Gift economy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A gift economy is an economic system in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo. Typically, a gift economy occurs in a culture or subculture that emphasizes social or intangible rewards for generosity: karma, honor, loyalty or other forms of gratitude. In some cases, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within a community. This can be considered a form of reciprocal altruism. Sometimes there is an implicit expectation of the return of comparable goods or services, political support, or the gift being later passed on to a third party. However, in what is considered to be in the true spirit of gift economics, many times giving is done without any expectation of reciprocation.
The concept of a gift economy stands in contrast to a planned economy or a market or barter economy. In a planned economy, goods and services are distributed by explicit command and control rather than informal custom; in barter or market economies, an explicit quid pro quo — an exchange of money or some other commodity — is established before the transaction takes place. In practice, most human societies blend elements of all of these, in varying degrees.
