Gift economy
Anthropological research into gift economies began with Bronisław Malinowski's description of the Kula ring[3] in the Trobriand Islands during World War I.
[4] The Kula trade appeared to be gift-like since Trobrianders would travel great distances over dangerous seas to give what were considered valuable objects without any guarantee of a return.
[9] Similarly, the idea of a pure gift is "most likely to arise in highly differentiated societies with an advanced division of labour and a significant commercial sector" and need to be distinguished from non-market "prestations".
[10] According to Weiner, to speak of a gift economy in a non-market society is to ignore the distinctive features of their exchange relationships, as the early classic debate between Bronislaw Malinowski and Marcel Mauss demonstrated.
[6] Malinowski's study of the Kula ring[20] became the subject of debate with the French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, author of "The Gift" ("Essai sur le don", 1925).
[5] Parry argued that Malinowski emphasized the exchange of goods between individuals, and their selfish motives for gifting: they expected a return of equal or greater value.
[22] They were not alienable commodities to be bought and sold, but, like crown jewels, embodied the reputation, history and identity of a "corporate kin group", such as a line of kings.
Albert Schrauwers argued that the kinds of societies used as examples by Weiner and Godelier (including the Kula ring in the Trobriands, the Potlatch of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and the Toraja of South Sulawesi, Indonesia) are all characterized by ranked aristocratic kin groups that fit Claude Lévi-Strauss' model of House Societies (where house refers to both noble lineage and their landed estate).
[26] Jonathan Parry argued that ideologies of the "pure gift" are most likely to arise only in highly differentiated societies with an advanced division of labour and a significant commercial sector" and need to be distinguished from the non-market "prestations" discussed above.
[27] David Graeber points out that no reciprocity is expected between unequals: if you make a gift of a dollar to a beggar, he will not give it back the next time you meet.
[29] Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch argued in "Money and the Morality of Exchange" (1989), that the "transactional order" through which long-term social reproduction of the family occurs has to be preserved as separate from short-term market relations.
A similar approach is taken by Nicholas Thomas, who examines the same range of cultures and the anthropologists who write on them, and redirects attention to the "entangled objects" and their roles as both gifts and commodities.
Anthropologist Wendy James writes that among the Uduk people of northeast Africa there is a strong custom that any gift that crosses subclan boundaries must be consumed rather than invested.
"[37][38] Carol Stack's All Our Kin describes both the positive and negative sides of a network of obligation and gratitude effectively constituting a gift economy.
[43] Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, and massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan which are owned by noble families.
Since the owners of the tongkonan gain rent, they are better able to compete in the funeral gift exchanges, and their social rank is more stable than the "big man" system.
[44] Anthropologist David Graeber argued that the great world religious traditions of charity and gift giving emerged almost simultaneously during the Axial Age (800 to 200 BCE), when coinage was invented and market economies were established on a continental basis.
Graeber argues that these charity traditions emerged as a reaction against the nexus formed by coinage, slavery, military violence and the market (a "military-coinage" complex).
However, Bowie's research shows that this ideal form of gifting is limited to the rich who have the resources to endow temples and sponsor the ordination of monks.
Poverty and famine is widespread among these poorer groups, and by validating gift-giving to beggars, they are in fact demanding that the rich see to their needs in hard times.
Today, they are primarily remembered for the Sharon Temple, a national historic site and an architectural symbol of their vision of a society based on the values of peace, equality and social justice.
The free store is a form of constructive direct action that provides a shopping alternative to a monetary framework, allowing people to exchange goods and services outside a money-based economy.
[62] Burning Man is a week-long annual art and community event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States.
Possession, growth, and use of the drug by adults is legal in the District, as is giving it away, but sale and barter of it is not, in effect attempting to create a gift economy.
They are egalitarian in nature, and designed to support participatory democracy, equality of member status and power, and shared leadership and cooperative decision-making.
Thompson claimed that these riots were generally peaceable acts that demonstrated a common political culture rooted in feudal rights to "set the price" of essential goods in the market.
This form of gift economy was a model for online services such as Napster, which focused on music sharing and was later sued for copyright infringement.
A number of communications and intellectual property experts such as Henry Jenkins and Lawrence Lessig have described file-sharing as a form of gift exchange which provides many benefits to artists and consumers alike.
In his essay "Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer Eric S. Raymond said that free and open-source software developers have created "a 'gift culture' in which participants compete for prestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away".
For example, Wikipedia – a free online encyclopedia – features millions of articles developed collaboratively, and almost none of its many authors and editors receive any direct material reward.
