I heard a talk by Robert Thurman some years ago at Carleton U in Ottawa. Most of it is totally lost to me now, but he mentioned one thing I found interesting. He said, "Buddhist societies, like the one in Tibet, are built entirely on the principle of the free lunch." (ok. I paraphrase). Remembering that single memorable line, I wanted to share this bit from my Conze book:

The begging bowl was the Buddha's badge of sovereignty. Many statues show the Buddha holding his begging-bowl ... Teacher's often gave their begging-bowl to their successor as a sign of the transmission of authority ... In asiatic countries begging has always been an accepted mode of earning one's living. We are apt to forget that, during the Middle Ages, all through Europe monastic orders maintained themselves by begging, and it was really only the economic system of rising industrialism which found that begging was incompatible with its needs for workers, and passed the Vagrancy Laws as one of its first measures. When we consider history, we find that all the more developed forms of society seem to have a great deal of surplus wealth to spend. The Egyptians used it for the building of pyramids. At present, only too much of it goes to wars, ... vanity, and drugs, i.e. beer, tobacco, cinemas, fiction. In Buddhist countries it is spent on maintaining the Samgha, and on manufacturing innumerable objects of worship such as stupas and statues. The Buddhists consider the practice of begging as the breeding grounds of many virtues ... [The begging monk] was not idle by any means, but lead a strenuous life in curbing desires and developing his meditations. Since generosity is one of the prime virtues, the monks felt that by accepting alms they gave the householder an opportunity for gaining merit. At present, society is inclined to regard contemplatives as parasites. From the Buddhist perspective, the existance of contemplatives is the only justifictaion of human society.

Of course, monks were required to accept whatever was offered, whether pleasant or disgusting, with equal appreciation and thanks, and to eat it no matter what. (there is a story about a particular monk who exemplified monastic discipline by eating the finger of a leper that had accidentally fallen into his bowl. YUCK!) It is not just up to the giver to be generous, but up to the receiver to be able to accept a gift (thus Adam Smith was in fact a bit of a Buddhist). However, I have thought about this practice of giving and  (maybe more importantly) receiving a lot. Could our society ever, ever, EVER actually recognize giving as the true sign of richness, rather than possessing?