A brief history of "Really Really Free Markets" (From Wikipedia)
The Really, Really Free Market (RRFM) movement is a horizontally organized collective of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy.[1] RRFM events are often hosted by people unaffiliated with any large organization[2] and are encouraged to sprout up by anyone, at anytime, anywhere.[3] The RRFM movement aims to counteract capitalism in a proactive way by creating a positive example to challenge the myths of scarcity and competition.[4] The name Really Really Free Market is itself a play on words: it is a reinterpretation and re-envisioning of the term Free Market which generally refers to an economy of consumerism governed by supply and demand. The RRFM holds as a major goal to build a community based on sharing resources, caring for one another and improving the collective lives of all.
The first known Really, Really Free Market took place in at a Food Not Bombs meal in Christchurch, New Zealand as a protest to a meeting on free trade. The Really Really Free Markets started to spread around Asia. Jakarta Food Not Bombs organized a Really Really Free Market on Buy Nothing Day. The first Really Really Free Market in the United States happened simultaneously in Miami, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina during the anti-globalization protests against the FTAA in 2003. The idea of a "Really, Really Free Market" emerged from a visioning ritual by members of the Pagan Cluster in Austin in preparation of the FTAA Summit in Miami, November 2003. Members of the Green Bloc picked up the idea and made it real. Participants from the SouthEast Anarchist Network (SeaNET)[17] held demonstrations using the Really, Really Free Market to protest the G8 summit in 2004. The San Francisco Really Really Free Market was started sometime around 2004.[27] The SF RRFM was spearheaded by local activist Kirsten Brydum until her tragic passing in 2008.[28][29] From around 2007 until 2010 the SF RRFM was hosted on the last Saturday of every month in Mission Dolores Park.[30][31] During this time, the SF RRFM was an especially popular event that received decent local media exposure.During 2007-2010 local organizers would distribute "seed packets:" a CD that served as digital collection of flyers, announcements, musings, pictures, and essays. This was part of the ongoing effort to encourage others to start their own RRFM. These seed packets are now compiled for download online. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Really_Free_Market |
8Kirsten Brydum and the "Collective Autonomy Tour" (2008)
Kirsten Brydum (1983 - 2008) was a 25 year old activist from San Francisco who helped to start the Really Really Free Market in Dolores Park. In 2009 she embarked on a cross-country tour, called the Collective Autonomy Tour, where she hoped to document projects in different cities, and to spread the vision of Really Really Free Markets. New Orleans was to be the final stop on her trip. She was murdered on her second day in town, while biking home late at night from a Rebirth Brass Band concert, before anyone got a chance to even meet her. In response to her death, a bicycle saftey escort project was organized in her honor, called "the Kirsten Brydum Tandem Bike Project", but this project only lasted a few months.
|
|
The First New Orleans Really Really Free Market (March 13th, 2011)
The first Really Really Free Market was held in New Orleans on March 13th, 2011, at the NOLA Art House. Music was performed by Sweet Street Symphony. Most of the free books and free clothes that were distributed through the Free Market actually came from the free pile area of the Iron Rail Library, which had just been kicked out of it's space at 511 Marigny Street earlier that month.
The event was organized by a newly formed group called "Crescent City Anti-Authoritarians", which no longer exists. Another purpose of the event was to showcase a bunch of other newly formed (and short lived) projects, such as New Orleans Food Not Bombs, and the event was also being promoted as the "opening day" of the New Orleans Free School Network, where their calendar of upcoming classes was shown for the first time. This turned out to be a one time event, and it wouldn't be until 2015 that another attempt was made to organize a Really Really Free Market in New Orleans. CCAA only lasted a short time. New Orleans Food Not Bombs never actually got started. (In September of 2011, Occupy New Orleans happened, and the group "Community Kitchens" formed to fill the void left by the absence of Food Not Bombs.) |