Gift Economy as a Mode of Exchange

Discussion

Kojin Karatani:

"Generally speaking, Marxists have made few contributions to our understanding of pre-capitalist societies. This was because they relied on the formulas of historical materialism. As a result, the epochal breakthrough in our understanding of the social formation in clan societies came not from a Marxist but rather Marcel Mauss.

He analyzed it not in terms of productive forces or means of production, but rather of exchange. This was not commodity exchange, but rather the reciprocal exchange of gift/counter-gift. I call this mode of exchange A to distinguish it from commodity exchange (mode of exchange C). This kind of exchange is comprised of three rules: one must give gifts, one must accept gifts, and one must reciprocate for gifts received. These rules are not something that people invented. They are instead imposed by a ‘magical power’ (hau) that people are compelled to obey. The social formation of clan society is created through this principle of exchange. For example, the form of kinship is established through reciprocal exchanges in which one gives one’s daughter or son to another community and then receives in turn a reciprocal return gift. In this sense, the clan society social formation was established by exchange in this broad sense, and this is what constitutes its true economic base. Incidentally, the Marxist anthropologist Marshal Sahlins argued for the existence of a “family mode of production” at the root of reciprocal exchanges, while Maurice Godelier proposed a mode of inalienable communal ownership.7 Both are trying above all to salvage the theory of historical materialism. But in reality it was the reciprocal mode of exchange that brought about the family mode of production and communal ownership, not the other way around. Accordingly, we have to start from modes of exchange in understanding primitive societies—as we can see from consulting Marx’s own views on the matter. In his later years, when Marx praised Morgan’s Ancient Society and discussed clan society, he did not invoke mode of production. Marx paid less attention to the economic equality of clan society than to the freedom and autonomy of its individual members. “All the members of an Iroquois gens personally free, bound to defend each other’s freedom; equal in privileges [and] personal rights. Sachem [and] chiefs claiming no superiority; a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles [of the] gens….”8 If that is the case, what is the source of the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity in the clan society? This cannot be explained by way of mode of production or communal ownership. Marx never argued this point explicitly himself, but in my view, they arise from the principle of reciprocal exchange, and this is what formed the economic base that determined clan society. Moreover, Marx described future communism as being ‘the return in a higher dimension’ of the principles of clan society. This shows that he did not regard future communism as a situation arising simply out of the further development of modes of production. While he didn’t explicitly spell this out, Marx did hint that future communism should be sought through modes of exchange."

(http://www.kojinkaratani.com/en/pdf/An_Introduction_to_Modes_of_Exchange.pdf)