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A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there is some expectation of reciprocity, gifts are not given in an explicit exchange of goods or services for
money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money ar ...
, or some other
commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...
or service.R. Kranton: ''Reciprocal exchange: a self-sustaining system'', American Economic Review, V. 86 (1996), Issue 4 (September), pp. 830–851 This contrasts with a barter economy or a
market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers ...
, where
goods and services Goods are items that are usually (but not always) tangible, such as pens, physical books, salt, apples, and hats. Services are activities provided by other people, who include architects, suppliers, contractors, technologists, teachers, doc ...
are primarily explicitly exchanged for value received. The nature of gift economies is the subject of a foundational debate in
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
. Anthropological research into gift economies began with
Bronisław Malinowski Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish-British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthro ...
's description of the
Kula ring Kula, also known as the Kula exchange or Kula ring, is a ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The Kula ring was made famous by the father of modern anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski, who used this ...
in the
Trobriand Islands The Trobriand Islands are a archipelago of coral atolls off the east coast of New Guinea. They are part of the nation of Papua New Guinea and are in Milne Bay Province. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main isla ...
during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. 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. Malinowski's debate with the French anthropologist
Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...
quickly established the complexity of "gift exchange" and introduced a series of technical terms such as reciprocity, inalienable possessions, and presentation to distinguish between the different forms of exchange. According to anthropologists Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, it is the unsettled relationship between market and non-market exchange that attracts the most attention. Some authors argue that gift economies build community, while markets harm community relationships. Gift exchange is distinguished from other forms of exchange by a number of principles, such as the form of property rights governing the articles exchanged; whether gifting forms a distinct "sphere of exchange" that can be characterized as an "economic system"; and the character of the social relationship that the gift exchange establishes. Gift ideology in highly commercialized societies differs from the "prestations" typical of non-market societies. Gift economies also differ from related phenomena, such as
common property Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every econo ...
regimes and the exchange of non-commodified labour.


Principles of gift exchange

According to anthropologist Jonathan Parry, discussion on the nature of gifts, and of a separate sphere of gift exchange that would constitute an economic system, has been plagued by the ethnocentric use of modern, western, market society-based conception of the gift applied as if it were a cross-cultural, pan-historical universal. However, he claims that anthropologists, through analysis of a variety of cultural and historical forms of exchange, have established that no universal practice exists. His classic summation of the gift exchange debate highlighted that ideologies of the "pure gift" "are 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". 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 Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...
demonstrated. Gift exchange is frequently " embedded" in political, kin, or religious institutions, and therefore does not constitute an "economic" system per se.


Property and alienability

Gift-giving is a form of transfer of property rights over particular objects. The nature of those property rights varies from society to society, from culture to culture, and are not universal. The nature of gift-giving is thus altered by the type of property regime in place. Property is not a thing, but a relationship amongst people about things. According to
Chris Hann Chris Hann (born 4 August 1953) is a British social anthropologist who has done field research in socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe (especially in Hungary and Poland) and the Turkic-speaking world ( Black Sea coast and Xinjiang, ...
, property is a social relationship that governs the conduct of people with respect to the use and disposition of things. Anthropologists analyze these relationships in terms of a variety of actors' (individual or corporate) "
bundle of rights The bundle of rights is a metaphor to explain the complexities of property ownership. Law school professors of introductory property law courses frequently use this conceptualization to describe "full" property ownership as a partition of var ...
" over objects. An example is the current debates around intellectual property rights. Hann and Strangelove both give the example of a purchased book (an object that he owns), over which the author retains a "copyright". Although the book is a commodity, bought and sold, it has not been completely "alienated" from its creator who maintains a hold over it; the owner of the book is limited in what he can do with the book by the rights of the creator. Weiner has argued that the ability to give while retaining a right to the gift/commodity is a critical feature of the gifting cultures described by Malinowski and Mauss, and explains, for example, why some gifts such as Kula valuables return to their original owners after an incredible journey around the Trobriand islands. The gifts given in Kula exchange still remain, in some respects, the property of the giver. In the example used above, "copyright" is one of those bundled rights that regulate the use and disposition of a book. Gift-giving in many societies is complicated because "private property" owned by an individual may be quite limited in scope (see below). Productive resources, such as land, may be held by members of a corporate group (such as a lineage), but only some members of that group may have " use rights". When many people hold rights over the same objects gifting has very different implications than the gifting of private property; only some of the rights in that object may be transferred, leaving that object still tied to its corporate owners. Anthropologist Annette Weiner refers to these types of objects as " inalienable possessions" and to the process as "keeping while giving".


Gift versus prestation

Malinowski's study of the
Kula ring Kula, also known as the Kula exchange or Kula ring, is a ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The Kula ring was made famous by the father of modern anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski, who used this ...
became the subject of debate with the French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, author of " The Gift" ("Essai sur le don", 1925). 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. Malinowski argued that reciprocity is an implicit part of gifting, and there is no "free gift" without expectation. In contrast, Mauss emphasized that the gifts were not between individuals, but between representatives of larger collectives. These gifts were a "total prestation", a service provided out of obligation, like "community service". 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. Given the stakes, Mauss asked "why anyone would give them away?" His answer was an enigmatic concept, "the spirit of the gift". Parry believes that much of the confusion (and resulting debate) was due to a bad translation. Mauss appeared to be arguing that a return gift is given to maintain the relationship between givers; a failure to return a gift ends the relationship and the promise of any future gifts. Both Malinowski and Mauss agreed that in non-market societies, where there was no clear institutionalized economic exchange system, gift/prestation exchange served economic, kinship, religious and political functions that could not be clearly distinguished from each other, and which mutually influenced the nature of the practice.


Inalienable possessions

Mauss' concept of "total prestations" was further developed by Annette Weiner, who revisited Malinowski's fieldsite in the Trobriand Islands. Her critique was twofold: first, Trobriand Island society is matrilineal, and women hold much economic and political power, but their exchanges were ignored by Malinowski. Secondly, she developed Mauss' argument about reciprocity and the "spirit of the gift" in terms of " inalienable possessions: the paradox of keeping while giving". Weiner contrasted "moveable goods" which can be exchanged, with "immoveable goods" that serve to draw the gifts back (in the Trobriand case, male Kula gifts with women's landed property). She argues that the goods given, like crown jewels, are so identified with particular groups, that even when given, they are not truly alienated. Such goods depend on the existence of particular kinds of kinship groups in society. French anthropologist Maurice Godelier continued this analysis in "The Enigma of the Gift" (1999). Albert Schrauwers argued that the kinds of societies used as examples by Weiner and Godelier (including the
Kula ring Kula, also known as the Kula exchange or Kula ring, is a ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The Kula ring was made famous by the father of modern anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski, who used this ...
in the Trobriands, the
Potlatch A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Scie ...
of the
indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of sal ...
, and the Toraja of
South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sul ...
,
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
) are all characterized by ranked aristocratic kin groups that fit
Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthr ...
' model of "House Societies" (where "house" refers to both noble lineage and their landed estate). He argues that total prestations are given to preserve landed estates identified with particular kin groups and maintain their place in a ranked society.


Reciprocity and the "spirit of the gift"

Chris Gregory argued that reciprocity is a dyadic exchange relationship that we characterize, imprecisely, as gift-giving. Gregory argued that one gives gifts to friends and potential enemies in order to establish a relationship, by placing them in debt. He also claimed that in order for such a relationship to persist, there must be a time lag between the gift and counter-gift; one or the other partner must always be in debt. Marshall Sahlins stated that birthday gifts are an example of this: they are separated in time so that one partner feels the obligation to make a return gift; and to forget the return gift may be enough to end the relationship. Gregory stated that without a relationship of debt, there is no reciprocity, and that this is what distinguishes a gift economy from a "true gift" given with no expectation of return (something Sahlins calls "generalized reciprocity": see below).
Marshall Sahlins Marshall David Sahlins ( ; December 27, 1930April 5, 2021) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguishe ...
, an American cultural anthropologist, identified three main types of reciprocity in his book ''Stone Age Economics'' (1972). Gift or ''generalized reciprocity'' is the exchange of goods and services without keeping track of their exact value, but often with the expectation that their value will balance out over time. ''Balanced or Symmetrical reciprocity'' occurs when someone gives to someone else, expecting a fair and tangible return at a specified amount, time, and place. Market or ''negative reciprocity'' is the exchange of goods and services where each party intends to profit from the exchange, often at the expense of the other. Gift economies, or generalized reciprocity, occurred within closely knit kin groups, and the more distant the exchange partner, the more balanced or negative the exchange became.


Charity, debt, and the "poison of the gift"

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. Parry also underscored, using the example of charitable giving of alms in India (
Dāna Dāna (Devanagari: दान, IAST: Dānam) is a Sanskrit and Pali word that connotes the virtue of generosity, charity or giving of alms in Indian philosophies. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, dāna is the practice of cu ...
), that the "pure gift" of alms given with no expectation of return could be "poisonous". That is, the gift of alms embodying the sins of the giver, when given to ritually pure priests, saddled these priests with impurities of which they could not cleanse themselves. "Pure gifts", given without a return, can place recipients in debt, and hence in dependent status: the poison of the gift.
David Graeber David Rolfe Graeber (; February 12, 1961September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books '' Debt: The First 5,000 Years'' (2011) and ''Bullshit Job ...
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. More than likely, he will ask for more, to the detriment of his status. Many who are forced by circumstances to accept charity feel stigmatized. In the
Moka exchange The ''Moka'' is a highly ritualized system of exchange in the Mount Hagen area, Papua New Guinea, that has become emblematic of the anthropological concepts of "gift economy" and of " Big man" political system. Moka are reciprocal gifts of pigs th ...
system of Papua New Guinea, where gift givers become political "big men", those who are in their debt and unable to repay with "interest" are referred to as "rubbish men". The French writer
Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels ...
, in ''La part Maudite'', uses Mauss's argument in order to construct a theory of economy: the structure of gift is the presupposition for all possible economy. Bataille is particularly interested in the potlatch as described by Mauss, and claims that its agonistic character obliges the receiver to confirm their own subjection. Thus gifting embodies the Hegelian dipole of master and slave within the act.


Spheres of exchange and "economic systems"

The relationship of new market exchange systems to indigenous non-market exchange remained a perplexing question for anthropologists.
Paul Bohannan Paul James Bohannan (March 5, 1920 – July 13, 2007) was an American anthropologist known for his research on the Tiv people of Nigeria, spheres of exchange and divorce in the United States. Early life and education Bohannan was born in Lin ...
argued that the Tiv of Nigeria had three spheres of exchange, and that only certain kinds of goods could be exchanged in each sphere; each sphere had its own form of special-purpose money. However, the market and universal money allowed goods to be traded between spheres and thus damaged established social relationships. 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. It is the long-term social reproduction of the family that is sacralized by religious rituals such baptisms, weddings and funerals, and characterized by gifting. In such situations where gift-giving and market exchange were intersecting for the first time, some anthropologists contrasted them as polar opposites. This opposition was classically expressed by Chris Gregory in his book "Gifts and Commodities" (1982). Gregory argued that Gregory contrasts gift and commodity exchange according to five criteria: But other anthropologists refused to see these different " exchange spheres" as such polar opposites.
Marilyn Strathern Dame Ann Marilyn Strathern, DBE, FBA (née Evans; born 6 March 1941) is a British anthropologist, who has worked largely with the Mount Hagen people of Papua New Guinea and dealt with issues in the UK of reproductive technologies.
, writing on a similar area in Papua New Guinea, dismissed the utility of the contrasting setup in "The Gender of the Gift" (1988). Rather than emphasize how particular kinds of objects are either gifts or commodities to be traded in restricted spheres of exchange,
Arjun Appadurai Arjun Appadurai (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation states and globalization. He is the f ...
and others began to look at how objects flowed between these spheres of exchange (i.e. how objects can be converted into gifts and then back into commodities). They refocussed attention away from the character of the human relationships formed through exchange, and placed it on "the social life of things" instead. They examined the strategies by which an object could be " singularized" (made unique, special, one-of-a-kind) and so withdrawn from the market. A marriage ceremony that transforms a purchased ring into an irreplaceable family heirloom is one example; the heirloom, in turn, makes a perfect gift. Singularization is the reverse of the seemingly irresistible process of commodification. They thus show how all economies are a constant flow of material objects that enter and leave specific exchange spheres. 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.


Proscriptions

Many societies have strong prohibitions against turning gifts into trade or
capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...
goods. Anthropologist Wendy James writes that among the Uduk people of northeast
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
there is a strong custom that any gift that crosses subclan boundaries must be consumed rather than invested.''Lewis Hyde: The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property'', pg. 18 For example, an animal given as a gift must be eaten, not bred. However, as in the example of the Trobriand armbands and necklaces, this "perishing" may not consist of consumption as such, but of the gift moving on. In other societies, it is a matter of giving some other gift, either directly in return or to another party. To keep the gift and not give another in exchange is reprehensible. "In folk tales," Lewis Hyde remarks, "the person who tries to hold onto a gift usually dies."
Daniel Everett Daniel Leonard Everett (born 26 July 1951) is an American linguist and author best known for his study of the Amazon basin's Pirahã people and their language. Everett is currently Trustee Professor of Cognitive Sciences at Bentley University ...
, a linguist who studied the small Pirahã tribe of hunter-gatherers in Brazil, reported that, while they are aware of
food preservation Food preservation includes processes that make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats. This slows down the decomposition and rancidification process. Food preservation may also include processes that inhibit ...
using drying, salting, and so forth, they reserve their use for items bartered outside the tribe. Within the group, when someone has a successful hunt they immediately share the abundance by inviting others to enjoy a feast. Asked about this practice, one hunter laughed and replied, "I store meat in the belly of my brother." 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. Her narrative of
The Flats The Flats is a mixed-use industrial, recreational, entertainment, and residential area of the Cuyahoga Valley neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. The name reflects its low-lying topography on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. History In 1 ...
, a poor
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
neighborhood, tells in passing the story of two sisters who each came into a small inheritance. One sister hoarded the inheritance and prospered materially for some time, but was alienated from the community. Her marriage broke up, and she integrated herself back into the community largely by giving gifts. The other sister fulfilled the community's expectations, but within six weeks had nothing material to show for the inheritance but a coat and a pair of shoes.


Case studies: prestations

Marcel Mauss was careful to distinguish "gift economies" (reciprocity) in market societies from the "total prestations" given in non-market societies. A prestation is a service provided out of obligation, like "community service". These "prestations" bring together domains across political, religious, legal, moral and economic definitions, such that the exchange can be seen to be embedded in non-economic social institutions. These prestations are often competitive, as in the
potlatch A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Scie ...
, Kula exchange, and
Moka exchange The ''Moka'' is a highly ritualized system of exchange in the Mount Hagen area, Papua New Guinea, that has become emblematic of the anthropological concepts of "gift economy" and of " Big man" political system. Moka are reciprocal gifts of pigs th ...
.


Moka exchange in Papua New Guinea: competitive exchange

The ''Moka'' is a highly ritualized system of exchange in the Mount Hagen area,
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, that has become emblematic of the anthropological concepts of a "gift economy" and of a " big man" political system. Moka are reciprocal gifts that raise the social status of the giver if the gift is larger than one that the giver received. ''Moka'' refers specifically to the increment in the size of the gift. The gifts are of a limited range of goods, primarily pigs and scarce pearl shells from the coast. To return the same value as one has received in a moka is simply to repay a debt, strict reciprocity. Moka is the extra. To some, this represents interest on an investment. However, one is not bound to provide moka, only to repay the debt. One adds moka to the gift to increase one's prestige, and to place the receiver in debt. It is this constant renewal of the debt relationship which keeps the relationship alive; a debt fully paid off ends further interaction. Giving more than one receives establishes a reputation as a Big man, whereas the simple repayment of debt, or failure to fully repay, pushes one's reputation towards the other end of the scale, "rubbish man". Gift exchange thus has a political effect; granting prestige or status to one, and a sense of debt in the other. A political system can be built out of these kinds of status relationships. Sahlins characterizes the difference between status and rank by highlighting that Big man is not a role; it is a status that is shared by many. The Big man is "not a prince ''of'' men", but a "prince among men". The "big man" system is based on the ability to persuade, rather than command.


Toraja funerals: the politics of meat distribution

The Toraja are an
ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
indigenous to a mountainous region of
South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sul ...
, Indonesia. 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. Membership in a tongkonan is inherited by all descendants of its founders. Thus any individual may be a member of numerous tongkonan, as long as they contribute to its ritual events. Membership in a tongkonan carries benefits, such as the right to rent some of its rice fields. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting several days. The funerals are like "big men" competitions where all the descendants of a tongkonan compete through gifts of sacrificial cattle. Participants have invested cattle with others over the years, and draw on those extended networks to make the largest gift. The winner of the competition becomes the new owner of the tongkonan and its rice lands. They display all the cattle horns from their winning sacrifice on a pole in front of the tongkonan. The Toraja funeral differs from the "big man" system in that the winner of the "gift" exchange gains control of the Tongkonan's property. It creates a clear social hierarchy between the noble owners of the tongkonan and its land, and the commoners who are forced to rent their fields from him. 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.


Charity and alms giving

Anthropologist
David Graeber David Rolfe Graeber (; February 12, 1961September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books '' Debt: The First 5,000 Years'' (2011) and ''Bullshit Job ...
argued that the great world religious traditions of charity and gift giving emerged almost simultaneously during the "
Axial age Axial Age (also Axis Age, from german: Achsenzeit) is a term coined by German philosopher Karl Jaspers. It refers to broad changes in religious and philosophical thought that occurred in a variety of locations from about the 8th to the 3rd centu ...
" (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). The new world religions, including
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
,
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...
,
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
,
Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
, and
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
all sought to preserve "human economies" where money served to cement social relationships rather than purchase things (including people). Charity and alms-giving are religiously sanctioned voluntary gifts given without expectation of return. However, case studies show that such gifting is not necessarily altruistic.


Merit making in Buddhist Thailand

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...
in
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
emphasizes the importance of giving alms ( merit making) without any intention of return (a pure gift), which is best accomplished according to doctrine, through gifts to monks and temples. The emphasis is on the selfless gifting which "earns merit" (and a future better life) for the giver rather than on the relief of the poor or the recipient on whom the gift is bestowed. 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. Monks come from these same families, so this gifting doctrine has a class element. Poorer farmers place much less emphasis on merit making through gifts to monks and temples. They equally validate gifting to beggars. 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. Bowie sees this as an example of a
moral economy Moral economy refers to economic activities viewed through a moral, not just a material, lens. The definition of moral economy is constantly revisited depending on its usage in differing social, economic, ecological, and geographic situations and ...
(see below) in which the poor use gossip and reputation to resist elite exploitation and pressure them to ease their "this world" suffering.


Charity: Dana in India

Dāna Dāna (Devanagari: दान, IAST: Dānam) is a Sanskrit and Pali word that connotes the virtue of generosity, charity or giving of alms in Indian philosophies. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, dāna is the practice of cu ...
is a form of religious charity given in Hindu India. The gift is said to embody the sins of the giver (the "poison of the gift"), whom it frees of evil by transmitting it to the recipient. The merit of the gift depends on finding a worthy recipient such as a
Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...
priest. Priests are supposed to be able to digest the sin through ritual action and transmit the gift with increment to someone of greater worth. It is imperative that this be a true gift, with no reciprocity, or the evil will return. The gift is not intended to create any relationship between donor and recipient, and there should never be a return gift. Dana thus transgresses the so-called universal "norm of reciprocity".


The Children of Peace in Canada

The Children of Peace The Children of Peace (1812–1889) was an Upper Canadian Quaker sect under the leadership of David Willson, known also as 'Davidites', who separated during the War of 1812 from the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting in what is now Newmarket, Ontario ...
(1812–1889) were a utopian Quaker sect. 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. They built this ornate temple to raise money for the poor, and built the province of Ontario's first shelter for the homeless. They took a lead role in organizing the province's first co-operative, the Farmers' Storehouse, and opened the province's first
credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provis ...
. The group soon found that the charity they tried to distribute from their Temple fund endangered the poor. Accepting charity was a sign of indebtedness, and the debtor could be jailed without trial at the time; this was the "poison of the gift". They thus transformed their charity fund into a credit union that loaned small sums like today's micro-credit institutions. This is an example of singularization, as money was transformed into charity in the Temple ceremony, then shifted to an alternative exchange sphere as a loan. Interest on the loan was then singularized, and transformed back into charity.


Gifting as non-commodified exchange in market societies

Non-commodified spheres of exchange exist in relation to the market economy. They are created through the processes of singularization as specific objects are de-commodified for a variety of reasons and enter an alternative exchange sphere. It may be in opposition to the market and to its perceived greed. It may also be used by corporations as a means of creating a sense of endebtedness and loyalty in customers. Modern marketing techniques often aim at infusing commodity exchange with features of gift exchange, thus blurring the presumably sharp distinction between gifts and commodities.


Organ transplant networks, sperm and blood banks

Market economies tend to "reduce everything – including human beings, their labor, and their reproductive capacity – to the status of commodities". "The rapid transfer of organ transplant technology to the third world has created a trade in organs, with sick bodies travelling to the
Global South The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify region ...
for transplants, and healthy organs from the Global South being transported to the richer Global North, "creating a kind of 'Kula ring' of bodies and body parts." However, all commodities can also be singularized, or de-commodified, and transformed into gifts. In North America, it is illegal to sell organs, and citizens are enjoined to give the "gift of life" and donate their organs in an organ gift economy. However, this gift economy is a "medical realm rife with potent forms of mystified commodification". This multimillion-dollar medical industry requires clients to pay steep fees for the gifted organ, which creates clear class divisions between those who donate (often in the global south) and will never benefit from gifted organs, and those who can pay the fees and thereby receive a gifted organ. Unlike body organs, blood and semen have been successfully and legally commodified in the United States. Blood and semen can thus be commodified, but once consumed are "the gift of life". Although both can be either donated or sold, are perceived as the "gift of life" yet are stored in "banks", and can be collected only under strict government regulated procedures, recipients very clearly prefer altruistically donated semen and blood. The blood and semen samples with the highest market value are those that have been altruistically donated. The recipients view semen as storing the potential characteristics of their unborn child in its DNA, and value altruism over greed. Similarly, gifted blood is the archetype of a pure gift relationship because the donor is only motivated by a desire to help others.


Copyleft vs copyright: the gift of "free" speech

Engineers, scientists and software developers have created
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...
projects such as the
Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...
and the
GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...
operating system. They are prototypical examples for the gift economy's prominence in the technology sector, and its active role in instating the use of permissive free software and
copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose ...
licenses, which allow free reuse of software and knowledge. Other examples include file-sharing,
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
,
unlicense The Unlicense is a public domain equivalent license for software which provides a public domain waiver with a fall-back public-domain-like license, similar to the CC Zero for cultural works. It includes language used in earlier software projects ...
d software and so on.


Points and loyalty programs

Many retail organizations have "gift" programs meant to encourage customer loyalty to their establishments. Bird-David and Darr refer to these as hybrid "mass-gifts" which are neither gift nor commodity. They are called mass-gifts because they are given away in large numbers "free with purchase" in a mass-consumption environment. They give as an example two bars of soap in which one is given free with purchase: which is the commodity and which the gift? The mass-gift both affirms the distinct difference between gift and commodity while confusing it at the same time. As with gifting, mass-gifts are used to create a social relationship. Some customers embrace the relationship and gift whereas others reject the gift relationship and interpret the "gift" as a 50% off sale.


Free shops

" Give-away shops", "freeshops" or "free stores" are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand itemsonly everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a
book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
, a piece of
furniture Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating ( tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks) ...
, a garment or a
household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...
item, it is all freely given away, although some operate a one-in, one-out–type policy (swap shops). The free store is a form of constructive
direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
that provides a shopping alternative to a
monetary Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are ...
framework, allowing people to exchange goods and services outside a money-based economy. The anarchist 1960s countercultural group The Diggers opened free stores which gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art. The Diggers took their name from the original English Diggers led by
Gerrard Winstanley Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the found ...
and sought to create a mini-society free of money and
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
.


Burning Man

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...
is a week-long annual art and community event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
, in the United States. The event is described as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance. The event forbids commerce (except for ice, coffee, and tickets to the event itself)"What is Burning Man? FAQ – Preparation"
Retrieved 10/5/11
and encourages gifting."How We Survive: The Currency of Giving (Encore)"
Making Contact, produced by National Radio Project. December 21, 2010.
Gifting is one of the 10 guiding principles, as participants to Burning Man (both the desert festival and the year-round global community) are encouraged to rely on a gift economy. The practice of gifting at Burning Man is also documented by the 2002 documentary film ''Gifting It: A Burning Embrace of Gift Economy'', as well as by Making Contact's radio show "How We Survive: The Currency of Giving ncore.


Cannabis market in the District of Columbia and U.S. states

According to the Associated Press, "Gift-giving has long been a part of marijuana culture" and has accompanied legalization in U.S. states in the 2010s. Voters in the
District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle (Washington, D.C.), Logan Circle, Jefferson Memoria ...
legalized the growing of
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...
for personal recreational use by approving Initiative 71 in November 2014, but the 2015 " Cromnibus" Federal appropriations bills prevented the District from creating a system to allow for its commercial sale. 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. However it ended up creating a commercial market linked to selling other objects. Preceding the January, 2018 legalization of cannabis possession in Vermont without a corresponding legal framework for sales, it was expected that a similar market would emerge there. For a time, people in Portland, Oregon, could only legally obtain cannabis as a gift, which was celebrated in the Burnside Burn rally. For a time, a similar situation ensued after possession was legalized in California, Maine and Massachusetts.


Related concepts


Mutual aid

Many anarchists, particularly
anarcho-primitivists Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization (anti-civ) that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organ ...
and
anarcho-communists Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains res ...
, believe that variations on a gift economy may be the key to breaking the
cycle of poverty In economics, a cycle of poverty or poverty trap is caused by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to persist unless there is outside intervention. It can persist across generations, and when applied to developing count ...
. Therefore, they often desire to refashion all of society into a gift economy. Anarcho-communists advocate a gift economy as an ideal, with neither money, nor markets, nor planning. This view traces back at least to
Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activist ...
, who saw in the hunter-gatherer tribes he had visited the paradigm of " mutual aid". In place of a market,
anarcho-communists Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains res ...
, such as those who lived in some Spanish villages in the 1930s, support a gift economy without currency, where goods and services are produced by workers and distributed in community stores where everyone (including the workers who produced them) is essentially entitled to consume whatever they want or need as payment for their production of goods and services. As an intellectual abstraction, mutual aid was developed and advanced by mutualism or labor
insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
systems and thus
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
s, and has been also used in
cooperatives A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
and other
civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.voluntary. Often they are structured as non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic
non-profit organizations A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
, with members controlling all resources and no external financial or professional support. They are member-led and member-organized. They are egalitarian in nature, and designed to support
participatory democracy Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected repr ...
, equality of member status and power, and shared
leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets v ...
and cooperative decision-making. Members' external societal status is considered irrelevant inside the group: status in the group is conferred by participation.


Moral economy

English historian E.P. Thompson wrote about the
moral economy Moral economy refers to economic activities viewed through a moral, not just a material, lens. The definition of moral economy is constantly revisited depending on its usage in differing social, economic, ecological, and geographic situations and ...
of the poor in the context of widespread English food riots in the English countryside in the late 18th century. 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. These peasants believed that a traditional "fair price" was more important to the community than a "free" market price and they punished large farmers who sold their surpluses at higher prices outside the village while some village members still needed produce. Thus a moral economy is an attempt to preserve an alternative exchange sphere from market penetration. The notion of peasants with a non-capitalist cultural mentality using the market for their own ends has been linked to subsistence agriculture and the need for subsistence insurance in hard times. However, James C. Scott points out that those who provide this subsistence insurance to the poor in bad years are wealthy patrons who exact a political cost for their aid; this aid is given to recruit followers. The concept of moral economy has been used to explain why peasants in a number of colonial contexts, such as the Vietnam War, have rebelled.


The commons

Some may confuse common property regimes with gift exchange systems. The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately. The resources held in common can include everything from
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
s and
common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person who has ...
to
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...
. The commons contains
public property Public property is property that is dedicated to public use. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership (owned collectively by the population of a state). This is in ...
and
private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...
, over which people have certain traditional rights. When commonly held property is transformed into private property this process is called "
enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
" or "privatization". A person who has a right in, or over, common land jointly with another or others is called a commoner. There are a number of important aspects that can be used to describe true commons. The first is that the commons cannot be commodified – if they are, they cease to be commons. The second aspect is that unlike private property, the commons are inclusive rather than exclusive – their nature is to share ownership as widely, rather than as narrowly, as possible. The third aspect is that the assets in commons are meant to be preserved regardless of their
return of capital Return of capital (ROC) refers to principal payments back to "capital owners" (shareholders, partners, unitholders) that exceed the growth (net income/taxable income) of a business or investment. It should not be confused with Rate of Return (ROR ...
. Just as we receive them as a shared right, so we have a duty to pass them on to future generations in at least the same condition as we received them. If we can add to their value, so much the better, but at a minimum we must not degrade them, and we certainly have no right to destroy them.


New intellectual commons: free content

Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work,
artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
, or other creative
content Content or contents may refer to: Media * Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers ** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...
that meets the definition of a free cultural work. A free cultural work is one which has no significant
legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
restriction on people's freedom: * to use the content and benefit from using it, * to study the content and apply what is learned, * to make and distribute copies of the content, * to change and improve the content and distribute these derivative works. Although different definitions are used, free content is legally similar if not identical to open content. An analogy is the use of the rival terms free software and open source which describe ideological differences rather than legal ones. Free content encompasses all works in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
and also those
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
ed works whose
license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
s honor and uphold the freedoms mentioned above. Because copyright law in most countries by default grants copyright holders monopolistic control over their creations, copyright content must be explicitly declared free, usually by the referencing or inclusion of licensing statements from within the work. Although a work which is in the public domain because its copyright has expired is considered free, it can become non-free again if the copyright law changes. Information is particularly suited to gift economies, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost (zero
marginal cost In economics, the marginal cost is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is incremented, the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it ...
). In fact, there is often an advantage to using the same software or data formats as others, so even from a selfish perspective, it can be advantageous to give away one's information.


Filesharing

Markus Giesler, in his
ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...
''Consumer Gift System'', described music downloading as a system of social solidarity based on gift transactions. As
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
access spread, file sharing became extremely popular among users who could contribute and receive files on line. This form of gift economy was a model for online services such as
Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Sha ...
, which focused on music sharing and was later sued for
copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
. Nonetheless, online file sharing persists in various forms such as BitTorrent and direct download link. A number of communications and intellectual property experts such as
Henry Jenkins Henry Jenkins III (born June 4, 1958) is an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication a ...
and
Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...
have described file-sharing as a form of gift exchange which provides many benefits to artists and consumers alike. They have argued that file sharing fosters community among distributors and allows for a more equitable distribution of media.


Free and open-source software

In his essay " Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer
Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...
said that
free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
developers have created "a 'gift culture' in which participants compete for prestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away". Prestige gained as a result of contributions to source code fosters a social network for the developer; the open source community will recognize the developer's accomplishments and intelligence. Consequently, the developer may find more opportunities to work with other developers. However, prestige is not the only motivator for the giving of lines of code. An anthropological study of the
Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...
community, as part of a
master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
study at the University of North Texas in 2010–11, found that common reasons given by contributors were "learning for the joy of learning and collaborating with interesting and smart people". Motivation for personal gain, such as career benefits, was more rarely reported. Many of those surveyed said things like, "Mainly I contribute just to make it work for me", and "programmers develop software to 'scratch an itch. The International Institute of Infonomics at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands reported in 2002 that in addition to the above, large corporations, and they specifically mentioned IBM, also spend large annual sums employing developers specifically for them to contribute to open source projects. The firms' and the employees' motivations in such cases are less clear. Members of the
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
community often speak of their community as a gift economy. The IT research firm IDC valued the Linux kernel at US$18 billion in 2007 and projected its value at US$40 billion in 2010. The
Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...
distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics * Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...
of the
GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...
/Linux operating system offers over 37,000 free open-source software packages via their AMD64 repositories alone.


Collaborative works

Collaborative works are works created by an open community. For example,
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
a free online encyclopediafeatures millions of articles developed collaboratively, and almost none of its many authors and editors receive any direct material reward.


See also

* Anarchist economics *
Basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive an unconditional transfer payment, that is, without a means test or need to work. It would be received independently of ...
*
Brownie points Brownie points in modern usage are an imaginary social currency, which can be acquired by doing good deeds or earning favor in the eyes of another, often one's spouse. Conjectures for etymology Girlguiding A popular etymology is an allusion to t ...
*
Calculation in kind __NOTOC__ Calculation in kind or calculation in-natura is a way of valuating resources and a system of accounting that uses disaggregated physical magnitudes as opposed to a common unit of calculation. As the basis for a socialist economy, it wa ...
*
Digital currency Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital cu ...
*
Egoboo Egoboo is a colloquial expression for the pleasure received from public recognition of voluntary work. The term was in use in science fiction fandom as early as 1947, when it was used (spelled "ego boo") in a letter from Rick Sneary publish ...
* Food swap *
Free education Free education is education funded through government spending or charitable organizations rather than tuition funding. Many models of free higher education have been proposed. Primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is fr ...
* Giving circles *
History of money The history of money concerns the development throughout time of systems that provide the functions of money. Such systems can be understood as means of trading wealth indirectly; not directly as with bartering. Money is a mechanism that facili ...
* HomestayCouchSurfing *
Knowledge market A knowledge market is a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources. There are two views on knowledge and how knowledge markets can function. One view uses a legal construct of intellectual property to make knowledge a typical scarce resource, ...
* Natural economy * Pay it forward * Post-scarcity economy * Primitive communism * Solidarity economy *
World currency In international finance, a world currency, supranational currency, or global currency is a currency that would be transacted internationally, with no set borders. History First European Banknotes (17th century) The first European banknotes we ...


Notes


Further reading

The concept of a gift economy has played a large role in works of fiction about alternative societies, especially in works of
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
. Examples include: * ''
News from Nowhere ''News from Nowhere'' (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the ''Commonweal'' journal begin ...
'' (1890) by
William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He w ...
is a utopian novel about a society which operates on a gift economy. * '' The Great Explosion'' (1962) by Eric Frank Russell describes the encounter of a military survey ship and a
Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
an pacifist society that operates as a gift economy. * '' The Dispossessed'' (1974) by
Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
is a novel about a gift economy society that had exiled themselves from their (
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
) home planet. * The Mars trilogy, a series of books written by
Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of science fiction. He has published twenty-two novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his ''Mars'' trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many ...
in the 1990s, suggests that new human societies that develop away from
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
could migrate toward a gift economy. * The movie '' Pay It Forward'' (2000) centers on a schoolboy who, for a school project, comes up with the idea of doing a good deed for another and then asking the recipient to "pay it forward". Although the phrase "gift economy" is never explicitly mentioned, the scheme would, in effect, create one. * ''
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom ''Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom'' is a 2003 science fiction book, the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. Concurrent with its publication by Tor Books, Doctorow released the entire text of the novel unde ...
'' (2003) by
Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog '' Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of ...
describes future society where rejuvenation and body-enhancement have made death obsolete, and material goods are no longer scarce, resulting in a reputation-based (
whuffie ''Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom'' is a 2003 science fiction book, the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. Concurrent with its publication by Tor Books, Doctorow released the entire text of the novel unde ...
) economic system. * '' Wizard's Holiday'' (2003) by Diane Duane describes two young wizards visiting a utopian-like planet whose economy is based on gift-giving and mutual support. * '' Voyage from Yesteryear'' (1982) by James P. Hogan describes a society of the embryo colonists of
Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centa ...
who have a post-scarcity gift economy. * ''Cradle of Saturn'' (1999) and its sequel ''The Anguished Dawn'' (2003) by James P. Hogan describe a colonization effort on
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
's largest satellite. Both describe the challenges involved in adopting a new economic paradigm. *
Science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
author
Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the '' Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...
wrote a story, ''Maneki-neko'', in which the cat-paw gesture is the sign of a secret AI-based gift economy.
The Gift Economy. Writings and videos of Genevieve Vaughan and associated scholars.
{{Simple living Cashless society Economic anthropology Economic systems Giving Simple living