Visser (p. 128) traces the separation of the household from the economy, and the resulting separation of economic relations from social relations. These divisions can be summed up as the division of Commodity from Gift: “In opposition to the invading force of cold, calculating, purely material Commodity relations now stood the ideal of the Gift, freely offered by the giver, unearned by the recipient, warmly expressive of love, tending to arouse gratitude, generative of return gifts, creative of a cycle, a dance, of reciprocal affections. Markets are about quantifiable results; gifts are concerned with people’s feelings and intentions. Commodities earn profits; gifts, expressing and encouraging personal relationship, give increase.”
On the opposition of Gift/Commodity, we can map private/public, economy/society, love/efficiency, etc etc.
No doubt many of us think this is how our world is constructed, and that self-understanding is partially constitutive of our cultural world. But are the oppositions really as stark as Visser maintains? Isn’t there a dance of business, or of finance? Doesn’t the restaurant owner worry about customer’s feelings?
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