Reciprocal Obligation
In Mauss’s threefold obligation – to give, to receive, and to reciprocate
ag ift – the principle of reciprocity is succinctly symbolized. As ac onsequence
of these obligations a perpetual cycle of exchanges is set up
within and between generations. Social ties are created, sustained, and
strengthened by means of gifts. Acts of gift exchange are at the basis of
human solidarity. The fact that gifts enhance solidarity is not restricted
to the archaic and non-Western societies described byMauss. In our own
society the core meaning of gift giving – its contribution to social ties –
has not changed fundamentally, although obviously its role and functions
in modern, monetarized society cannot be compared with those in
nonmonetarized, archaic society.Whereas in the latter type of society the
entire social system, including its economic, legal, religious, and moral
foundations, was maintained though gift exchange (it was a “total social
phenomenon,” asMauss calls it), in modern society gift exchange has increasingly
cometo be considered the opposite of economic exchange. Gift
exchange is supposed to belong to the private sphere and is associatedwith
informal and not always completely predictable social relations, whereas
economic exchange belongs to the domain of the market with its formalized
and predictable relations (Brown 1986).Nowadays, gift exchange has
become an instance of “social exchange” as opposed to “economic exchange.”
Gift exchange is supposed to support the “morals” implied in social
ties, whereas economic exchange fosters “markets” (Cheal 1988). The
differences between social and economic exchange have been summed up
by Brown (1986): the terms of social, in contrast to economic, exchange
are never explicit and cannot be enforced by law; above all, the definition
of equivalency is not discussible.
Although too sharp an opposition between morals and markets has
been criticized (see Chapter 1), there remains a difference between the
two that relates to their respective potential of bringing about human
solidarity: gifts given in informal relationships invariably affect human
solidarity, whereas goods exchanged on the market do not. Anthropologists
and ethnologists agree on the core role of the moral obligation
to return the gift. Because this obligation alternates between the parties
involved in exchange, durable social bonds and networks are created enabling
patterns of reciprocal exchange to come into existence. Although
in sociological theory reciprocal obligation has been recognized as an
aspect of solidarity (Weesie, Buskens, and Raub 1998), it has received far
less attention in sociology than in anthropology. Nevertheless, the idea
of reciprocity is implied in most contemporary conceptions of solidarity
and related concepts like trust and cooperation (Misztal 1996).