The Gift Paradigm – A Short Introduction to the Anti–Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences - Softcover

Caillé, Alain

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0996635599 ISBN 13: 9780996635592

Publisher: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2020

Synopsis

In his classic essay The Gift, Marcel Mauss argued that gifts can never be truly free; rather, they bring about an expectation of reciprocal exchange. For over one hundred years, his ideas on economy, social relations, and exchange have inspired new modes of thought, none more so than what crystallized in the 1980s around an innovative group of French academics. In TheGift Paradigm, Alain Caillé provides the first in-depth, English-language introduction to La Revue du MAUSS―or, “Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences,” combining the work of anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and others. Today, the very idea of a “general social science” seems unthinkable, unless you count the pervasive sway of a utilitarian logic in orthodox economics, or the diffuse influence of neoliberalism. Here, Caillé offers a distinctly different reading of economy and society, inspired by Mauss―as vital now as ever.

About this title

About the Author

Alain Caillé, the creator and director of La Revue du MAUSS, is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prickly Paradigm Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0996635599
• ISBN 13: 9780996635592
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 58