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Gift Economy




A gift economy is an , honor, loyalty or other forms of Gratitude . In some cases, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within a community. This can be considered a form of Reciprocal Altruism . Sometimes there is an implicit expectation of the return of comparable goods or services, political support, or the gift being later passed on to a third party. However, in what is considered to be in the true spirit of gift economics, many times giving is done without any expectation of reciprocity.

The concept of a gift economy stands in contrast to a Planned Economy or a Market or Barter Economy . In a planned economy, goods and services are distributed by explicit command and control rather than informal custom; in barter or market economies, an explicit ''quid pro quo'' — an exchange of Money or some other Commodity — is established before the transaction takes place. In practice, most human societies blend elements of all of these, in varying degrees.


EXAMPLES AND BENEFITS

Some examples would be:
  • Sharing of Food in a Hunter-gatherer society, where sharing is a safeguard against failure of any individual's daily foraging.

  • The Pacific Northwest Native American Potlatch ritual, where leaders give away large amounts of goods to their followers, strengthening group relations. By sacrificing accumulated wealth, a leader gained a position of honor.

  • Southeast Asia Theravada Buddhist Feasts of Merit, so similar to above that the About paragraph could apply; except that such feasts involve many sponsors of all types, and continue to this day mainly before and after Rainy Season s rather than chiefly in winter.