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Here's the thing though.... If there was more of a gift economy in these cases, the intrinsic properties would be something like generosity, fairness, and honor
by einhverfr 14y ago
Here's the thing though.... If there was more of a gift economy in these cases, the intrinsic properties would be something like generosity, fairness, and honor. You have a lot of money and have a reputation for these things, who is to say that isn't more real?
The problem though is form. I am generous with my good fortune to you. What are you doing for me in return? It used to be that a gift demanded reciprocity (as would injury or misbehavior), and to be forgiven for not doing so was a bad thing and an insult to one's honor. Then Christianity came and we all got screwed over by this obligation to forgive.
Interestingly we know from anthropology that money came about as a way to quantify debt, not the other way around. So perhaps this is only less real today because of how we account for our possessions and how we relate to our money, not because of any intrinsic issue with a relationship based on disparity of this sort.
Interestingly Cicero brings up a similar point in his work on friendship. At a time where Roman society was very stratified and friendships were supposed to be between economic equals, he suggested that the best friendships would be made with people below one's social status, for the specific reason that they would be more loyal. Friendships in Rome were all about a gift economy (as they still are in many parts of the world today. I have a friend who studied with Edgar Polome for his PhD and said Polome used to use India as an example if this. He'd get a gift-- maybe a new wallet or something-- from someone one year and a request for help getting a job or a car or something else a few years later. And when he'd turn them down they'd be unhappy because it was not fulfilling his obligation for having accepted the gift. This is true all over Asia as my wife always reminds me never to accept a gift from someone unless I know what they want in return.)
- zerostar07 14y agoI think the examples you mention would fall into the sphere of "acquaintances" or "family friends" or "connections" or "not enemies" today (in the business or strategic sense). We are talking about actual close friends, comrades, (BFFs if u want) here.
- einhverfr 14y agoI don't think that's all though. Case in point, read the Old English poem "The Wanderer" (ideally in Old English but if necessary in translation) and remember that the relationship the narrator is lamenting is this sort of relationship. The point is that gifts tie us together. As one person said, "obligations unite us, debts drive us apart." The idea that you give money and there is some sort of a moral obligation to reciprocate in some way (but not a quantified debt) creates the bond. The way gift economies work is that you give gifts out and therefore obtain communal esteem, and people reciprocate to get that esteem by giving you gifts.
- digitalsushi 14y agoMaking the claim it's better in Old English is just a transparent way of bragging you know Old English. And it's subjective how best to enjoy something. It's like telling someone they need an ice cube in their scotch.
- corin_ 14y agoIrrelevant and pedantic point here, but I would suggest it's more like telling someone they need to not have an ice cube in their scotch, very few scotch snobs would argue pro-ice :)
- dcotter 14y agoJust a transparent way of telling me you know how to drink Scotch. Damn knowledge snobs!
- corin_ 14y agoActually despite being a scotch snob who spends a lot of his money on really nice bottles... I do enjoy it chilled sometimes (though a friend got me "whiskey stones" for Christmas, so I use them instead of ice!) I'm a snob to what I consider bad whiskey, not to what might be considered a bad whiskey drinker :)
- einhverfr 14y ago