Gift and economy

Derrida’s pursuit of the pure gift is premised on a strict dichotomy of “economy” and “gift.” “Economy” includes anything done for gain, no matter how meager that gain is (it might be the feeling of satisfaction I get from giving something useful to someone); “gift” is the impossible purity of disinterested generosity.

As a number of my students have pointed out, this dichotomy is wholly bogus. It exists only theoretically. In practice, gift is infused into economy, even the most self-interested capitalist economy.

Milbank points out the various liminal cases – business lunches, tips, customer loyalty, and so on. Even gift exchanges strictly speaking usually begin with economic transactions: I buy something to give it away, or buy the materials from which I can make a future gift. The isolation of “economic” activity from various forms of gift exchange is unreal.

And yet, this unreality seems to be inherent in modern economic theory (seems to me, but I might stand corrected). Classical economists tend to examine “purely economic” production, distribution, exchange, ignoring all the gift/gratitude/relationship dynamics that surround and infuse economic activity. More recently, economists have attended to these other factors, but much of economic theory seems (again, I may stand corrected) to isolate economy.

Economy is as much a figment as “the social.” That means that “economic explanations” are fictitious. To be an explanatory, “economy” has to be isolatable from everything else, but it’s not in reality.

If I am right about classical economic theory (and I might stand corrected), the question arises of why it should have developed this way. Why would gift/gratitude/relationship be left out of economic consideration? And, how would economic theory be different if it’s included?