I. Malinowski's attack on Homo economicus

A. Adam Smith's characterizations of "primitives" annoyed anthropologists
B. Malinowski's goals in Trobriand Islands, 1915
Click here for map.

1. Show people aren't naturally selfish
2. Prove economics to be ethnocentric

C. Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922).

1. Kula exchanges of necklaces and armshells
2. Economists argued that trade in "primitive" societies was utilitarian and haphazard
3. Malinowski's arguments about the kula

a. Mutual obligations between partners
b. non-utilitarian
c. intricate, complex organization
d. Behavior is rational in its context
e. Liberality as a virtue

D. Trobrianders give in order to possess: anti-homo economicus
E. "Although, like every human being, the Kula native loves to possess and therefore desires to acquire and dreads to lose, the social code of rules, with regard to give and take by far overrides his natural acquisitive tendency" (Argonauts, p. 96).
F. Economics is ethnocentric

 

II. Is the kula economic?

A. Malinowski's reasons, Kula involves:

1. organized, purposeful work
2. desire for wealth, ownership
3. credit
4. canoe building
5. financing the voyage

B. But, kula is at "borderland between the commercial and the ceremonial" (Argonauts, 513)

1. Mingles economics and religion, magic, morality
2. All economics does this, but we don't recognize it in Western capitalism

C. Narrow vs. broad definitions of the economy

 

III. Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) and The Gift (1925)

A. Precursor to The Gift: Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (1898), written by Mauss and Henri Hubert

1. Why do people give things to gods?
2. Sacrifice = a contract, compels a response from a god

B. Gifts bind people together

1. No such thing as a pure or free gift
2. 3 rules of gifts: give, receive, reciprocate
3. Key question: "What... compels the gift that has been received to be obligatorily reciprocated? What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?" (3)
4. The hau: the spirit of the gift

C. Mauss's vision of non-capitalist societies

1. Rational on own terms
2. Produce elaborate items
3. Organize complicated cycles of exchange
4. Unlike capitalists, recognize links between people, things, and other people: "Thus one section of humanity, comparatively rich, hard-working, and creating considerable surpluses, has known how to, and still does know how to, exchange things of great value, under different forms and for reasons different from those with which we are familiar" (33).

D. Gift as total social fact: "all kinds of institutions are given expression at one and the same time -- religious, juridical, and moral, which relate to both politics and the family" (3)
E. Mauss uses exchange, and motivations behind exchange, as key marker to distinguish between capitalist and non-capitalist societies

 

IV. Evaluating Exchange Cross-Culturally

A. Rules: give, receive, reciprocate
B. Hau: things as mediums for expressing relationships between people
C. Primitive societies: exchange = values, social solidarity, morality, total social fact
D. Capitalism: narrows exchange into a purely economic act (Taco Bell commercial example)

 

V. Mauss' Critique of Capitalism

A. Capitalism has forsaken wisdom of ancestors

1. Assembly lines
2. Items don't bear traces of producers' identities
3. Workers not fairly compensated for their role

B. Mauss' political proposal

1. Social security
2. "The state itself, representing the community, owes him, as do his employers, together with some assistance from himself, a certain security in life, against unemployment, sickness, old age, and death" (67)
3. Return to group morality

C. Universal morality of the gift: "It is common to the most advanced societies, to those of the immediate future, and to the lowest imaginable forms of society" (70)
D. Capitalism isn't an advance, but a moral regression

 

VI. Comparing Mauss and Marx

A. Alienation

1. Mauss and Marx: capitalism destroys the ways in which exchanging things creates bonds between people
2. Mauss: psychological alienation. Social security as public thank you
3. Marx: concrete, material, economic alienation. Get rid of capitalist class which steals profits

B. Commodity Fetishism

1. Mauss and Marx: we endow objects with spirits
2. Mauss: hau is positive, unites people in social relations. Capitalism makes things lifeless, divorced from social relations
3. Marx: Commodities have become separated from human source of value. Capitalism makes things lifelike and omnipotent

 

VII. Questions to consider about Mauss

A. Too much focus on rules of giving, receiving, reciprocating?
B. Are gifts and commodities so different?
C. Will the social security proposal work as he intended?

 

For more information, contact: aleshkow@holycross.edu