Transactions and relations

Within a moral economy the social significance of individuals is defined by their obligations to others, with whom they maintain continuing relationships. It is the extended reproduction of these relationships that lies at the heart of a gift economy, just as it is the extended reproduction of financial capital which lies at the heart of a market economy. Between these two principles there is a fundamental opposition, as a result of which any attempt to combine them in the same social institution is likely to result in strain and conflict. ¹ That is so because, insofar as individuals pursue their self-interests through economic exchange, the least profitable social relations are progressively broken off and replaced with more profitable ones (Blau 1964). Thus Sussman has claimed that when people do not receive "pay offs' for the benefits they give to kin, their motivation to maintain kinship ties breaks down and the kinship network ceases to be a viable social structure (Sussman 1970: 492).