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A gift economy, gift culture or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are regularly given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. In contrast to a barter economy or a market economy, social norms and custom govern gift exchange, rather than an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity. Gift exchange is frequently "embedded" in political, kin, or religious institutions, and therefore does not constitute an "economic" system per se.

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 is a cross-cultural, pan-historical universal. Anthropologists, through analysis of a variety of cultural and historical forms of exchange, have established that no universal practice exists. Attention to the differences, as well the common features of the practices described as "gift economies" illustrates that different principles and practices are at play. Jonathan Parry's 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." To speak of a "gift economy" in a non-market society is to ignore the distinctive features of their exchange relationships, as the early debate between Malinowski and Mauss demonstrated.

Anthropological research into gift economies began with Bronislaw Malinowski's description of the Kula ring in the Trobriand Islands during World War One. 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 quickly established the complexity of "gift exchange" and introduced a series of technical terms such as reciprocity, inalienable possessions, and prestation to distinguish between the different forms of exchange.

Since then, discussion has expanded to cover a variety of types of exchange in non-market and market based societies. It is the unsettled relationship between market and non-market exchange that attracts the most attention. Gift economies are said, by some, to build communities, and the market to serve as an acid on those relationships.

Principles of exchange

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. This is demonstrated by current debates around intellectual property rights. While I may purchase a book, an object that I own, the author of that book retains a "copyright" over that book. In other words, 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 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.

According to Hann, 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" over objects. 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. 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 vs Prestation

According to Parry, Malinowski's study of the Kula ring became the subject of debate with the French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, author of "The Gift" ("Essai sur le don," 1925). In Parry's view, Malinowski placed the emphasis on the exchange of goods between individuals, and their non-altruistic motives for giving the gift: they expected a return of equal or greater value (colloquially referred to as "Indian giving"). Parry states that reciprocity is an implicit part of gifting; there is no such thing as the "free gift" given without expectation.

Mauss, in contrast, emphasized that the gifts were not between individuals, but between representatives of larger collectivities. These gifts were, he argued, a "total prestation." They were not simple, alienable commodities to be bought and sold, but, like the "Crown jewels", embodied the reputation, history and sense of 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." A good part of the confusion (and resulting debate) was due to a bad translation. Mauss appeared to be arguing that a return gift is given to keep the very relationship between givers alive; 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.

Reciprocity and the "spirit of the gift"

Reciprocity is a dyadic exchange relationship that we characterize, imprecisely, as gift-giving. One gives gifts to friends and potential enemies in order to establish a relationship, by placing them in debt. In order for 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, or there is no relationship. Birthday gifts are an example. 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. Without a relationship of debt, there is no reciprocity. 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, 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 has 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), 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 that they could not cleanse themselves of. "Pure gifts" given without a return, can place recipients in debt, and hence in dependent status: the poison of the gift. Many who are forced by circumstances to accept charity feel stigmatized. In the Moka exchange 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."

Debt and hierarchy

The French writer Georges Bataille in his book 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 of the gift to confirm their subjection. The structure of the gift can refer thus immediately to a practice that bears out different roles for the parts that undertake an action in it, installing in this act of donating the Hegelian dipole of master and slave.

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 two fold: first, Trobriand Island society is matrilineal, and women hold a great deal of economic and political power. 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 contrasts "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 specific goods given, like Crown Jewels, are so identified with particular groups, that even when given, they are not truly alienated. Not all societies, however, have these kinds of goods, which depend upon the existence of particular kinds of kinship groups. French anthropologist Maurice Godelier pushed the analysis further in "The Enigma of the Gift" (1999). Albert Schrauwers has 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 with Claude Levi-Strauss' model of "House Societies" (where "House" refers to both noble lineage and their landed estate). Total prestations are given, he argues, to preserve landed estates identified with particular kin groups and maintain their place in a ranked society.

Cosmological authentication

Mauss had suggested that sacrifice, gifts to the gods in order to create an obligation in them to return bounty, was the core of the human-supernatural relationship. A gift economy normally requires the gift exchange to be more than simply a back-and-forth between two individuals. For example, a Kashmiri tale tells of two Brahmin women who tried to fulfill their obligations for alms-giving simply by giving alms back and forth to one another. On their deaths they were transformed into two poisoned wells from which no one could drink, reflecting the barrenness of this weak simulacrum of giving. This notion of expanding the circle can also be seen in societies where hunters give animals to priests, who sacrifice a portion to a deity (who, in turn, is expected to provide an abundant hunt). The hunters do not directly sacrifice to the deity themselves.

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 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 different form of special purpose money. However, the market and universal money allowed goods to be traded between spheres and thus served as an acid on 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 takes place 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

Commodity exchange is an exchange of alienable objects between people who are in a state of reciprocal independence that establishes a quantitative relationship between the objects exchanged… Gift exchange is an exchange of inalienable objects between people who are in a state of reciprocal dependence that establishes a qualitative relationship between the transactors (emphasis added).

Gregory opposes gift and commodity exchange according to five criteria:

Other anthropologists, however, refused to see these different "exchange spheres" as such polar opposites. Marilyn Strathern, writing on a similar area in Papua New Guinea, dismissed the utility of the opposition 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 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 irresistable 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.

Case studies

Prestations

Moka exchange in Papua New Guinea: competitive exchange

The Moka is a highly ritualized system of exchange in the Mt. 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 through which social status is achieved. Moka refers specifically to the increment in the size of the gift. Social status in the 'Big man' political system is the result of giving larger gifts than one has received. These gifts are of a limited range of goods, primarily pigs and scarce pearl shells from the coast. To return the same amount as one has received in a moka is simply the repayment of 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 upon the ability to persuade, rather than command. It is laboriously built up, yet is highly unstable and will inevitably collapse.

Toraja funerals: the politics of meat distribution

The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, 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. Any individual Toraja may thus 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 for several days. The funerals are like Big men competitions where all the descendants of a Tongkonan will compete through gifts of sacrificial cattle. Participants will have invested cattle with others over the years, and will now 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

Charity: Dana in India

Non-commodified spheres of exchange

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 alternate exchange sphere. As in the case of organ donation, this may be the result of an ideological opposition to the "traffic in humans." in other cases, it is in opposition to the market and to its perceived greed. It may, however, be used by corporations as a means of creating a sense of endebtedness and loyalty in customers.

Organ transplant networks, Sperm and blood banks

Copyleft vs copyright: the gift of 'free' speech

Engineers, scientists and software developers have created open-source software projects such as the Linux kernel and the GNU 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 licenses, which allow free reuse of software and knowledge. Other examples include: file-sharing, the commons, open access.

Points: Loyalty programs

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 items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, a garment or a household 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 that provides a shopping alternative to a monetary framework, allowing people to exchange goods and services outside of a money-based economy. The anarchist 1960s countercultural group The Diggers opened free stores which simply 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 and sought to create a mini-society free of money and capitalism. Although free stores have not been uncommon in the United States since the 1960s, the freegan movement has inspired the establishment of more free stores. Today the idea is kept alive by the new generations of social centres, anarchists and environmentalists who view the idea as an intriguing way to raise awareness about consumer culture and to promote the reuse of commodities.

Burning Man

Burning Man is a week-long annual art and community event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event is described as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance. The event outlaws commerce (except for ice, coffee, and tickets to the event itself) and encourages gifting. 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 ".

Related concepts

Mutual aid

Many anarchists, particularly anarcho-primitivists and anarcho-communists, believe that variations on a gift economy may be the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. 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 central planning. This view traces back at least to Peter Kropotkin, who saw in the hunter-gatherer tribes he had visited the paradigm of "mutual aid". In place of a market, anarcho-communists, such as those who inhabited some Spanish villages in the 1930s, support a currency-less gift economy 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 systems and thus trade unions, and has been also used in cooperatives and other civil society movements. Typically, mutual-aid groups will be free to join and participate in, and all activities will be voluntary. They are often structured as non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic non-profit organizations, 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, equality of member status and power, and shared leadership and cooperative decision-making. Members' external societal status is considered irrelevant inside the group: status in the group is conferred by participation.

Characteristics

Many societies have strong prohibitions against turning gifts into trade or capital goods. 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. 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," Hyde remarks, "the person who tries to hold onto a gift usually dies."

Daniel Everett, a linguist who studied a small tribe of hunter-gatherers in Brazil, reported that, while they are aware of food preservation using drying, salting, and so forth, they reserve the use of these techniques for items for barter outside of 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, a poor Chicago 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 ultimately 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.

Information gift economies

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 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 Consumer Gift System, described music downloading as a system of social solidarity based on gift transactions. As Internet 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, which focused on music sharing and was later sued for copyright infringement. Nonetheless, online file sharing persists in various forms such as Bit Torrent and Direct download link. 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 numerous 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.

Open-source software

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". 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 community, as part of a master's 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 community often speak of their community as a gift economy. The IT research firm IDC valued the Linux kernel at $18 billion USD in 2007 and projected its value at $40 billion USD in 2010. The Debian distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system offers over 37,000 free open-source software packages via their AMD64 repositories alone.

Misplaced Pages

Millions of articles are available on Misplaced Pages, a free online encyclopedia, and almost none of its many authors and editors receive any direct material reward.

See also

• Brownie points
• Egoboo
• Giving Circles
• Money-free economy
• Reciprocity (cultural anthropology)
• Post scarcity economy
• Pay it forward
• History of money

Notes

1. Cheal, David J (1988). "1". The Gift Economy. New York: Routledge. pp. 1–19. ISBN 0415006414. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
2. R. Kranton: Reciprocal exchange: a self-sustaining system, American Economic Review, V. 86 (1996), Issue 4 (September), p. 830-51
3. Gregory, Chris (1982). Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press. p. 6-9.
4. Parry, Jonathan (1986). "The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'". Man. 21 (3): 453–473.
5. Parry, Jonathan (1986). "The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'". Man. 21 (3): 467.
6. Mauss, Marcel (1970). The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Cohen & West.
7. Weiner, Annette (1992). Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving. Berkeley: University of California Press.
8. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
9. Mauss, Marcel (1970). The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Cohen & West.
10. Weiner, Annette (1992). Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11. J. Parry, M. Bloch (1989). "Introduction" in Money and the Morality of Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 8–12.
12. Coleman, Gabriella (2004). "The Political Agnosticism of Free and Open Source Software and the Inadvertent Politics of Contrast". Anthropological Quarterly. 77 (3): 507–19.
13. Hann, C.M. (1998). Propert Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 4.
14. Weiner, Annette (1992). Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving. Berkeley: University of California Press.
15. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1984(1922)). Argonauts of the Western Pacific : an account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
16. Mauss, Marcel (1970). The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Cohen & West.
17. Parry, Jonathan (1986). "The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'". Man. 21 (3): 466–69.
18. Parry, Jonathan (1986). "The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'". Man. 21 (3): 466–69.
19. Gregory, Chris (1982). Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press. pp. 189–194.
20. Sahlins, Marshall (1972). Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. ISBN 0-202-01099-6.
21. Parry, Jonathan (1986). "The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'". Man. 21 (3): 467.
22. Parry, Jonathan (1986). "The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'". Man. 21 (3): 463–67.
23. Weiner, Annette (1992). Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving. Berkeley: University of California Press.
24. Godelier, Maurice (1999). The Enigma of the Gift. Cambridge: Polity Press.
25. Schrauwers, Albert (2004). "H(h)ouses, E(e)states and class: On the importance of capitals in central Sulawesi". Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 160 (1): 72–94.
26. Godelier, Maurice (1996). The Enigma of the Gift. Cambridge: Polity Press. p. 29-30.
27. ^ Lewis Hyde: The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, pg. 18
28. Bohannan, Paul (1959). "The Impact of money on an African subsistence economy". The Journal of Economic History. 19 (4): 491–503.
29. Parry, Jonathan (1989). Money and the Morality of Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 28–30. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
30. Gregory, Chris (1982). Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press. pp. 100–101.
31. Strathern, Marilyn (1988). The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 143–7.
32. Thomas, Nicholas (1991). Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
33. Gregory, C.A. (1982). Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press. p. 53.
34. Gregory, C.A. (1982). Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press. pp. 53–54.
35. Sahlins, Marshall (1963). "Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 3. 5: 294–7.
36. "Tana Toraja official website" (in Indonesian). Archived from the original on May 29, 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
37. Schrauwers, Albert (2004). "H(h)ouses, E(e)states and class; On the importance of capitals in central Sulawesi". Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 160 (1): 83-86.
38. Schrauwers, Albert (2004). "H(h)ouses, E(e)states and class; On the importance of capitals in central Sulawesi". Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 160 (1): 83-86.
39. Schrauwers, Albert (2004). "H(h)ouses, E(e)states and class; On the importance of capitals in central Sulawesi". Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 160 (1): 83-86.
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Further reading

The concept of a gift economy has played a large role in works of fiction about alternate societies, especially in works of science fiction. Examples include:

• News from Nowhere (1890) by William Morris 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 Gandhian pacifist society that operates as a gift economy.
• The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin is a novel about a gift economy society that had exiled themselves from their (capitalist) homeplanet.
• The Mars trilogy, a series of books written by Kim Stanley Robinson in the 1990s, suggests that new human societies that develop away from Earth 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 (2003) by Cory Doctorow 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) 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 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's largest satellite. Both describe the challenges involved in adopting a new economic paradigm.
• Science fiction author Bruce Sterling wrote a story, Maneki-neko, in which the cat-paw gesture is the sign of a secret AI-based gift economy.

External links

• The gift economy (Genevieve Vaughan)
• The Gift Economy, Anarchism and Strategies for Change
• The Moneyless Manifesto
• Moneyless World

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• Misplaced Pages articles needing words, phrases or quotes attributed from February 2013
• Economic anthropology
• Giving
• Other economic systems
• Anarchist communism
• Economic systems