I've always learned that the standard story of evolving to the market from barter was a myth, and that instead, the gift economy was dominant at first (see mauss)<br><br>but here's a quote that claims the opposite:<br>
<br><br>
<a href="http://frederickturnerpoet.com/?p=330">Philosopher Fed Turner
has some interesting insights</a>: <i>”There is a myth that we as a
species have moved from having an edenic and arcadian gift exchange
economy to a cold and corrupt market economy. As a myth it has its uses;
as a fact it will not fly. Archaeologists and physical anthropologists
now find trading practices among the earliest humans nearly 200,000
years ago; we were always buying, selling, hiring, trucking and
bartering. And economists tell us that even in today’s advanced
industrial economies the amount of value that is transferred by gift is
greater than the amount transferred by market exchanges. This may sound
counter-intuitive until we reflect that gift includes the free services
rendered by parents to their children, husbands and wives to each other,
friends to friends, hobbyists to their community, and the bequests of
the dying to their heirs.<br>
<br>
“We have plenty of theory about markets, since Locke and Smith and their
ilk. There is some theory about gift exchange in traditional tribal
societies (Marcel Mauss, for instance), but very little until now about
the economic, moral, social, political, ecological, aesthetic, and
spiritual implications of today’s gift economy in advanced societies
like the United States.”</i><br clear="all"><br><br>via <a href="http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2011/02/philanthropy-transparency-science.html">http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2011/02/philanthropy-transparency-science.html</a> ; <a href="http://frederickturnerpoet.com/?p=330">http://frederickturnerpoet.com/?p=330</a><br>
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