ABSTRACT
Marcel Mauss’s aim in The Gift is to explain the binding obligations created by gift exchange in simple societies. Marcel Mauss shows that societies without modern forms of currency nonetheless have legal, political, and economic systems that regulate the flow of goods and services. Mauss shows that simple societies have devised rules that structure the transfer of valuables of all kinds, tangible and intangible. Mauss explains that the gift exchange systems of existing and historical archaic societies developed out of the total services system but involve larger territories and higher-order political units such as tribes. Mauss’s analysis generated original insights about gift exchange and social relationships across ethnographic settings. To illustrate, Mauss provides a unified explanation for the competitive escalating systems of feasts and gifts that he describes as “prestations totales agonistique.” Mauss’s comparative analysis reveals that the flow of transfers is orderly and meaningful in all societies.
