by Kabir Sehgal
The second exchange, involving the home mortgage, occurs in the commercial sphere, usually with strangers. There is an obligation to make the mortgage payments in full and on time. This legally induced obligation is part of what we today call the market economy. When we compute a debt obligation with money it can take the form of financial instruments like student loans, auto loans, and credit card bills.
Both exchanges result in an obligation of varying strengths to repay. But the method of payment is different. In the familial sphere, you would repay Miriam with an in-kind gift, and the interaction might then be considered complete, though it is likely to sustain a virtuous circle of future giving and receiving. But to mix market practices within the familial sphere can make for awkward situations. Say after aperitifs, appetizers, delicacies, and dessert you ask Miriam how much you owe her. You take out a billfold, count aloud eighty-five dollars, and press the cash into the palm of her hand. If Miriam is like most of my friends, you will offend her for treating her hospitality as if it were a good that can be purchased at the local Trader Joe’s. You introduced a market practice, paying for services rendered with cash, into a social situation.
Of course, these two spheres are not mutually exclusive. They keep bumping up against each other. Companies try to blur the lines between these spheres for their benefit: Treating a client like a dear friend or family member is a characteristic practice of effective salespeople everywhere. And frequent-flier and other reward programs are designed to instill a sense of loyalty and obligation that gives you pause before you return to the marketplace. These companies are trying to enter your familial sphere so that you will view them more favorably and less like a stranger. The more you trust them, the more they can sell you. But even still, Best Buy isn’t the same thing as your brother.
The Gift
Marcel Mauss was a multidisciplinary man, chock-full of ideas. Part sociologist, part anthropologist, part philosopher, he wrote in 1924 Essai sur le don, or “The Gift,” which still serves as a foundational work for anthropologists who study gift exchange.19 A gift can have political, economic, social, even religious dimensions, and studying it requires a broad, panoramic lens. A gift can take on several meanings because it reflects the intent of the giver, which can range from benevolence and munificence to solicitation and contempt. For example, say Miriam invites you to dinner to butter you up before she requests that you help her son gain admission to a select university that you attended. Her gift, the lovely dinner, now drips with additional meaning. And if you had known her intentions before the dinner, you might have rejected the invitation.
Gift economies have their unique flavors of rituals and customs, but Mauss observed that they usually involve three types of obligations or principles: to give, to receive, and to reciprocate.20 These obligations make up the cycle of the gift economy. The constant movement of gifts, which I will trace across several cultures, suggests that the currency of gifts, and debts of the familial sphere, bear a similarity to the movement of money in the commercial sphere. However, the difference is that movement or “transactions” in the gift economy usually sustain relationships. After you receive a cappuccino from a friend, the relationship is sustained and even strengthens, and you’re obligated to reciprocate the gesture at a later date. When a gift is given, despite money never changing hands, there is still another currency in circulation: familial or social debt. In the market economy, after you buy a caramel Frappuccino from a Starbucks barista, the relationship ends and you go your separate ways.
Mauss recognized how gifts sustained the relationship among the Maori people of New Zealand and nature. The Maoris speak of gifts as having a hau, or spirit. Hunters who catch game from the forest give some meat to priests, who perform rituals on it. By doing so, the priests arrange a mauri—for example, game prepared during a ritual ceremony or sacred stones—which is a physical manifestation of the forest’s hau.21 They offer the mauri back to the forest as a demonstration of gratitude for nature’s gift. Not to demonstrate proper gratitude can upset nature and diminish its future bounty.22 In general, a gift’s hau is said to have a yearning to return to its place of origin, encouraging recipients to reciprocate the gift. The forest, hunter, and priest are all givers and recipients, playing their roles in the cyclical movement of the gift. Several scholars have attempted to debunk Mauss’s spiritual interpretation in favor of a more secular understanding: Not to reciprocate a gift would harm the reputation of the recipient.23 Even still, the movement of a gift shows the currency of the gift economy in full circulation.
We see the circulation of gifts on a larger scale in the Trobriand Islands, near New Guinea, where anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski found locals practicing a gift exchange called the Kula. Two types of ceremonial gifts, or vaygu’a, necklaces and armbands, are exchanged among families on the many islands that make up the Massim archipelago, and they function like a type of currency.24 Both gifts move in a loop around the islands: Red shell necklaces move in a clockwise manner, and armshells move in a counterclockwise fashion. The gifts are exchanged for each other: Receiving a necklace should be reciprocated by giving an armshell now or up to one year in the future. It can take up to ten years for gifts to make it all the way around the islands, as folks travel long distances via canoe to other islands.25 The cycle of gift exchange, incurring social debts and repaying them, gives shape to the society—knowing where folks stand in relation to each other, like a large credit system. To hoard a gift for too long risks your reputation or credit. Not to give means ending one’s social ties and withdrawing from the community. Giving is expected and is part of being an upstanding member of the group.26
The constant movement of gifts in the gift economy is in contrast to the buying and hoarding we often associate with Western societies. In the Trobriand Islands, and in many so-called archaic societies, Malinowski observes that “to possess is to give.”27 Translated into modern parlance: Pay it forward and keep the gift moving. In his illuminating book The Gift, author Lewis Hyde contrasts divergent cultural views regarding the movement of gifts with a thought experiment. Say an early English settler visits a Native American community, where he is given a pipe. The settler gladly accepts the pipe and displays it proudly at his home. When members of the Indian tribe visit his home, he learns that they expect him to give them the pipe. He bemoans the Indians’ disrespect for private property. To him, to receive a gift is to remove it from circulation, maybe even turning it into a commodity that can be sold later. He sees them as what has been called an “Indian giver,” someone who wants their gift back—a phrase with a stereotypical and negative connotation that may stem from Lewis and Clark’s expedition, when they encountered difficulties trading with Native Americans.28 In Hyde’s thought experiment, the Indians bemoan the settler’s disrespect for the movement of the gift and the wider community. To them, to hold a gift is to continue giving and regifting, sustaining relationships.29 Here we have the familial and commercial spheres coexisting, albeit uneasily.
To give, in some societies, is part of a formalized way to gain status. Anthropologists in the nineteenth century, including Mauss but starting with Franz Boas, who studied the Kwakiutl people, a native tribe of British Columbia, spilled considerable ink explaining the potlatch (not to be confused with a “potluck,” which is of English origin). A potlatch is a ceremonial gift exchange that historically took place among native communities in the Pacific Northwest. Potlatches were organized for noteworthy occasions like births, weddings, and funerals. But the purpose of most potlatches was to make or demonstrate a social claim, for instance, the ascension of a new chief after the death of the previous one, like a coronation ceremony in which a new king is crowned.30 The new chief was usually the firstborn son, and it was his role to preside over the potlatch. Social mobility was limited, and potlatches reinforced hereditable claims to power through rituals.31
Most native communities of the region had their own twist on the potlatch, but there was some
similarity in format. The chief and his wider kin group, or numima, as it’s known in the Kwakiutl society, invited guests to witness the important occasion. The potlatch became a public spectacle in which the chief or “donor” and numima prepared a feast and led rounds of oration, singing, and dancing. At the end, the donor distributed gifts to guests, as a symbol of generosity and a signal for the guests to leave. Gifts reflected the prestige of the donor instead of the desires of the guests. Therefore, higher-valued items like meats and skins were often given as gifts. Kwakiutl coppers were another notable gift, made from metal sheets adorned with the names of previous owners. Over many generations these coppers changed hands through a series of many potlatches. Enshrined on the coppers is a history of gift exchange during this era.32
Indeed, potlatches helped to integrate families and build solidarity among the wider community. But they also served as a way to distinguish among members, to identify an individual’s status and rank. Gifts were distributed in order of each guest’s rank, so the recipient knew exactly where he or she stood in the eyes of the donor, as no two guests had an identical rank. Recipients also contrasted the gifts they received among themselves, as a way to gauge their own relative status.33 For example, in one potlatch feast, a seal’s breast was served to the chief, whereas the flipper was given to the second in command. Members with lower rank received lower-quality cuts of meat.34
Giving gifts, and openly “destroying” one’s wealth, is a virtue in these Kwakiutl societies. It contrasts with the notion in Western societies of gaining status through accumulating wealth.35 In fact, from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, potlatches were deemed illegal in Canada’s Indian Act because they supposedly stood in the way of cultural assimilation. Destroying wealth was seen as a blatant disregard for private property.36 Upon further analysis, there’s a competitive spirit to the potlatch. Although gift giving in the potlatch has the patina of generosity, many tribes became competitive about it, trying to outdo their previous potlatch and those organized by their neighbors, lavishing their rivals with outsized largesse. However, as the native communities shrank in population, due in part to diseases contracted from foreigners, claims to status and rank were blurred. Sometimes there weren’t enough members to fill all the positions of status. Disputes between members who claimed the same rank or status were settled by whoever organized the better potlatch. What had initially served as a way to limit social mobility, the potlatch had become a ladder for it.37
Over time, as these native communities traded with Western settlers, some newly procured items, like clocks and, later, sewing machines, were injected into potlatches, along with norms found in the commercial sphere. These goods gradually took on traditional meanings, and eventually a donor’s prestige was derived mostly from the monetary value of his gifts. Status now came from a market price instead of a hereditable claim. Coppers were measured on scales, and gifts were seen through the lens of money and the market economy. The potlatch had been transformed. Market norms had made inroads into the familial sphere.
Gift economies aren’t found only in societies from centuries ago. Such modern public displays of gift exchange that sustain a web of relationships can be found on the World Wide Web and online platforms. Founded in 1999, peer-to-peer music-sharing service Napster dramatically altered music consumption: Instead of buying music in the marketplace, users shared or gifted their collections of MP3 music files with one another. After downloading a song from someone else, it was added to one’s collection, and others could download it. Though one didn’t part with the song when it was shared, it amounted to a gift for the recipient. There was constant movement, like in the Kula, as songs were gifted and regifted. Instead of a circle, Napster’s gift economy had a rhizomatic or rootlike structure, with users spread around the world.38 One researcher interviewed Napster users to better understand their motivations. Users spoke of the Napster “community” to highlight that sharing and gifting built a sense of solidarity.39 Others decried the practice of downloading music but not sharing one’s own collection of music. One user said, “If they’re not into sharing, they should not be allowed to reap the benefits.”40 Napster users developed norms and obligations similar to the societies studied by Mauss and Malinowski. Certainly, many believed Napster users were engaging in music piracy, stealing from the marketplace and sharing freely with the community. Facing lawsuits and court orders, Napster shut down. In this example, it’s the producers in the market economy that suffer from familial attitudes on sharing writ large. A valuable piece of intellectual property was shared around the world with little monetary regard for its creator.
We see the reverse, the commercial sphere benefiting from the familial sphere, with the online crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, which enables people to give money to artistic projects. Artists create short videos that explain their vision. Many have achieved incredible fund-raising success: One musician seeking $100,000 raised $1 million; a video game designer looking for $400,000 raised north of $3 million. More than $800 million has been raised on the platform.41 Kickstarter takes a fee for every successful fund-raising campaign, acting as a market agent that benefits from the money flowing through the gift economy. Those startled by the rise of Kickstarter need only remember the pervasiveness, draw, and obligations of the gift economy.42 When your artist friend asks you for money, you may feel obligated to help. There’s no large economic benefit to the giver, but the gift sustains the relationship with the artist, who provides the artistic gift along with a steady stream of updates to benefactors, and small gifts like free albums or the dedication of a song.
In all these examples, the movement of gifts relies on gratitude, or what sociologist Georg Simmel termed “the moral memory of mankind.”43 After receiving a gift, there’s a resulting gratitude-induced obligation that the recipient remembers. Though gratitude carries a warm and generous connotation, make no mistake of its strong force, a “gratitude imperative” to reciprocate a gift.44 A gratitude-induced obligation creates a tie of morality between the giver and the recipient—symbolically represented by the bow and ribbons found on presents.45 Admittedly, gratitude-induced obligations work only up to a point. When a group gets too large, it’s nearly impossible to remember how every exchange affected each relationship, and where everyone stands in the mutual web of indebtedness. Gratitude necessitates remembrance and is necessary to restoring the debt balance between the giver and the recipient.
There’s even a rough way to track and calculate one’s social debt balance. Remember from earlier that you and Miriam are counterparties in a familial or social debt exchange: Her kind gesture credits her balance and debits yours, like a social bank account or credit system. In conversation, we even use language as if we’re keeping track of balances in such a system. We use metaphors involving debt to describe our relationships with others: I owe you one; I am in your debt; I’ll make him pay.46 We may even think in terms of such a credit system. Leading linguists contend that metaphors aren’t just artful ways of expressing ourselves; they also shape how we think.47 Many folks keep an active mental account as to whom they owe and who owes them. Some even write it down: J. P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon reportedly keeps a list of “people who owe me stuff” in his suit pocket.48 He realizes that gifts or social credits minimize the friction of dealing with individuals solely through the market economy: The cost of doing a deal is less expensive if someone already owes you. That a Wall Street titan recognizes and keeps track of favors or “chits” shows how important the gift economy can be in greasing the wheels of the market economy.
When President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, he said matter-of-factly, “I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.”49 He wasn’t just using an expressive metaphor but providing a window to his thoughts and second-term policy agenda. “Political” or “social” capital invokes the same debt metaphor. Though termed “capital,” it isn’t owned like a piece of property.50 You c
an’t cash it in with everyone or convert it easily into another currency like money. Its value is embedded in the relationship with whoever is on the other side of the obligation. If that person walks away from the obligation, the credits that you accrued may be worthless. It takes at least two to tango in these social debt arrangements. And because you can’t exactly “own” this type of social debt, at least in these examples, this metaphorical capital returns us to the notion that to possess is to give: The value of social capital is realized by having someone else fulfill their obligation, to repay the gift and to keep the cycle going.
Constantly keeping track of one’s social debt balance can be a source of anxiety. First, it can be difficult to reciprocate and find the right “payment” or gift. One study found more than a dozen sources of anxiety resulting from gift giving; they range from unfamiliarity, not knowing the recipient well or their preferences, to selectivity, when the recipient is highly selective in their tastes.51 For example, finding an appropriate gift for a new boyfriend or girlfriend can be difficult indeed. Too inexpensive a gift sends a signal that you didn’t sacrifice or spend enough on them. Too expensive a gift and you risk scaring them away because the money you’ve spent could signal too much commitment or seriousness at an early stage. Second, one may not want to incur a social debt obligation, as it may shift the power to the benefactor. And one may reject the gift outright. In a study on the role of gift exchange in courtship, some women resisted a man’s attempt to buy them dinner, preferring instead to “go dutch” and split the bill. To some, the gifts aren’t just a way to ingratiate but an effort to control the relationship.
Anxiety from gift exchange can push folks to escape to the market economy, which can offer anonymity and fewer lingering obligations. In Montreal, for example, some have turned to professional moving services instead of relying on friends to help them move. Historically, Montreal’s large working-class population was forced to move residences frequently. Most rental leases were for one year and started in the summer, and many found themselves moving at the same time. These days, moving in Montreal has become something of a hobby and part of the culture. Labatt Breweries of Canada has run advertisements with moving residences as the theme. A famous song by Robert Charlebois sounds a cultural note with his tune “Deménagér ou rester là,” which means “Move out or stay put.”52 Since moving houses is labor-intensive, the mover will turn to the gift economy and ask his or her friends and family to help during the move. One mover praised the cooperative nature of the gift economy: “These people who helped us, I’ve helped them move in the past… Wow! People are here for you. You’re not in a mess. You’re not alone.”53 But exchanges in the gift economy don’t always flow smoothly. If friends and family don’t show up, one may lose faith in them and feel slighted by their reluctance to help. Others don’t want the resulting obligations associated with friends and family members who have helped during the move. Mira, a forty-nine-year-old architect, says: “It would be complicated to entrust [my cousin] with the painting job because he won’t charge me the market price… I don’t want to feel obliged. I don’t want to feel that I will have to give back.”54 Escaping the gift economy for the market economy shows the lengths some folks will go to to avoid social indebtedness.
