<nettime> Gift "economy"

[Phil Graham <phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au>]

Hi Nik,

Thanks for your reply. Please excuse the bluntness of this message. I'm
short of time.

At 12:00 01-01-70 +0000, Nik wrote:

>Seems to me that you've missed the point of the word 'gift' as its used in
>'gift economy'.

No I haven't: Mauss, Durkheim, etc. I understand the word "gift" just fine
as it's used sociologically, and as it is used by Richard and, apparently,
you. But you seem to misunderstand the point of my post in general, my use
of the word "economy", and my use of the terms "value" and "free"; "free" 
being the main focus of my post (not to mention my being more than mildly
pissed off at how music and musicians are treated these days).

>You seem to say that if something is produced, or is exchanged through a
>medium, then it cannot ever be seen as 'free', even when it is given, because
>of the labour that has gone into both its production and the medium through
>which it is given. 

No, I said nothing of the sort. Of course such acts can be *seen* as free,
just as a "free lunch" can. But gifts do not constitute an economy, any
sort of an economy. Nor are they free in any sense. They are an aspect of
an economy, normally a culturally specific aspect. Are you saying that
something can be exchanged (whether given or sold) without it being
mediated, socially, materially, or economically? If so, I'd like an
example please. 

>But how the object or act was produced, or the medium
>through which it is given is not the point.

That was Richard's point, not mine. He said that free MP3 downloads were
the most uniquely "new" aspect of the internet. I don't happen to think
so. 

>No object or act is born free from labour or symbolic baggage - whether it
is a
>bottle of homebrew given to someone as a squatt-warming present in a
capitalist
>society, or a cup of coffee to a guest in a pre-capitalist society.. 

Agreed, a truism in fact. Production is the starting point of any economic
assessment. 

>The point
>of a gift is not that it was not produced (either physically or symbolically,
>for whatever worth that distinction is), but that it is given.

How could it be "not produced"? What do you mean? That it could appear out
of thin air? All you are saying is this: "a gift is given". That is a
tautology. What's your point?  Are you saying that a gift is only a gift
when nothing is exchanged in return, an act of pure selflessness? That's
what I meant when I said 'pure "self-sacrifice"'. What you mean is that no
money changes hands and no reciprocal obligation or expectation ensues. 
Mauss was naive in this respect and knew it, what's more. I don't have the
time to go into other developments and formulations of the gift, but
Bourdieu is useful here if you want a less naive view of what the gift
entails culturally and socially.

>When something is given, it evades the rules of capitalist exchange
because the
>gift is not expected to be reciprocated - when you give you don't expect
to get
>in return. 

That may be the case in some acts (very few I would think, as you admit
below). But we're still talking about isolated moments here, not economies
or economic relations. Sure you can commit a selfless act and give
something for "nothing", for "free". But in a society of capitalist
relations, in any society at all, you cannot escape the parameters of
production, unless you assume that the gift - the "thing" given - appears
out of thin air, which it does not, even if it is only a gift of time. You
are suggesting that somehow, by exchanging something that doesn't involve
monetary exchange or obligation on the part of the receiver, you have
subverted capitalism: horseshit. If that were the case, every act of
kindness would subvert capital, which it does not. What you are actually
saying is that giving has no economic aspects: nothing is expected in
exchange for the true gift, therefore no exchange takes place ecause the
gift is a one-way act, therefore the *absence* of exchange. Kindness is
actually a fundamental part of human societies. Even Adam Smith knew that. 
I do not think that capitalist social relations are all bad, by the way. 
That's because I believe that people are, on the whole, quite decent. If
the "gift economy" is supposed to be concerned with acts that are "not
expected to be reciprocated", as you put it, "free" from exchange
altogether, then you are talking about disconnected, one-way, once-off,
isolated acts, not an economy. You work out the implications of your own
logic. What is exchange? 

>A gift economy (such as people putting up hotline servers so others
>may download software off of them) is based on generosity, not profit. 

Oh yes, and where did this hotline server come from? What is it connected
to? How do people come to have the time to commit such acts of
selflessness? Again, you are isolating rare moments, arguing from scant
and scarce examples, and eliding the system within which such acts occur,
indeed which allow such acts to occur. And how do you know what these
people's motivations are? . By the way, "generosity" vs "profit" again
rests on a vulgar understanding of "economy" and "value", ie value as
"profit", as money - a secondary form of surplus labour. From whence did
this surplus arise? It seems a long stretch between giving a hungry person
something to eat out of compassion and supplying the world with "free" 
software. I think your atrribution of motives is questionable here. I've
yet to see anything as high-tech as software come without strings of some
sort attached.

>The
>material/symbolic basis for the object/act given, and the medium through
which
>it is given do not alter this. The point of difference between capitalist and
>gift economies is not based in their various modes of production, but in
their
>methods of distribution of objects/acts.

You are saying that the gift economy operates outside the capitalist
economy; that it is concerned with distribution only: nonsense. In any
case, you can't chop off distribution from the rest of an economy and
treat it in isolation as an economy in itself. Otherwise, you must assume
that production just "happened" as if by magic. In other words, you are
saying that production doesn't matter where giving is concerned, that
surplus time and products arise mystically from nowhere. Clearly not.
Moreover, you are treating this highly mediated and capital intensive form
of giving as unattached to its *means* of distribution. Phew! 

>That said, it doesn't mean that the gift-giver doesn't gain anything for
their
>generosity - they may gain honor, social standing, etc. 

In other words, social and cultural capital: symbolic capital. These
convert more or less directly into economic capital. Go figure. 

>But to see this gain as
>being part of the exchange, and not the social flow-on effects of gift
giving,
>would be a mistake. 

To only see gifts floating around in the economy as disembodied,
disembedded, unhistorical "things" is the mistake. People have always
given gifts, at least since recorded history. Gifts and giving are
economically epiphenomenal. They firstly require surplus production. They
are culturally, historically, and economically embedded artefacts that are
more ritualistic than foundational (Q. From whence does the surplus arise
that allows a gift of time or thing to exist in the first place? A. From
overproduction, capital's historical specialty, and one of its
foundational presuppositions). Gifts are isolated artefacts, at least they
are from your point of view. They do not constitute an economy in any
sense whatsoever.  They cannot. Yours is a misuse of "economy", misleading
and false. 

>They are not integral to the act of giving, are not
>expected by the giver, and do not always result for the act of giving.

That's a huge generalisation: "gain is not integral to giving". Again,
horseshit. You are only looking at one side of a small part of one huge
aspect of political economy (ie distribution). Gain precedes giving, and
production precedes gain. Production also precedes distribution. You must
have surplus product and/or surplus time to give it in the first place,
unless of course you live on fresh air. Production is the point of
departure for any study of political economy, whether its "free" aspects
or otherwise. 

A broader, more hopeful, more realistic view of political economy might
point out that the emergence of a certain class of people - those who now
have enough spare time to spend on developing, e.g., new software almost
entirely for the benefit of others (at least according to you) - indicates
that capital is starting to reach its limit in certain respects: ie, it
now creates enough surplus to support such a benevolent class of people
with enough surplus time to do such things (but wouldn'tcha be pissed off
if you wrote a free program for the whole world and nobody wanted it?!).
But works of *conspicuous* charity by the cocktail set has long been
functional in generating social and cultural capital for "high society" in
the west. It's called philanthropy or charity, and George Soros, e.g.,
specialises in it. 

Regards,
Phil


--------------------------------------------
Phil Graham
Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law
University of Queensland
phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au
--------------------------------------------


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