Involves

Word

Agalmics

uh-GAL-miks · noun

The study and practice of making and sharing goods, such as digital files, without using up the original supply.

Examples

  • A freely copied software manual offers an example for agalmics.

  • Agalmics asks what sharing can create when handing over a copy does not remove your own.

Origin

Robert Levin proposed the term in his 1999 essay Agalmics: The Marginalization of Scarcity, drawing on Greek agalma, a pleasing gift. It remains a niche term.

How it connects

Agalmics names the possibilities opened by goods that can be shared without surrendering one's copy.

This word appeared in Giving without having less, the Involves connection for October 31, 2026, which asked: What changes when sharing a useful thing does not use it up?

Check yourself

Which good most closely fits the agalmic pattern?

A digital manual that many people can copy and retain. Exactly. Copying a digital manual need not deprive the original holder of it, although producing it took work.

What the sources establish

  • Levin's 1999 essay defines agalmics around production and allocation of non-scarce goods, with free software as a central example.

Sources