Gift Exchange
"It is the most ancient system of economy and law that we can find or of which we can conceive." (pg. 70) This quote, from Marcel Mauss' The Gift, describes the system of 'total services,' and how it formed the basis of gift exchange. Gifts have many different meanings behind them. Now days, we give gifts as a tradition for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries and so on. Yet, in the times of the Scandinavian civilization, among others, gift exchange was the way their economy was ran. Even though the gift exchange economy worked for these civilizations, it is not a sufficient way to run an economy. Gift exchange took place just how exchanges and contracts are made today. The giving and receiving of these exchanges are obligatory. The obligations of exchange were made between, as Mauss put it in The Gift, the contracting parties were legal entities; clans, tribes, and families. (The Gift pg. 5) What they exchanged, primarily, were "acts of politeness," as Mauss wrote it. (The Gift pg. 5) These were forms of banquets, rituals, women, children, dances, and festivals. These came to be a form of gifts and presents to the other families or clans. Now that this economy has been partly explained, we must go on to its feature
s. The most important feature within the gift exchange economy would be the obligation to give and receive. The glamour of giving a gift is prestige. In the present time, we elect a ruler, or a president. With electing someone, as the President, people get to know their accomplishments, some of their background, their abilities and what they are capable of. With honoring someone with prestige because they gave a good gift seems a bit unreasonable. All it does is show that that particular person knows how to please someone in this exchange. It doesn't really give you much reference as to who the person is. With the idea of wealth in the gift exchange economy, the hunting and gathering, like mentioned above, allowed people and families to be equal. Distribution was fair between the families, and when one needed help, the others were there for mutual aid. The natural resources were available for anyone to use as needed. Gift exchange, on the other hand, measured their wealth with the most prestige. This, again, was gained by the gift they were offering. People in hunting and gathering did not have to carry the burden of who was best, like in the gift exchange economy. According to Pierre Bourdieu, 'the accumulation of symbolic capital is a dangerous substitute for state pow
Some common words found in the essay are:
Pierre Bourdieu, Mauss Gift, Mauss' Gift, gift exchange, , gift exchange economy, exchange economy, hunting gathering, run economy, prestige gift, giving receiving, gift pg 5, economic system, exchange prestige, lecture notes, gift pg, prestige lecture notes,
Approximate Word count = 872
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
