00:00This holiday season, people around the world will give and receive presents.
00:11You might even get a knitted sweater from an aunt.
00:14But what if instead of saying thanks before consigning it to the closet,
00:17the polite response expected from you was to show up at her house in a week with a better gift?
00:22Or to vote for her in the town election?
00:25Or let her adopt your firstborn child?
00:28All of these things might not sound so strange if you are involved in a gift economy.
00:34This phrase might seem contradictory.
00:36After all, isn't a gift given for free?
00:39But in a gift economy, gifts given without explicit conditions
00:43are used to foster a system of social ties and obligations.
00:47While the market economies we know are formed by relationships between the things being traded,
00:52a gift economy consists of the relationships between the people doing the trading.
00:57Gift economies have existed throughout human history.
01:01The first studies of the concept came from anthropologist Branislav Malinowski and Marcel Moss,
01:07who described the natives of the Trobriand Islands making dangerous canoe journeys across miles of ocean
01:12to exchange shell necklaces and armbands.
01:15The items traded through this process, known as the Kula Ring,
01:19have no practical use,
01:21but derive importance from their original owners
01:23and carry an obligation to continue the exchange.
01:26Other gift economies may involve useful items,
01:29such as the potlash feasts of the Pacific Northwest,
01:32where chiefs compete for prestige by giving away livestock and blankets.
01:36We might say that instead of accumulating material wealth,
01:40participants in a gift economy use it to accumulate social wealth.
01:45Though some instances of gift economies may resemble barter,
01:49the difference is that the original gift is given without any preconditions or haggling.
01:54Instead, the social norm of reciprocity obligates recipients to voluntarily return the favor.
02:00But the rules for how and when to do so vary between cultures,
02:04and the return on a gift can take many forms.
02:08A powerful chief giving livestock to a poor man may not expect goods in return,
02:13but gains social prestige at the debtor's expense.
02:17And among the Toraja people of Indonesia,
02:20the status gained from gift ceremonies even determines land ownership.
02:24The key is to keep the gift cycle going,
02:27with someone always indebted to someone else,
02:29repaying a gift immediately or with something of exactly equal value
02:33may be read as ending the social relationship.
02:36So, are gift economies exclusive to small-scale societies outside the industrialized world?
02:42Not quite.
02:44For one thing, even in these cultures,
02:46gift economies function alongside a market system for other exchanges.
02:50And when we think about it,
02:52parts of our own societies work in similar ways.
02:55Communal spaces, such as Burning Man,
02:57operate as a mix of barter and a gift economy,
03:00where selling things for money is strictly taboo.
03:03In art and technology,
03:05gift economies are emerging as an alternative to intellectual property,
03:09where artists, musicians, and open source developers
03:12distribute their creative works not for financial profit,
03:15but to raise their social profile or establish their community role.
03:19And even potluck dinners and holiday gift traditions involve some degree of reciprocity in social norms.
03:26We might wonder if a gift is truly a gift if it comes with obligations or involves some social payoff.
03:32But this is missing the point.
03:34Our idea of a free gift without social obligations prevails only if we already think of everything in market terms.
03:41And in a commercialized world,
03:43the idea of strengthening bonds through giving and reciprocity may not be such a bad thing,
03:49wherever you may live.
04:04Other than that,
04:06with bondage and Hamilton,
04:07I am so right now DEM09 and I am so right.
04:08So I will try to get a bridge behind my work.
04:09And if I can increase that absolutely.
04:10I am so right,
04:11I can't agree with that.
04:12I can't agree with this.
04:13I can't agree with that as a good guy is coming.
04:14I can't agree with that,
04:15I can't agree with that.
04:16And I can agree with that I am so right.
04:18But now you are working with that.
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