ABSTRACT
Marcel Marcel Mauss’s most influential work, The Gift was part of an intellectual that arose in France in opposition to British philosophy’s utilitarian theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, oriented toward the individual. Mauss has shown that exchanges that may seem invisible or inconsequential are central to human relationships and socioeconomic systems. This insight continues to inspire research on the link between open-ended reciprocity and social cohesion in simple and complex societies. Mauss contributed by showing how reciprocal exchange creates binding social relationships that endure over time because gifts must be returned after a delay. Mauss’s ideas emerged during the formative phase of modern sociology and consequently have influenced work across the humanities and social sciences. Mauss was an independent thinker but also a great collaborator who believed in intellectual reciprocity. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s concept of “the economy of the gift,” among other ideas, drew directly from Mauss.
