition against vending or other commercial transactions. The question was recently phrased by a poster on the Burning Ring of Fire email list as:

I mean, we pay for tickets, we have to spend money to buy all the things we bring to the burn, the event has to pay for the porta-johns, so on and so forth. It seems to me that for a “cashless society” we have to spend an awful lot of money to be there…

I think that this question reveals some misunderstandings about the motivations behind the “no vending” convention. I don’t think that burns have ever claimed to be a cashless society. In my opinion, the whole “no vending” thing goes back to a few of the principles.

The description of Decommodification says, “We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.” Consumption occurs in preparation for the event, but the event itself is supposed to be as much as possible about the participatory experience. The “no vending” rule is not about cash being bad or consumption in and of itself being bad, but about discouraging the type of transaction that we practice in the Default World. Cash-based transactions are superficial and brief. They are about satisfying people’s needs as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, one of the things that gets lost in that efficiency is the human connection between the people.

The principle of Gifting also comes into play. If cash transactions were allowed at burns, there would be more tendency for someone receiving something to want to pay for it, and for someone giving something to want to accept money for it. Setting a rule that buying and selling is not allowed makes it clear that everything given and received must be a gift. Again, this is not because buying and selling are inherently bad, but because we want the burn to be a special place with different expectations than exist in the Default World. In the Default World, we often perform undesirable tasks in order to get the money that we want to use to buy the things that we want. By discouraging monetary transactions at a burn, we encourage an environment where people only do things that they want to be doing.

Another strike against commerce is that it encourages the substitution of consumption for the act of creation. If I can buy everything I need to go to the playa, where is my motivation to make something? I find the act of creating to be more rewarding in many cases than the act of consumption. Yes, I buy playa gear too, but very often, I try to find ways to make whatever it is I’m thinking of buying instead. I’ve learned lots of useful new skills, like how to make simple metal jewelry and how to solder EL wire, as a result of this attitude.

The same poster from above went on to write:

if it’s your festival then ban anything you don’t want there. I just don’t like being told what I can’t do—To me the sacred big 10 sound alot like any other “laws” that are encountered in life. they are meant to help, but often just end up limiting freedoms and personal growth.

Alchemy is “my festival” in that I’m on its board of directors. I’m only 1/5 of the board, so please don’t take this as anything except my opinion, but…

Vending is not “banned” at Alchemy. The only things that are strictly banned are guns and pets. If you bring a booth and start selling T-shirts, I will do my best to discuss with you why I don’t think that makes for the burn experience that the community wants. If that doesn’t work, I might even stand in front of your booth and strike up a debate with anybody who looks like they’re going to buy from you, but I hope to goodness that the majority of the other attendees would frown on your choice and not participate in the commercial transaction. If It comes down to it, I might start shouting, “Seriously! No vending at burns! Fuck this guy!” But I’m not going to use any of my powers as an organizer against a person who vends, any more than I would against a person who MOOPs or who fails to uphold any of the other 10 principles. Organizers are not here to play 10-principles-police.

In my opinion, there is no vending at burns not because it is banned or prohibited, but because the people who go to burns don’t want it to be there, and so they choose not to participate in it (either buying or selling). The most important difference between the ten principles and laws is that there is no central body to enforce them. In that sense, they are more like tribal social norms than laws. The principles are an expression of the values that shaped our community. I see a link between the principles and the aspects of the community that I like, and so I try to act in accordance with the principles, so as to foster and promote those aspects of the community. If there were an aspect of the principles that I thought wasn’t working, I would reject or modify it.

If you think that vending should happen at a burn, I encourage you to start vending at a burn. Let that be your form of radical self-expression, and see how that interacts with the radical self-expression of others at the event. I’m willing to lay odds on how that will come out, but you never know… You might surprise me!

That the members of the community have a preference is not the same as having laws. If people in the community prefer no commerce at burns, and when someone brings commerce, the people in the community refuse to do business with them and shout them down and maybe even vandalize their booth… well, that’s just the community members expressing their preferences.