ABSTRACT
In this study gift transactions have been described as belonging to a moral economy within modern society. How that moral economy works, and the social processes that separate it from the political economy of capitalism, have been shown to add to our understanding of interpersonal relationships in general and of family relationships in particular. In chapter 1 the moral economy of modern society was described as consisting of that complex of motives, rituals, distribution rules, institutionalized ties, and modes of discourse by which small social worlds are produced within mass societies. The means by which resources are acquired, and the rules according to which they are distributed, have not received much attention here, although relevant investigations have been reported elsewhere (Cheal 1986,1987c). The social dimensions of distribution processes in domestic units are to be taken up in a second study of moral economy, which is in progress. In the present study certain aspects of distribution rules were described in chapter 3, but the greater emphasis has been upon emotions, rituals, ties, and discourse, and upon the interconnections between them. The reasons for that choice of emphasis should be clear by now. These dimensions of interaction are central to the postmodern alternative to sociological elementarism, and they have been neglected by most schools of political economy. There is one important exception to the latter statement, and that is Collins' conflict theory.
