Gift Exchange

“It is the most ancient system of economy and law that we can find or of which we can conceive.” (pg. 70) This quote, from Marcel Mauss’ The Gift, describes the system of ‘total services,’ and how it formed the basis of gift exchange. Gifts have many different meanings behind them. Now days, we give gifts as a tradition for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries and so on. Yet, in the times of the Scandinavian civilization, among others, …

…gain the most prestige by offering the most elaborate gift, and to keep on giving and receiving; some of the same gifts I might add. Maybe it’s because of the way I am familiar about how things run in our economy in this modern period that this does not make sense. Yet, there appears to be no real understanding to how this could have worked smoothly, and in a pattern, as an economic system.