WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:00:01.799 --> 00:00:10.400 All right so welcome back to this final instalment in the lecture on de-naturalizing exchange and 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:20.200 we're talking about Mauss finally the guy who you've been assigned to read and this is the most 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:30.100 theoretically I think piece on the syllabus for this week and it is actually quite basic what 00:00:30.100 --> 00:00:32.500 Mauss does, he looks across NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:39.300 the ethnographic catalog of his time. The work of Malinowski that you read is important to him 00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:46.000 but also many other anthropologists have gone and studied different societies and he 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:51.900 observes he makes a simple observation which is that there seems to be this organising 00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:57.300 principles in these societies that anthropologists have studied in the Trobriand islands and Native 00:00:57.300 --> 00:01:02.450 American tribes among them up Maori, a way of organizing NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 65% (MEDIUM) 00:01:02.450 --> 00:01:10.100 the economy that does not look at all like the cold quote unquote natural market transactions that 00:01:10.100 --> 00:01:14.100 were described by people like Adam Smith NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:25.600 Mauss comes up with the term gift exchange economies, economies that 00:01:25.600 --> 00:01:31.900 are organized according to the logic of the gift not the market exchange, the market has changed is 00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:39.300 peripheral is included as part of the economy but the organizing principle is the principle of 00:01:39.300 --> 00:01:43.450 the gift. So what is a gift for Mauss? what are its NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 67% (MEDIUM) 00:01:43.450 --> 00:01:46.900 principles it's quite easy to remember this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:01:47.100 --> 00:01:57.300 he claims that gift exchange is founded on three obligations. 1) The obligation to give 00:01:57.300 --> 00:02:05.900 - thou shall give gifts, you're supposed to participate in this gift game. 2) the obligation to receive, 00:02:05.900 --> 00:02:13.700 you cannot just reject a gift. That he says in worst cases could be interpreted as an act of 00:02:13.700 --> 00:02:17.149 war and I think we can recognise this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:02:17.149 --> 00:02:25.600 if you try to opt out of Christmas Eve or if you tried to say no to 00:02:25.600 --> 00:02:32.700 a gift from certain key individuals in your in your kin or among your family it is 00:02:32.700 --> 00:02:39.500 interpreted as something incredibly immoral and difficult to understand. So there's an obligation to 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:47.100 receive as well. 3) The key element here the obligation to reciprocate NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:02:47.100 --> 00:02:54.500 that is to give back. You cannot fail to give back at a later stage, and timing is of course important 00:02:54.500 --> 00:03:00.300 here. We are not talking about exchanges that are supposed to be no doubt that are supposed 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:11.550 to be settled immediately as in commodity exchange, we're talking about timing, delay. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:19.400 There was always this expectation that you reciprocate, that you give back at a later stage and I 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:24.200 think we can all have some kind of an intuitive in the understanding of these three and 00:03:24.200 --> 00:03:30.350 particularly this last obligation the obligation to give back. We all know that when someone buys you 00:03:30.350 --> 00:03:38.000 a drink that's also why some people when they're in the club don't accept drinks 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:42.100 from strangers because they that by accepting NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:03:42.100 --> 00:03:49.900 these offers they will have to engage in a relationship of some 00:03:49.900 --> 00:03:58.400 kind with this stranger man or woman. I remember another anecdote I saw my daughter one time she was 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:04.900 two years old at the time in Sofienberg park and she's been holding onto this toy for the whole day 00:04:04.900 --> 00:04:12.050 that she found I think and did not want to let it go for NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:04:12.050 --> 00:04:18.600 the life of her but when she came to the playground she sought out some of the coolest kids 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:24.500 in the playground, walked up to them and offered them this thing that she was carrying I forget if 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:31.900 it was a teddy bear or whatever and they took it, it was a gift of hers and immediately of course 00:04:31.900 --> 00:04:41.900 they had to then include her in the circle of play and in there what they were doing so it might 00:04:41.900 --> 00:04:42.300 be NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:50.700 this lesson that Mauss is telling you, it's a lesson that we're almost disposed to learn easily something 00:04:50.700 --> 00:04:59.200 that we are disposed to figure out as humans. In any case the the point remains that for Mauss and for anthropologists 00:04:59.200 --> 00:05:07.000 Who subscribe to his theoretical program here, gift exchange is a foundation for human 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:12.000 sociality. Gifts create relations, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:20.100 they create bonds which is the foundation for friendships for alliances for even for love for 00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:23.600 all kinds of social relationships, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:05:23.900 --> 00:05:31.700 and of course this third element that you're supposed to give something back it's also what 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:38.400 makes gifts particularly interesting compared to this post voluntary exchange that Friedman and 00:05:38.400 --> 00:05:46.100 Friedman and Adam Smith claims that we spoke about last week claims is the basis for markets and 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:54.400 for economic life in general. In contrast Mauss writes in the first paragraph in NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:05:54.400 --> 00:06:01.100 the introduction to his book the essay on the gift and this quote is not in the syllabus but 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:08.100 it's in the introduction to the actual book that he's interested in gifts these things 00:06:08.100 --> 00:06:17.400 because these are things which in theory are voluntary but in reality represent a commitment. Again 00:06:17.400 --> 00:06:23.700 notice how this is the opposite of the Friedman perspective who makes voluntary exchange the basis 00:06:23.700 --> 00:06:24.350 for NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:06:24.350 --> 00:06:32.450 their theory of economic life voluntary market exchanges instead Mauss is interested in you know 00:06:32.450 --> 00:06:39.200 looking at actual instances of social interactions as it is reported by ethnographers and 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:45.000 here's a form of exchange that only seems voluntary you know gift are supposed to be free but 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:50.700 actually when you look closer and when you when you study this you notice that they are not 00:06:50.700 --> 00:06:54.300 voluntary gifts they bind you in certain kinds of relationships. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:06:54.300 --> 00:07:02.800 Where does this come from this need to reciprocate gifts? this obligation we feel towards a 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:13.700 stranger when they buy you a drink at a bar or towards a friend to reciprocate if you have someone 00:07:13.700 --> 00:07:18.200 help you move your stuff if you're moving from student housing to another student housing and 00:07:18.200 --> 00:07:24.100 someone helps you out to move even two three four years down the line people remember and feel 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:24.550 obliged NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:07:24.550 --> 00:07:33.000 to help when that person who help you is moving between houses so where does it come 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:39.000 from this need to reciprocate gifts? this involuntary element of gift exchange what gives gifts such 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:51.200 power as we opened our lecture with. Well Mauss goes into the ethnographic record and finds a lot of 00:07:51.200 --> 00:07:54.600 inspiration from a Maori term NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:07:54.600 --> 00:08:04.900 A concept that called 'the hau' which is the spirit of a gift that the Maori talked about and he uses 00:08:04.900 --> 00:08:12.400 this concept to explain the power of gifts, the spirit of the thing and basically it says that you 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:21.100 leave something of yourself in a gift in a way that you do not do with a commodity. You 00:08:21.100 --> 00:08:24.500 personify it, we can all recognize this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:08:24.500 --> 00:08:32.900 you blend your own labor, your own history, your handwriting you, you wrap 00:08:32.900 --> 00:08:41.299 Commodities and paper that you chose and you write little messages on them. You draw things on 00:08:41.299 --> 00:08:48.800 on items you if you give money you put them in envelopes NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:59.000 and write on them you mix yourself your own persona your own labor your own body with the item so 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:09.600 to give something to someone as a gift is always to give a part of yourself actually so there's 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:17.900 this part of yourself is what is included and what seeps into the gift itself 00:09:17.900 --> 00:09:19.800 which follows it NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:09:19.800 --> 00:09:28.100 anywhere and remember the Kula is basically based on this, it's the history of 00:09:28.100 --> 00:09:35.300 the personified history of the thing who owned it what said the legend what is the gift's name all 00:09:35.300 --> 00:09:44.000 these historical biographical elements that give the gift its power. So unlike commodities gives have 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:49.700 these personalized qualities inalienable NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:59.900 qualities that create ties of ongoing reciprocal obligation. So they are means of creating debt and 00:09:59.900 --> 00:10:02.300 creating social bonds NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:10:03.400 --> 00:10:15.300 If we sort of abstract from this if we if we move up on the ladder of abstraction here 00:10:15.300 --> 00:10:24.200 and ask what kind of view of the economy or economic life is it that we get from Mauss what kind 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:31.650 of economic theory is he actually proposing? and that comes in the last NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:10:31.650 --> 00:10:39.400 Chapter that you've been assigned, and by the way this book like I told you it is a great read and it 00:10:39.400 --> 00:10:45.200 exists also in Norwegian and the library and English, you're invited to have a look through the whole 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:54.750 thing. In the final chapter the conclusion I think he tries to develop some kind of a more 00:10:54.750 --> 00:11:00.400 realistic view on the economic life one that is grounded first of all in actual studies of economic 00:11:00.400 --> 00:11:01.750 behaviour rather than NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:01.750 --> 00:11:11.300 hypothetical you know thought experiments, hypothetical butchers and bakers and what they think and 00:11:11.300 --> 00:11:21.400 and instead go and look at actual institutions actual records of economic behaviour and build theory based 00:11:21.400 --> 00:11:22.650 on that. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:11:22.650 --> 00:11:35.400 Of course Mauss agrees twith Adam Smith to a certain extent, he agrees that 00:11:35.400 --> 00:11:43.200 modern Market exchanges is kind of the name of the game in many places and so 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:49.700 Smith was right when he said that you know we do not get our bread or our meat from the 00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:52.950 benevolence of the butcher or baker from their NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:11:52.950 --> 00:11:59.950 moral concern towards us as consumers but rather from their concern for their self interest. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:11:59.950 --> 00:12:07.500 but he says and this is the part of his argument which contributes to the title of this lecture the 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:15.600 de-naturalizing exchange. This tradesman's mentality although it exists it is a product of modern 00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:23.400 society not nature, because when you look back through these records of societies of proceeded 00:12:23.400 --> 00:12:28.050 industrialized western Society NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:12:28.050 --> 00:12:38.500 you notice that this kind of market exchange is not the foundation for 00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:48.200 economic life, there's always barter going on gimwali as Malinowski 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:57.100 called it but it is a more peripheral phenomenon whereas you look at the actual the weight of the 00:12:57.100 --> 00:12:58.050 importance of NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:12:58.050 --> 00:13:07.600 of different kinds of gift exchange of communal exchanges of collective bargaining and agreements 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:17.000 and exchanges between groups, between lineages, between clans, between families. You notice that this is 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:27.950 the core rather than the haggling, the wheeling and dealing that Adam Smith proposed NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:13:27.950 --> 00:13:35.200 was natural to man. He kind of turns the argument on its head here, he says that it is 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:41.700 our Western societies that very recently have made man into an economic animal so homo 00:13:41.700 --> 00:13:46.600 economicus is this utility maximizing self-interested NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:57.300 idea of man is not behind us, does not lie in our deep history of humans, he is if anything ahead 00:13:57.300 --> 00:14:07.900 of us, this is something that our societies create more and more and cultivate. That is 00:14:07.900 --> 00:14:17.000 where he differs very sharply from the neoclassical neoliberal consensus that we talked about 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:17.849 in NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:14:17.849 --> 00:14:20.200 the last lecture. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:14:21.100 --> 00:14:29.000 Then he kind of makes a second step in his argument in his more general argument saying that okay so 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:41.700 we have these tendencies in certain settings which are accentuated by modern societies to 00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:50.000 act as tradesmen however we possess he says more than just the tradesmen's mentality, and this I 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:50.500 think is a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:14:50.500 --> 00:14:57.600 Key summary of what he is saying remember again the orchestra metaphor that we worked on, how 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:04.800 there's the utility maximizing self-interested motive of economic behavior is part of the 00:15:04.800 --> 00:15:14.200 picture but it is by far the whole picture it's part of the the sounds that you hear from a 00:15:14.200 --> 00:15:19.000 living breathing economy but it is not the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:29.900 the predominant sound that you have, there's a lot more going on in other words in economy 00:15:29.900 --> 00:15:40.900 than butchers and bakers selling merchandise at higher prices than what they bought them for, there's 00:15:40.900 --> 00:15:46.050 more going on than pure supply and demand dynamics. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:15:46.050 --> 00:15:52.100 He says that between the extreme self-interested on the one hand and communal 00:15:52.100 --> 00:15:58.100 forms of economic organisation on the other between kind of the deep self-interested utility 00:15:58.100 --> 00:16:06.900 maximizing behavior and the altruistic communal behavior on the other extreme we found an enormous 00:16:06.900 --> 00:16:14.750 range of institutions and economic events that are not governed by economic rationalism. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:16:14.750 --> 00:16:24.000 I know that's a mouthful but think of Mauss' view of the economy as a kind of hybrid, where he 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:32.300 doesn't really accept that it has to be either altruistic or self-interested, there's always 00:16:32.300 --> 00:16:40.100 a context, a holistic kind of picture that defines economic behaviour NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:43.200 and this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:16:46.100 --> 00:16:55.450 This argument that the economy is a kind of a hybrid of moral and economic 00:16:55.450 --> 00:17:03.700 motivations and driving force is not just about the past it's not just about how the 00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:10.400 economy in the olden days where it was moral thing and now it's becoming less and less more and more 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:16.150 self-interested no he says that there's an enormous range of institutions NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:17:16.150 --> 00:17:21.000 Of economic events in our present society that is not governed by economic 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:33.300 rationalism. Modern workspaces, the way schools are organized, students can be socialized into 00:17:33.300 --> 00:17:40.600 certain ways of being, following rules there are prohibitions on all kinds of things that you cannot 00:17:40.600 --> 00:17:46.050 sell in a market you know the idea of a free market is an illusion because there are NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:17:46.050 --> 00:17:55.400 always limits to stuff in a market that can be commoditized there are things you cannot sell to certain 00:17:55.400 --> 00:18:09.700 individuals there are all kinds of social rules and social norms that govern and influence behavior. We 00:18:09.700 --> 00:18:16.450 have a right now credible debate about morality NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:18:16.450 --> 00:18:30.000 of extracting oil petrol from from the earth and emitting it into the atmosphere, all these are 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:40.100 examples of how the market and how the economy is battleground where people wage a 00:18:40.100 --> 00:18:44.900 moral war where morals are always a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:18:45.100 --> 00:18:59.250 part of the picture, and this is perhaps the final concept that we can linger on from Mauss 00:18:59.250 --> 00:19:05.300 is this idea of the total social phenomenon he claims that gifts qualify as what he calls a total 00:19:05.300 --> 00:19:13.200 social phenomenon. Mauss rejects the either/or choice between moral or economic reasoning and says 00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:16.100 that gifts is a very good example NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:19:16.100 --> 00:19:27.400 Of how the economy cannot be understood as a separate sphere in itself because gifts are in a sense 00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:37.400 practice and an institutional phenomena that has to do with legal stuff it concerns individual 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:46.050 and collective rights its moral as we've spoken about its obligatory it's NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:19:46.050 --> 00:19:56.900 it's political its domestic it has to do with households and clans and kinship, its religious 00:19:56.900 --> 00:20:08.800 phenomena think of christmas religious holidays the way gifts play a role in religion, the gifts 00:20:08.800 --> 00:20:16.400 of Christ on the cross who sacrificed himself for humanity etc. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:23.700 they also economic in the sense that they have a value on the market gifts 00:20:23.700 --> 00:20:34.800 they draw notions of utility interests luxury accumulation, so gifts in Mauss' 00:20:34.800 --> 00:20:45.200 understanding is a candidate for total social phenomenon and that is another way of saying that 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:46.700 the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:55.700 way gifts function is not you know just according to one logic either or kind of morals or economics 00:20:55.700 --> 00:21:04.600 it is phenomena that intersect with all these domain at the same time so it's a very holistic 00:21:04.600 --> 00:21:12.500 picture of economic life that we're getting from Mauss but then of course as a final 00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:16.050 thought that even though all these domains are in NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:21:16.050 --> 00:21:26.500 Entangled in practice so you cannot really separate the economic from kinship from 00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:35.300 family from morals from law from religion, however the act of understanding to 00:21:35.300 --> 00:21:42.100 Define and understand transactions as this thing or the other thing as a market exchange or as a 00:21:42.100 --> 00:21:46.000 gift exchange as a gift or as a commodity as someone doing NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:52.800 you a favor or someone providing you a service, this act of defining an understanding of human practice 00:21:52.800 --> 00:22:03.400 in these terms is terribly important it has tangible effects. So remember again the lady outside Kiwi 00:22:03.400 --> 00:22:10.400 with whom we started this lecture who sits there and has moved from a kind of a gift 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:16.050 exchange logic asking people to give her money because she is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 72% (MEDIUM) 00:22:16.050 --> 00:22:27.500 Poor over to a commodity exchange logic where she provides a service selling these mittens and 00:22:27.500 --> 00:22:35.500 winter hats. She is consciously navigating these modes of exchange moving from gift exchange which we have 00:22:35.500 --> 00:22:42.200 seen in this context in this very context in this place in this time is seen as suspicious that the 00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:45.950 act of just giving people money and she moves into commodity NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:22:45.950 --> 00:22:52.800 exchange which comes with different expectations different sets of implicit rules that allow 00:22:52.800 --> 00:22:59.000 people to feel differently about what they're doing and to act differently namely to give her a 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:07.500 piece of their massive wealth, and this finally foregrounds something that we're going to speak about 00:23:07.500 --> 00:23:15.850 in the weeks to come, a concept that we get from Polanyi which very much builds on and is useful in NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:23:15.850 --> 00:23:23.900 these ideas from Mauss and that is to understand the economy as embedded in society or 00:23:23.900 --> 00:23:25.850 in social structures. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 72% (MEDIUM) 00:23:25.850 --> 00:23:33.800 That is a heads up for what we're going to talk about in the next week's lecture and 00:23:33.800 --> 00:23:43.300 and in the weeks to come. Until then I hope you're all doing well with your readings that you're 00:23:43.300 --> 00:23:50.500 now starting your seminars and getting to discuss actually some of these ideas because the 00:23:50.500 --> 00:23:55.950 key is not just to listen to what I'm saying and to make notes about from these slides and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:23:55.950 --> 00:24:02.900 and to make notes from the readings, but the actual goal of the learning process is I 00:24:02.900 --> 00:24:10.900 think raising your voice and putting some of these ideas and these concepts into your 00:24:10.900 --> 00:24:17.900 own mouth and trying them out in discussion, that is when it will stick and that's when it will also 00:24:17.900 --> 00:24:25.950 perhaps get really interesting and fun even I hope, so I hope NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:24:25.950 --> 00:24:35.000 hope to hear from you more in that regard and until next time have a good week everyone.