WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:00:01.900 --> 00:00:10.600 alright we're back so welcome to this fourth lecture in economic anthropology. Today we're going to 00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:22.100 talk more about gifts and commodities, so this orchestra we could say that we started listening to in 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:28.900 the first lecture it keeps on playing and we're getting deeper and deeper into the sounds that we're 00:00:28.900 --> 00:00:32.100 hearing so notice that since week one as we've NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:41.450 talk about we heard this one clear tone by Milton and Rose Friedman and their NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:00:41.450 --> 00:00:50.900 ideas of what characterises the economic life which we summarises as the neoliberal consensus and 00:00:50.900 --> 00:00:58.000 since then we've been adding concepts and you could say instruments that allow us to understand more 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:07.500 of what's going on and to go beyond that one clear tone and the point of this course is of course to 00:01:07.500 --> 00:01:11.350 understand the we could say the rhythms of NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:01:11.350 --> 00:01:17.300 economic life to learn to listen to start to listen to the world in a new way to see the world in a 00:01:17.300 --> 00:01:27.950 new way and in a sense that is also what I've told you is about, as a whole. we go to Faraway places 00:01:27.950 --> 00:01:34.500 other times in order to notice what is going on what's kind of strange right here where we live what 00:01:34.500 --> 00:01:41.350 we take for granted you know this is something that you could use to summarise the subject NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:01:41.350 --> 00:01:48.600 That you're studying we're doing research that helps to make what is strange more familiar and what is 00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:51.100 familiar more strange. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:01:51.100 --> 00:02:00.900 So remember that the last thing that a fish would come to realise is the water that it's swimming in 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:06.600 and in the same sense we could say that we're discovering through this course the economic waters 00:02:06.600 --> 00:02:14.300 that were all swimming in much of which we take thoroughly for granted, so that is just to remind you 00:02:14.300 --> 00:02:21.050 of what's going on on the grander scale here, but as you can see today we're going to go NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:02:21.050 --> 00:02:28.100 deeper into the fundamental distinction that we've been talking about in one lecture already namely 00:02:28.100 --> 00:02:37.500 the distinction between gifts and commodities. To switch it up a little bit I wanted to 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:44.300 start by showing you a video clip of perhaps the best film NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:52.500 ever made some of you might know it many of you I think have heard about it let me see if I could 00:02:52.500 --> 00:03:00.600 change here yes so now we're in YouTube and we're going to listen to a six minute clip that will 00:03:00.600 --> 00:03:04.750 break open what we're going to talk about today NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:03:04.750 --> 00:03:15.900 very efficiently so bear with me six minutes of the opening scene of the film The Godfather, let's 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:18.100 listen to what they have to say. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:25.400 I believe in America, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:28.399 America has made my fortune NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:03:28.399 --> 00:03:32.400 and I raised my daughter in the American fashion NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:38.649 I gave her freedom but I taught her never to dishonour family NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:03:38.649 --> 00:03:47.800 she found a boyfriend; not an Italian. she went to the movies with him; she stayed out late. I didn't 00:03:47.800 --> 00:03:49.250 protest NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:03:49.250 --> 00:03:54.950 two months ago, he took her for a drive with another boyfriend NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:03:54.950 --> 00:04:05.000 they made her drink whiskey and then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor, so they beat her NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:04:09.300 --> 00:04:12.100 like an animal. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:23.600 When I went to the hospital her nose was broken, her jaw was shattered, held together by wire. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:28.600 she couldn't even weep because of the pain. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:34.900 But I wept. Why did I weep? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:39.500 she was the light of my life - NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:43.200 beautiful girl NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:04:45.400 --> 00:04:49.400 now she will never be beautiful again. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:09.700 I went to the police, like a good American. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:05:09.700 --> 00:05:13.100 These two boys were brought to trial. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:19.299 The judge sentenced them to three years in prison - suspended sentence. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:05:19.299 --> 00:05:31.600 Suspended sentence! They went free that very day! I stood in the courtroom like a fool. And those to 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:34.600 Bastards, they smiled at me. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:05:34.700 --> 00:05:42.100 Then I said to my wife, "for justice, we must go to Don Corleone." NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:50.800 Why did you go to the police? Why didn't you come to me first NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:43.600 What do you want of me? Tell me anything. But do what I beg you to do. I'll give you anything you ask. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:06:43.900 --> 00:06:50.700 We've known each other many years, but this is the first time you came to me for counsel, for help. I can't remember the last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let's be frank here: you never wanted my friendship. An, you were afraid to be in my debt. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:07:11.400 --> 00:07:14.300 I understand. You found paradise in America, had a good trade, made a good living. The police protected you; and there were courts of law. And you didn't need a friend of me. But now you come to me and you say "Don Corleone give me justice" but you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:07:30.900 --> 00:07:38.900 You don't even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you as me to do murder, for money. 00:07:38.900 --> 00:07:47.600 I ask you for justice. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:07:50.700 --> 00:07:53.300 That is not justice; your daughter is still alive. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:56.900 Then they can suffer then, as she suffers. How much shall I pay you? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:39.500 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:09:33.800 --> 00:09:36.800 all right let's see NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:48.800 yes we're back so there is something strange going on here I think that we fail to understand if we 00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:57.100 don't understand what we're going to talk about today and what we have been talking about until now 00:09:57.100 --> 00:10:03.300 in this course and there's something going on in this relationship in this interaction that we don't 00:10:03.300 --> 00:10:04.500 understand NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:10:04.500 --> 00:10:15.950 by any stretch of the imagination if we apply the logic of the Friedman and Friedman piece because 00:10:15.950 --> 00:10:22.000 here is someone being offered let's say $10,000 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:28.200 to do something that they're capable of doing NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:10:28.400 --> 00:10:31.500 yet they consider that NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:40.000 a deep insult, what have I ever done to make you treat me with such disrespect says Vito Corleone. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.750 Yet had Bonasera NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:52.100 only gone to his wife and invited her for a cup of coffee NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:10:52.100 --> 00:10:56.650 then he would do that same thing in the blink of an eye NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:10:56.650 --> 00:11:06.200 so why is it that someone would kill another person or a pair of persons for a cup of coffee 00:11:06.200 --> 00:11:17.200 when given as a gift but consider $10,000 transacted them as a commodity for the same job as a deep 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:26.950 insult this is the dilemma for this week's reading that this is an example NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:11:26.950 --> 00:11:33.100 that can help you think through the distinction that we're going to be talking about today 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:38.550 and namely the distinction between gifts and commodities, fundamental distinction in economic anthropology 00:11:38.550 --> 00:11:47.100 and just to take it a step further let's add a second example and I'll just summarise this very 00:11:47.100 --> 00:11:52.900 quickly because you know it from from one of the first lectures that we went through remember that 00:11:52.900 --> 00:11:56.750 lady who sits outside Kiwi at John Collets plass at Blindern NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:56.750 --> 00:12:08.950 That old Roma woman who went from asking passerbys for money to help her or to give her money 00:12:08.950 --> 00:12:19.200 one day decided what if I start knitting mittens what if I start selling things creating a service 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:24.200 that looks more like what is going on inside the grocery store NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:12:25.100 --> 00:12:35.900 this is a very efficient way of getting people to hand poor person money performance of 00:12:35.900 --> 00:12:44.800 commodity exchange rather than the discomfort that some people feel from giving a gift free money to 00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:52.000 a poor person when she enters into a commodity exchange she becomes successful so why is it that 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:55.500 someone would refuse to give money to a poor person as a gift NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:12:55.500 --> 00:13:02.500 but gladly hand money to a poor person just because she or he is performing a commodity exchange 00:13:02.500 --> 00:13:08.300 that we talked about, I don't know how many unused pairs of mittens and winter hats there are in 00:13:08.300 --> 00:13:14.200 around in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Norway Ullevål Hageby and I'm 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:21.800 willing to bet my months salary that there are tons of unused mittens laying around that people 00:13:21.800 --> 00:13:25.250 bought just because it felt more comfortable to engage in a commodity NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:13:25.250 --> 00:13:36.700 Exchange with this woman then it is to give her money up front, just as people buy magazines from people 00:13:36.700 --> 00:13:45.750 with drug problems on the street and never read them but nonetheless feel comfortable in engaging in 00:13:45.750 --> 00:13:52.600 a relationship where one person sells his or her labor and you buy that labor as a customer as a 00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:54.000 client. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:00.950 so what is it about these different examples that lead us to act so differently? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:14:00.950 --> 00:14:08.800 I think we have some of the answers already we've already talked a bit in this course 00:14:08.800 --> 00:14:17.000 about the power of gifts so you know perhaps some of the answers. We remember when we talk about gifts 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:24.300 in this course I want you to think about the prime example in the ethnographic cannon namely the Kula 00:14:24.300 --> 00:14:30.750 exchange we remember Mauss okay but in this lecture we will focus NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:14:30.750 --> 00:14:38.300 also on the mirror image here the nature of Commodities and they relations what is the 00:14:38.300 --> 00:14:43.900 difference between gifts and commodities or more precisely what is the difference between gift 00:14:43.900 --> 00:14:51.900 exchange and commodity exchange, we will dive in to the logic that defines these two examples. Bonasera 00:14:51.900 --> 00:14:58.099 and Vito Corleone in The Godfather and poor person offering NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:14:58.099 --> 00:15:04.500 commodity exchange instead of gift exchange and succeeding on the street. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:15:04.500 --> 00:15:12.600 we'll dive into the logic that lies behind these two examples, but first let's take a step back 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:19.600 and see where are we coming from now in this course what have we talked about so far we've kept 00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:26.250 adding concepts this is one way of running down the course literature as we talked about last week 00:15:26.250 --> 00:15:32.700 you can keep adding concepts freedom, marke, neoliberalism, Kula exchange, gifts, embeddedness 00:15:32.700 --> 00:15:34.800 Commodities and then you can match all these up with NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:15:34.800 --> 00:15:42.100 the different readings that you've done and see how they link up interestingly. That is kind of where 00:15:42.100 --> 00:15:51.900 the gold lies and this course try to create relations between the readings not just consider 00:15:51.900 --> 00:16:04.650 them as islands and so we kept adding concepts to this orchestra sound, we could add a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:16:04.650 --> 00:16:13.200 fictitious commodities the double movement that we read about last week from Polanyi and of course 00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:18.900 all these things I think by laying it up like this I'm not saying that the syllabus kind of adds up 00:16:18.900 --> 00:16:28.900 to one argument because it goes in many different directions it is after all an orchestra you 00:16:28.900 --> 00:16:34.700 know with sounds that are that are quite different but nonetheless that come together and 00:16:34.700 --> 00:16:36.050 produce NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:16:36.050 --> 00:16:47.350 what we call economic life, but but we could nonetheless see or carve out one argument one type of 00:16:47.350 --> 00:16:57.200 accumulated reasoning here in this these first few four weeks that would frame what we're 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:04.950 talking about today. So from week one we remember the Friedman's talk about NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:17:04.950 --> 00:17:13.849 voluntary exchanges in markets as the foundation for the economy and that scales up into a human 00:17:13.849 --> 00:17:24.800 prosperity and fulfilment. Harvey comes in David Harvey the political Economist saying how strange 00:17:24.800 --> 00:17:30.100 it is that these so-called voluntary exchanges have produced such stunning levels of inequality 00:17:30.100 --> 00:17:34.500 there is something going on here beyond NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:41.700 voluntary exchange and he says in his title freedom is just a word the neoliberal economists use 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:47.700 this word to make money for themselves and take more economic power as reflected in Harvey's statistics. 00:17:47.700 --> 00:17:57.600 Second week the market market economy that we know today and that we take 00:17:57.600 --> 00:18:03.300 for granted today was never natural to man as it is assumed in the neoliberal consensus it was 00:18:03.300 --> 00:18:05.450 created it was NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:18:05.450 --> 00:18:15.400 set into motion at a specific period in history and this is what Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi who 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:23.400 surveys this history and surveys the ethnographic record they develop this argument and they reach the 00:18:23.400 --> 00:18:30.450 conclusion specially put on these summary that reciprocity redistribution house holding that is 00:18:30.450 --> 00:18:35.500 producing for your own consumption not for market exchange NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:18:35.500 --> 00:18:42.000 these were the principles that organised economic systems for most of human history up until around 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:45.300 the 19th century across the world. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 72% (MEDIUM) 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:55.900 and of course Polanyi is interested in what was happened then in the 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:09.600 break that the Industrial Revolution represented. You see that the commodity concept emerges. I 00:19:09.600 --> 00:19:15.300 want you to remember this from last week. The commodity concept NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:19:15.300 --> 00:19:25.600 is the key element in the process where in which the economy becomes disembedded as Polanyi talks 00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:35.650 about, remember how he notes how there was a historical and political process through which 00:19:35.650 --> 00:19:43.850 labor started to get treated as a commodity we got separated from the person and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:19:43.850 --> 00:19:49.600 even though it was a fictitious commodity it was never made for the market it was separated from the 00:19:49.600 --> 00:19:59.350 person and started to get traded you can sell your labor sell your work in a factory similarly land 00:19:59.350 --> 00:20:08.900 and something that was never made for the market that was which is just part of nature was cut out NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:20:08.900 --> 00:20:19.100 disembedded and turned into a commodity, and I want to say this because this is the bridge from 00:20:19.100 --> 00:20:26.450 the disembedded and the processes of economic disembedding that we talked about last week and the 00:20:26.450 --> 00:20:33.600 different forms of commodification and the commodity concept that we are talking about this week so to 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:38.550 create this sphere of exchange that is separate to create and maintain NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 74% (MEDIUM) 00:20:38.550 --> 00:20:44.900 this illusion the utopia of a disembedded economy an economy that's detached from society from 00:20:44.900 --> 00:20:54.600 moral concerns from gift logics from kinship structures to create this sphere which operates 00:20:54.600 --> 00:21:05.250 allegedly on its own you have to turn things and people into commodities says Polanyi. Okay so what 00:21:05.250 --> 00:21:07.800 are commodities then? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:21:07.800 --> 00:21:11.850 let's have a closer look what separates them from gifts? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:21:11.850 --> 00:21:21.950 gifts as you all remember have certain characteristics, let's begin in that side of the continuum here. 00:21:21.950 --> 00:21:29.700 What is the most famous example of gifts in anthropological theory? Just hearing 00:21:29.700 --> 00:21:34.900 the word gifts and anthropology in a sentence should kind of make a bell go off in your head saying 00:21:34.900 --> 00:21:42.150 ding ding ding of course the Kula exchange on the Trobriand islands and what characterized NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:21:42.150 --> 00:21:47.700 the Kula? then you can go back in the syllabus back a few weeks and we can go back to Malinowski or 00:21:47.700 --> 00:21:57.000 Mauss who summarized much of what Malinowski presented in terms of ethnographic data saying 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:05.100 that gifts are never totally separated from the men who exchanged them and so the alliance 00:22:05.100 --> 00:22:12.050 contracted in a gift exchange is not temporary and the Contracting parties are bound NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:22:12.050 --> 00:22:15.700 In perpetual interdependence NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:22:16.500 --> 00:22:18.600 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:22:18.600 --> 00:22:32.400 So the Kula partners are in a game of exchanging gifts and arm shells and necklaces that will never 00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:41.100 actually end there's a debt that goes on and on and on the point is to keep it going it is 00:22:41.100 --> 00:22:42.750 not temporary NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:22:42.750 --> 00:22:49.500 and the second crucial part here the gifts are never totally separated from the men who exchange them. 00:22:49.500 --> 00:22:58.700 There's a piece of the giver inside as if it were the item itself there's a piece of you in the gift 00:22:58.700 --> 00:23:07.100 that you give that follows the gift is that spirit the hau the mana of the gift that makes you as a 00:23:07.100 --> 00:23:14.000 receiver feel that debt from the one who gives it. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:23:14.600 --> 00:23:23.100 This should be known to you by now, but again we are summarizing and putting things on the 00:23:23.100 --> 00:23:34.000 syllabus into relation. Chris Gregory who we read for today takes this a step further Chris Gregory 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:40.100 is perhaps the most well known NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:23:40.100 --> 00:23:49.800 Anthropological theorists of gifts and commodities since Mauss and Polanyi if we could claim Polanyi as an 00:23:49.800 --> 00:24:02.000 anthropologist and Gregory says and observes something that I think is key about gift transactions. 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:10.300 That is what a gift transactor personally gives gifts or receives gifts what 00:24:10.300 --> 00:24:10.650 A person NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:24:10.650 --> 00:24:20.800 who's engaged in gift exchange desires is not primarily the things in themselves it is the personal 00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:24.500 relationships that the exchange of gifts create. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:24:24.500 --> 00:24:26.650 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:24:26.650 --> 00:24:34.600 This is one of the sentences.. I will try and alert you to them and 00:24:34.600 --> 00:24:41.200 whenever they come up but I think this is one of the sentences that where you would 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:50.000 take the elevator up to the top floor of the SV building at Blindern and scream it from the 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:56.699 rooftops, because it's fundamentally true. What a gift transactor desires NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:24:56.699 --> 00:25:03.500 is the personal relationships that the exchange of gifts creates and not the things 00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:05.449 In itself NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:25:05.449 --> 00:25:15.400 so in other words this is an anthropological formulation reflecting the common saying that it's the 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:23.300 thought that counts with a gift it's the relationship that is the key, and that relationship is 00:25:23.300 --> 00:25:34.400 supposed to keep going and not be terminated. Let's see how that insight fits with NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:25:34.800 --> 00:25:37.700 the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:45.400 two protagonist we open with namely Vito Corleone and Bonasera NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:25:45.400 --> 00:25:53.900 let's go into their dialogue here. Bonasera says he you know after his daughter has 00:25:53.900 --> 00:26:04.600 been mistreated or raped violated by these men he comes to The Godfather and he says I'll give you 00:26:04.600 --> 00:26:06.250 anything you ask NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:26:06.250 --> 00:26:11.700 and Vito Corleone looks at him and says we've known each other for many years but this is the 00:26:11.700 --> 00:26:20.800 first time you've come to me for counsel for help, so there's not much of a history here I can't 00:26:20.800 --> 00:26:26.200 remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee even though my wife is 00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:32.600 godmother to your only child, but let's be frank here you never wanted my friendship you were afraid 00:26:32.600 --> 00:26:34.300 to be in my debt. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:26:34.300 --> 00:26:40.300 Bonasera says okay I was kind of afraid I didn't want to get into trouble you know that Vito Corleone 00:26:40.300 --> 00:26:47.300 is quite a powerful man and perhaps on the wrong side of the law. Vito Corleone says I 00:26:47.300 --> 00:26:57.100 understand but so you thought that you were protected by the courts of law but and then you 00:26:57.100 --> 00:27:02.300 didn't need a friend like me and now you come to me and you say Don Corleone give me 00:27:02.300 --> 00:27:04.550 justice but you do not ask me NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:27:04.550 --> 00:27:10.700 with respect you don't offer friendship you don't even think to call me Godfather. Instead you come 00:27:10.700 --> 00:27:16.250 to my house the day my daughter is getting married and you ask me to murder for money. 00:27:16.250 --> 00:27:26.500 This upsets him terribly. The background disagreement that these two 00:27:26.500 --> 00:27:33.700 characters are having is what kind of logic are we working with here are we working in the commodity 00:27:33.700 --> 00:27:34.650 logic NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:27:34.650 --> 00:27:45.500 or are we dealing with a gift relationship? Step 2 what is it that you want I ask for justice that 00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:57.200 they will be killed, but that's not Justice says Corleone. How much shall I pay you? again he turns it into a 00:27:57.200 --> 00:27:58.850 commodity logic NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:27:58.850 --> 00:28:06.900 and then Corleone becomes visibly upset saying what have I done for 00:28:06.900 --> 00:28:09.300 you treat me so disrespectfully NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:28:09.800 --> 00:28:21.100 and then he finally assumes this relationship this friendship and says okay I will be your friend be 00:28:21.100 --> 00:28:33.650 my friend I will bow to you and then he says the most famous sentence in this very famous dialogue 00:28:33.650 --> 00:28:40.800 which is you know torn straight from Malinowski's NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 74% (MEDIUM) 00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:46.500 three obligations of the gift as you remember the obligation to give, the obligation to receive, then 00:28:46.500 --> 00:28:51.700 the obligation to reciprocate. There is an expectation 00:28:51.700 --> 00:28:58.600 there's a hau there's a spirit within the gift that you feel as a receiver because then says Vito Corleone 00:28:58.600 --> 00:29:04.600 some day and that day may never come I'll call upon you to do a service for me but to 00:29:04.600 --> 00:29:10.550 give back but until this day except this justice as a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:29:10.550 --> 00:29:14.850 gift on my daughter's wedding day. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:29:14.850 --> 00:29:17.900 So again NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 72% (MEDIUM) 00:29:17.900 --> 00:29:29.300 gifts create debt, gifts are never finished and they contrast with market purchases. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:29:29.300 --> 00:29:37.200 Bonasera tried to purchase this favor how much shall I pay you he tried invoking 00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:43.100 the commodity logic but then the Godfather insisted that hey this is something else NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:29:43.100 --> 00:29:48.900 we are not doing commodity exchange here we're doing gift exchange remember the trobriand Islanders 00:29:48.900 --> 00:29:54.600 complaining that people are doing Kula as if it was gimwali market exchange NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:29:54.600 --> 00:30:01.199 remember that from Malinowksis piece this is the exact same thing. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:30:01.199 --> 00:30:09.000 So let's try and summarize then on the basis of this what we know about gifts. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:30:09.700 --> 00:30:19.900 Gifts produce reciprocal interdependence so you keep relying on each other in a 00:30:19.900 --> 00:30:30.400 relationship that has no clear ending, that keeps going. I buy you coffee one day the point is 00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:36.600 that you're going to buy me a coffee or even a piece of cake another day rather I've actually prefer 00:30:36.600 --> 00:30:40.150 it be a piece of cake or a beer NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:30:40.150 --> 00:30:51.300 that does not measure equally, we keep a debt going that is the basis of human sociality. So gifts 00:30:51.300 --> 00:30:54.850 are all about reciprocal interdependence. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:30:54.850 --> 00:30:57.900 the stuff that we give NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:30:57.900 --> 00:31:05.100 Are inalienable items the'yre personal there's a part of the giver in the items 00:31:05.100 --> 00:31:16.100 itself, which is what Marcel Mauss calls the hau the spirit of the gift taken from Maori cosmology 00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:23.800 the exchange of gifts as objects creates relationships between people NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:31:23.800 --> 00:31:29.900 we say it's the thought that counts it's the relation it's not that thing that is the central 00:31:29.900 --> 00:31:37.250 concern in gift exchange it is obviously important but it's the thought that counts as we say NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:31:37.250 --> 00:31:47.000 and finally gifts says Marcel Mauss is a total social phenomena it's not just an economic 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:53.400 phenomena it's something that is connected to all domains of life, religion, law, morality, kinship 00:31:53.400 --> 00:32:01.200 economics, politics it is a total social phenomenon not just an economic phenomenon. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:07.600 Chris Gregory in the piece that you read for this week claims that commodities and commodity 00:32:07.600 --> 00:32:15.900 exchange is the mirror image of this logic this gifts and gifts exchange, you could see 00:32:15.900 --> 00:32:22.450 Commodities and gifts as extremes on a continuum of how we organize human value. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:32:22.450 --> 00:32:31.300 So what then about commodities and commodity exchange what about the other extreme on this continuum 00:32:31.300 --> 00:32:33.949 of human value and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:32:33.949 --> 00:32:43.600 human meaning? the answer is within the examples that we've laid out within the dialogue of Bonasera 00:32:43.600 --> 00:32:54.300 within the Kula within our examples from beggars outside grocery stores but let's go deeper 00:32:54.300 --> 00:33:02.000 and more systemically to work here and draw on the help is very helpful and insightful chapter that we 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:03.600 reading from Chris Gregory, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:13.800 but before we do that I thought we would take a break or at least let me take a break and let 00:33:13.800 --> 00:33:21.700 me pour myself a cup of coffee and then we come back to commodities in a short while.