The modern-day financial credit systems in North America and Chile closely resemble older forms of gift exchange, especially when considering the qualities inherent in all gift societies’ system of exchange. Mauss argues that all valuable objects in gift economies are due to its inherent ability to attach itself to persons, for example through identity or history (Graeber, 2001). However, Graeber affirms that money can only participate in this same manner of detachability, if it is in large sums (Graeber 2001). Money is a physical object that can be stored, transported, and exchanged (Graeber, 2001), and according to Bloch and Parry, bears god-like qualities because of the way it is fetishized and obsessed with (Bloch and Parry, 1989). With a focus on Simmel’s perception of money as a host to duality, and Mauss’ third prestation, this paper aims to investigate the way in which money plays a role in the modern-day societies that resemble older forms of negative gift exchange; ultimately institutionally limiting the poor.
Simmel understands money as being capable of introducing and promoting freedom and individuality, while also having the power to divide a society and isolate its individuals (Bloch and Parry, 1989). The financial credit system is promoted as a shorter and easier path that enables individuals to have access to a lifestyle that they would not have otherwise been able to obtain. This concept is similar to the way Botswanna youth react with a feeling of freedom from their village life when given access to North American goods and resources (Bloch and Parry, 1989). In contrast, the duality in the financial credit system is the consumer culture in North American and Chilean societies, which lead the poor into a cycle of debt that can eventually be impossible to repay, consequently affecting their status in their nation – and perhaps eventually alienating and isolating the individual (Bloch and Parry, 1989). The obligation to repay is a characteristic of Mauss’ third prestation (Mauss, 1990). Mauss describes the three obligations deeply-rooted in all societies with systems of exchange as: the obligation to give, to receive, and to repay (Mauss, 1990). The obligation to repay is a feature that resembles a form of warfare, a system of exchange practiced by the natives of the Northwest coast of North America – the potlach (Mauss, 1990). Meaning “to feed” or “to consume”, this competitive form of exchange can be practiced between clans, marriages, and initiations, and involves the display or destruction of gifts in order to achieve dominance or status over others (Mauss, 1990). Failure to repay, is the affirmation of the individual’s inferior status and a declaration of war (Mauss, 1990). The obligation to reciprocate can be explained by first understanding the spirit of personal property – the Hau (Mauss, 1990). This system of exchange dominates the circulation of wealth and gifts in Samoa and New Zealand (Mauss, 1990). The toanga, the personal gift, possesses a hau that upholds a sense of individuality that serves to give power to the initial donors over those they gift to, and those receivers must recognize the obligation to reciprocate (Mauss, 1990).
The power of the Hau over the individual who received the toanga, in this case money borrowed on credit, bounds those who benefited from the gift to reciprocate. In relation to the way Simmel sees money as buying freedom (Bloch and Parry, 1989), when money is loaned to the individual, that ‘gift’ of money possesses the hau, and although the money can literally buy an individual’s freedom, the return of this loaned money is also the way in which individuals can buy themselves out of the trap of debt. Similar to the potlach, the gift of borrowed credit must be reciprocated with interest, and failure to reciprocate will subject the individual to a lower status – lower credit score – which may isolate individuals from access to a society’s housing market, job market, and so on (Graeber, 2001).
Money is very familiar to those who participate in a capitalist society, and debt even closer, whether it be in the form of credit card statements, home mortgages, and/or student loans (High, 2012). In most cultures today, debt also takes a symbolic form by implying debt – debts that should be repaid (High, 2012). Though some situations, such as the antagonistic form of hospitality seen between Yemeni women, are not characteristic of debts that require return or interest, societies that have similar elements to older forms of the potlach, are subject to an obligation to repay debts (High, 2012).
Mauss argues that the gift occupies a trace of the person who gave it, but when considering the act of exchange with money, relationships dissolve or are terminated (Mauss, 1989). Likewise, Marx views money as a despot that severs relationships, such as between producers and their products, while also building anonymous unequal and exploitative relationships; for example, the powerless state and limited autonomy the individual has against the state it owes to when drowned in debt (Graeber, 2001). One of society’s most fundamental inequalities is inheritance, for it is an identity that can be assumed by the individual’s kin, that may predispose the individual to succeed or fail [cite]. The word “gift” is in itself defined as “poison” in Germanic language [cite]. The responsibility to repay debt, like inheritance, can be passed to kin and personal relationships, and for example, can subject those born into a poor family to fall into a similar cycle of debt. The poison in the gift of money is its lack of temporal boundaries and the way in which it can subject its individuals to anxiety and depression [cite].
The poor in Chile are encouraged to sink deeper into debt due to the way in which their culture expresses class status, gestures of care, and initiates relationships (Han, 2011). Debt in Chilean society is seen as natural in its economy, promoting consumption without production, and being viewed linearly as fostering the development of the country – the greater the market expansion, the deeper the debt of the individual (Han, 2011). The effortless way in which individuals in this society can obtain gifts of money in the form of credit cards, is due to the fact that credit is not being lent exclusively by banks, but also through department stores and microcredit places (Han, 2011). Often, among the urban poor especially, the access to credit gives them to access basic resources, such as health insurance and basic services, that allow them to participate in society – for these individuals, credit is the taste of freedom and the consequence of nonrepayment, and therefore debt, is the poison in the gift that eventually makes it impossible to reciprocate or reverse (Han, 2011).
By observing cases where forms of poisons in gifts have been documented, the argument that money is a form of a gift will become clear, and its poison is in the way culture can methodically makes reciprocation impossible. In the case of the Benares Brahams, gifts accepted in the short term must participate in a performance of rituals in order to avoid disruption of the cosmic and social order; if this is not accomplished, the Brahman will absorb the sins associated with the gifts over the long term (Parry, 1989). The contradiction in Brahmin Law is that wealth is meant to be given away, not taken – thus becoming hierarchical (Parry, 1989). Other examples of gift exchanges that are impossible to reciprocate are seen in the Kwakiult, and Maori Heirlooms. In the Kwakiult, gifts are so identified with a particular person that if given away, the recipient of the gift became the person the giver used to be (Mauss, 1989). For example, in modern-day celebrity-fan-based-gifting relations, if a celebrity were to give away a piece of clothing or object as a representation of themselves to a fan, the receiver must not reciprocate, for it can be seen as comical or insulting [cite]. In accordance to Maori Heirlooms, the objects are so ingrained in the identities of its owner that they could not be given away at all (Parry, 1989).
Agonistic exchange is a combative system of exchange in which tribes ranked in a hierarchy participate and involve a great deal of hostility and rivalry (Mauss, 1990). For example, hospitality for Yemeni women is viewed as quarrelsome between individual, familial and political relations, however, these public evaluations of modest comportment are central to how society is produced and maintained (Meneley, 1996). The process of debt repayment can be seen as antagonistic, due to the poor’s inability to pay a lump sum – typically initially borrowed to support their basic needs, and their emotional and politically charged views against the government – these two circumstances consequently lead individuals of this society to feel that they in fact do not owe anything (Papataxiarchis, 1999). This case is noted to be present in Greece, where men participate in illegal gambling which is viewed by them as normal, and whom also feel that their failure to conform to institution, resembles the way in which the Greek government had failed to meet their expectations ( (Papataxiarchis, 1999). Here, the hau is not present, nor is there any sense of motivation to reciprocate, instead it shows semblance to an antagonistic form of potlach that has reached its peak in incurring a substantial debt, ultimately leading to a form of violence (High, 2012). The trickster hau is in this form of violence, where repayment – at its most extreme – can cost human suffering – slavery- (High, 2012); therefore, though monetary debt will be repaid and the individual will obtain a sense of freedom from that debt, they subject themselves to different forms of enslavement– for example, another form of monetary debt enslavement is in using quick-money and debt repayment services that typically require payment in the future or in the present.
Conclusion
According to Parry, “the gift embodies evil and represents a peril” regardless of whether the gift is in cash or in kindness (Parry, 1989). In contrast, Simmel views money as a means of obtaining freedom and as an extension of the individual’s personality, for example: social class (Parry, 1989). What makes a person “human” is in the very least their capacity for imagination; in relation to this argument, according to Marx, is the way in which people envision a future before it is a reality (Parry, 1989). What makes the financial credit system an easy trap to fall victim to in modern-day societies, is in the notion that people can buy freedom. Consumer culture motivates its participants to engage in a system of exchange that appears to come in a form of a gift, money, but its spirit hau demands reciprocity, and the inability for the poor to reciprocate due to its building interest is the trickster hau that forces the individual into a cycle of exchange that makes it almost impossible for them to be freed from.
REFERENCES
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Graeber, David. 2001. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value. Chapter 6: “Marcel Mauss Revisited”. Pp. 151-228
Han, Clara. 2011. Symptoms of Another Life: Time, Possibility and Domestic Relations in Chile’s Credit Economy”. Cultural Anthropology. Volume 26, Issue 1, pp. 7-32.
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Mauss, Marcel. 1990. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Pp. 17-81. Routledge.
Meneley, Anne. 1996. Tournaments of Value: Sociability and hierarchy in a Yemeni town. Volume 9 of Anthropological Horizons. University of Toronto Press.
Papataxxiarchis, Evthymos. 1999. A Contest with Money: Gambling and the Politics of Disinterested Sociality in Aegean Greece. Westview Press.
April Marie Canillo 