One could argue that economic disinterest observed by Marcel Mauss in the Gift and Karl Polanyi in the Great Transformation can ultimately be aligned with Adam Smith’s claim, which is that individual desire to attain more material goods is the natural cause of exchanges between people. In this point of view, Polanyi could be criticized for associating economic self-interest exclusively with market transactions instead of considering the various ways economic self-interest could be displayed in different cultures. Mauss also uses the word “gift” to describe reciprocal exchanges, thus invoking the voluntary and non-economic sense of the word in the Western culture. However, to argue that all human activities have purely economic motivations would
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In the market economy, every transaction is considered to be based on a voluntary agreement between the seller and the buyer. This mechanism contradicts directly with the obligation to give and receive in the gift-giving societies. Hence, the non-economic motivations of gifts must be traced within them. In the American Northwest, these two obligations are enforced through the system of “name”. Giving potlatch is necessary for a chief to maintain his social rank because it is an act of “humiliating others by placing them ‘in the shadow of his name’” (Mauss 39). Receiving is necessary unless one wants to be known as “afraid of having to reciprocate, to fear being ‘flattened’ [i.e. losing one’s name]” (Mauss 41). As a name in the usual sense is a word to be called by others, “name” in this society could be understood as a reference to the social status of an individual. The idea that individual interest in social ranks and honors motivate gift-giving practices is natural considering that the exchange of gifts is by itself a social interaction. Polanyi specifies the values which social self-interest comprises as follows: “the interests of a class most directly refer to standing and rank, to status and security, that is, they are primarily not economical but social” (160). Therefore, Mauss and Polanyi have shown that such interests are not consequences of economic considerations, but expressions of the genuine desire for “social recognition” (Polanyi
In the market economy, every transaction is considered to be based on a voluntary agreement between the seller and the buyer. This mechanism contradicts directly with the obligation to give and receive in the gift-giving societies. Hence, the non-economic motivations of gifts must be traced within them. In the American Northwest, these two obligations are enforced through the system of “name”. Giving potlatch is necessary for a chief to maintain his social rank because it is an act of “humiliating others by placing them ‘in the shadow of his name’” (Mauss 39). Receiving is necessary unless one wants to be known as “afraid of having to reciprocate, to fear being ‘flattened’ [i.e. losing one’s name]” (Mauss 41). As a name in the usual sense is a word to be called by others, “name” in this society could be understood as a reference to the social status of an individual. The idea that individual interest in social ranks and honors motivate gift-giving practices is natural considering that the exchange of gifts is by itself a social interaction. Polanyi specifies the values which social self-interest comprises as follows: “the interests of a class most directly refer to standing and rank, to status and security, that is, they are primarily not economical but social” (160). Therefore, Mauss and Polanyi have shown that such interests are not consequences of economic considerations, but expressions of the genuine desire for “social recognition” (Polanyi