Lewis Hyde has some wonderful reflections on the “labor of gratitude” in his The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (47-51): With “transformative gifts,” the recipient of the gift “feels gratitude. I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to effect the transformation after a gift has been received. Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. Moreover, with gifts that are... Read more
Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 209-10) gives this searing critique of Girard. For Girard, he says, “violence is primary . . . no love is possible. There are only hatred and ‘desire.’” Girard’s own analysis undercuts his theory: “In his discussion of the judgment of Solomon, Girard observes that the true mother explodes the infernal logic of mimesis by her lover for this dear being who is her child. But he does not recognize that the very... Read more
Unlike many theorists who discuss the gift, Jacques Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 193) does not believe that is should “drown” everything, especially markets: “That would not only be impossible but also very harmful, for a great society (statistically speaking) needs the state and market apparatus. The system of the gift, if it were to replace them, would give rise to instances of personal domination that would be particularly grace, the perverse effects of a populism with... Read more
Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 40-41 ) remarks on the fact that “in modern society, children are the only people to whom one can give without even being tempted to do an accounting.” Many (he says) give to children and don’t expect them to make any return for the first twenty years of their life. Children are “modernity’s god, royalty for whom one can sacrifice all,” comparable to “the sons of kings and princes” of old who... Read more
Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 47) wonders about the curious “abnegation” of parents who convince their children that Santa, not they, made and gave that mountain of presents under the Christmas tree. One theory: “It’s as though the parents are trying to prove to themselves that they expect no gratitude for the gift, that they are not the ‘real’ donors, not the only ones at any rate, that the only thing that counts for them is the... Read more
Jacques Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 37 ) asks why we wrap presents only to discard the wrapping. It is a “potlatch” gesture, a gesture of excess, “an utterly gratuitous extra.” Further, “it hides what is in circulation, thus demonstrating that what counts is not the hidden object but the gesture, enhanced by the brilliance of the wrapping and, subsequently, by its squandering, when it disappears at the very moment the gift is received. What has taken... Read more
In his work on Geschenk Nach Form Und Inhalt , written i 1914, Wilhelm Gaul laid out many of the parameters for future discussion of the gift. Harry Liebersohn ( The Return of the Gift ) quotes this impressive passage: “What is striking at once about the ‘modern’ gift is the much freer relationship between giver and receiver . . . which is based on the much freer relationship between individuals and a complete control over one’s property. In both... Read more
A few quotations from the opening pages of Karl Bucher’s Industrial evolution; . Economic theory begins from the assumption that human beings have an “economic nature,” and that “From this economic nature a principle is supposed to spring, which controls all his actions that are directed to the satisfaction of his wants. This is the economic principle . . . . Man estimates the extent of the discomfort that would arise from the non-satisfaction of a want felt by him;... Read more
Among the German writers that Liebersohn ( The Return of the Gift ) discusses, Karl Bucher stands out as a crucial figure. Like other German economists, Bucher objected to what he saw as abstract British economic theories, which attempted to universalize the historically specific British experience. Beyond other theorists, and against liberal theorists like Smith and Ricardo, he argued that the very notion of a natural economic impulse was an error. Human beings, he acknowledged, naturally seek self-preservation and self-interest,... Read more
In his fascinating intellectual history of nineteenth and twentieth-century theories about gifts ( The Return of the Gift ), Harry Liebersohn discusses the theories of nineteen-century German economists who attempted to historicize economics. Friedrich List’s advocacy of rapid German modernization was partly shaped by his experience of the United States. Like many other European visitors, List remarked the “abrupt movement from wilderness to settlement and industrialization” in America (p. 42). Stages that List had thought needed hundreds or even thousands... Read more
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