gift economy

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an economic and social system in which goods, services, and labour are given without explicit agreement on immediate or equivalent return, with social obligation, reciprocity, and the maintenance of relationships rather than market exchange serving as the mechanisms through which resources circulate; Marcel Mauss's 1925 essay The Gift is the foundational text of gift economy theory, arguing on the basis of comparative ethnography that apparently free gifts in traditional societies are in fact bound by three obligations — to give, to receive, and to reciprocate — and that gift exchange is a total social phenomenon creating political alliances, social hierarchies, moral obligations, and spiritual connections simultaneously; gift economies operate alongside and sometimes in tension with market exchange in all societies, and gift-like norms govern large areas of social life — hospitality, charitable giving, care work, open-source software development — even in highly marketised economies