Gift economy

A gift economy or gift culture is the system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather condition without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms & customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there is some expectation of reciprocity, gifts are not precondition in an explicit exchange of goods or services for money, or some other commodity or service. This contrasts with a barter economy or a market economy, where goods and services are primarily explicitly exchanged for advantage received.

The classification of gift economies is the referred of a foundational debate in anthropology. Anthropological research into gift economies began with Bronisław Malinowski's explanation of the Kula ring in the Trobriand Islands during World War I. The Kula trade appeared to be gift-like since Trobrianders would travel great distances over dangerous seas to supply what were considered valuable objects without all guarantee of a return. Malinowski's debate with the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss quickly instituting the complexity of "gift exchange" and presentation a series of technical terms such(a) as reciprocity, inalienable possessions, and provided to distinguish between the different forms of exchange.

According to anthropologists Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, this is the the unsettled relationship between market and non-market exchange that attracts the near attention. Some authors argue that gift economies established community, while markets damage community relationships.

Gift exchange is distinguished from other forms of exchange by a number of principles, such(a) as the work of property rights governing the articles exchanged; if gifting forms a distinct "sphere of exchange" that can be characterized as an "economic system"; and the address of the social relationship that the gift exchange establishes. Gift ideology in highly commercialized societies differs from the "prestations" typical of non-market societies. Gift economies also differ from related phenomena, such(a) as common property regimes and the exchange of non-commodified labour.

Charity and alms giving

Anthropologist David Graeber argued that the great world religious traditions of charity and gift giving emerged near simultaneously during the "Axial age" 800 to 200 BCE, when coinage was invented and market economies were established on a continental basis. Graeer argues that these charity traditions emerged as a reaction against the nexus formed by coinage, slavery, military violence and the market a "military-coinage" complex. The new world religions, including Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and Islam any sought to preserve "human economies" where money served to cement social relationships rather than purchase things including people.