Exchange: reciprocity, redistribution, and markets
How goods move between people reveals relationships as much as economics.
Three kinds of reciprocity
Generalised reciprocity is giving without expecting a specific return, as within close families. Balanced reciprocity expects a roughly equal return within a reasonable time, like trading favours with neighbours. Negative reciprocity tries to get more than one gives, as in haggling or theft. The type used usually tracks how close the relationship is.
Redistribution
In redistribution, goods flow to a central person or institution and are then given back out. Chiefs collecting harvest tribute and holding feasts are a classic example; modern taxes and public services are another. The potlatch of Pacific Northwest peoples, in which hosts gave away great quantities of goods, turned wealth into prestige and social standing.
Markets and money
Market exchange uses money and prices set by supply and demand, often between strangers. Money makes very different things comparable. Anthropologists note that even markets are embedded in culture: gift-giving persists alongside them, and people often treat some things, like family heirlooms, as too special to sell.
Flashcard
Giving without expecting a specific return
Check your understanding
Parents feed and house their children without keeping track of what they are owed. This is: