ABSTRACT
The very act of giving is perhaps the most basic step on the road to truly human social relationships: it implies an obligation to return the gift. It sets up a relationship of indebtedness unknown in the animal world; it creates networks of indebtedness; vast systems of credit; things offered and things owed; those to whom we have given and those to whom we must give; those from whom we may expect and those who may expect from us in turn. Economics reflects evolution just as much as politics and sex do. In some ways the discontinuities between ourselves and our primate ancestors are more pronounced in the area of economics than anyplace else. The hunting way became successful; from being at first simply a supplementary activity, it rapidly came to dominate the whole course of human evolution. Men became dependent on the hunting way of life and evolved to cope with its ever-increasing complexities.
