Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:01:03 -0500 To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org From: malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com> Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Gift economy Bill Elston worte: >D=9Erer, an artist, gave gifts to a Queen. When his generosity went=A0 >unrewarded he felt that a necessary and fundamental social contract=A0 >had been broken. How is that structurally different than what we have=A0 >today? In fact one might say that a typical family functions, internally, along the lines of a gift economy. Someone cooks, someone cleans house, someone willingly agrees to have sex, someone tends to the children, someone helps someone else with homework, someone reads someone else to sleep, someone does the shopping, etc - all given as gifts. But fueling this gift economy is a substantial body of mutual expectations and unwritten contracts. When a contract gets broken - as when a child, after having received the generous gift of upbringing and education, decides to become a bum; or when a family members suddenly refuses to put in hir usual share of "gifts" - a rupture occurs in the gift-giving fabric, and the family members may in fact wish the economy had been quite different - one in which everybody gets paid for their services, the duties are defined and cleanly dischargeable, and no indefinite (or infinite) debts are incurred. -m _______________________________________________ List address: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org Admin interface: http://lists.puptcrit.org/mailman/listinfo/puptcrit Archives: http://www.driftline.org
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