ABSTRACT
This book is the result of collaborative work of the three editors and brings together a variety of diverse perspectives on the gift. This chapter offers a fresh introduction to Veblen's analysis of conspicuous consumption and links it convincingly to the core anthropological literature on gift-giving. Stefan Kesting's The fluid nature of gifts and grants: an institutional application to the Marshall Plan, is at the same time an attempt at developing the theory of gift-giving and an application of this framework to a historical case study the Marshall Plan. It starts with a comparison of Boulding's grants economics with anthropological and sociological literature on the gift. Moreover, the case study demonstrates that even at such a high level of aggregation, there can be gifts which are characterised not only by utilitarian institutions, but also by altruism and reciprocity. The chapter shows how care is shaped by the institutional settings attributed to the modes of transfer.
