Very good, Michel. It is great to see Karatani's thought so well explained!
I do have one clarification. I think Karatani does clearly distinguish between Communal Shareholding and the Gift Economy. He just doesn't consider the communal shareholding - what he calls "the pure gift" to be a mode of exchange.
Here is an excerpt from his book Isonomia, from the chapter summarizing modes of exchange:
"It has generally been accepted since Marcel Mauss that mode of exchange A (gift reciprocity) was the principle that governed archaic societies. However, it was not likely that anything like this principle existed in the earliest nomadic hunter-gatherer bands. Because their mobile lifestyle made the accumulation of goods impossible, things had to be pooled in common and distributed equally. This was a pure gift and not a return enforced by the reciprocal principle of gift exchange. As a result, the power of the group to enforce behavior in the individual was weak and conjugal relations fluid and impermanent. Consequently, each member of the group was free, at the same time they were equal."
thank you for these details; but I remain convinced, like Fiske, that it is a mode of exchange, i.e. general reciprocity between an individual and a 'whole', from which he/she benefits, but it is true there is no direct person to person exchange.
"General reciprocity between an individual and a 'whole.' " I like that! And I love that you and O.G. included spirit/fetish/social imaginary in your discussion!
Indeed, nice :) I, too, am nervous about categories and definitions - not because I am 'against' them, but because so much social and mental energy can be absorbed in arguing about them. So I'm wondering if some kind of app could be designed that alerts the user, "just to let you know that this proposed relationship is probably Type X"...
Nice. I tend away from categorisation, but appreciate the discernment. Valuable to have meaningful engagement. My own principles of practice is to have an enactment of the grammars/articulations in our personal engagement, before we can actually grapple with wider social structures or their historical evolution. We tend to objectify, categorise, and so on thereby keeping things at arms length, rather than appreciate the concurrent condition as we engage, ie up close and intimate. My hunch is: our discernment of social forms improves as we improve our interpersonal relationality. Be well!
As you may recall from prior exchanges, your P2P theory, Fiske’s Relational Models Theory, Karatani’s Modes of Exchange theory, and my TIMN efforts overlap a lot. Except in a few critical regards where they don’t, and crucial theoretical issues remain unsettled, up in the air. We’ve discussed these before. But I have a few new thoughts, and I’d like to know whether you (and others?) do too.
We all have fourfold frameworks, with three major overlaps.
• The first is between Fiske’s and your Communal Sharing (CS) model, Karatani’s Mode A about “the reciprocity of the gift” among early tribes and clans, and my Tribes (T) as a cardinal form of organization.
• The second is between Fiske’s and your Authority Ranking (AR) model, Karatani’s Mode B about “ruling and protection” by states, and my hierarchical Institutions (I) form.
• The third is between Fiske’s and your Market Pricing (MP) model, Karatani’s Mode C about “commodity exchange,” and my Markets (+M) form.
And we all pretty much agree that societies have progressed in complexity by adding those elements (models, modes, forms) together, after each has fully emerged in turn across the ages. Quite good consistency there.
But the role and place of Fiske’s Equality Matching (EM) model, Mauss’s “gift economy” concept, and the links between these two and with other models/modes/forms remains open to question. We all agree that equality-matching is a significant pattern in life, and so is gifting. But I have doubts as to how significant for theory-building.
The three models/modes/forms I listed above were each powerful enough to generate over time what today we identify as the three major realms of modern societies:
• Fiske’s and your Communal Sharing, Karatani’s Mode A, and my Tribes form lead to the realm we eventually call civil society, with its various kinship- and affiliation-based sectors.
• Next, the rise of AR, Mode B, and TIMN’s +I lead to the administrative state and the realm of government and its public sector.
• Then the growth of MP, Mode C, and +M lead to the realm we call the economy, particularly the capitalist market economy with it private sector.
In contrast, Equality Matching (EM) has had no such generative power. It shows up as a modifier or dynamic amid the other forms, and as a generator of some lesser activities that Fiske and you mention. But it hasn’t led to the rise of a distinctive realm or sub-system of society, as the other three have. Personally, I don’t see how EM as currently defined can ever have such generative power; it’s of a different lesser order than the other models/modes/forms. I’m inclined to think Fiske should have identified a deeper relational dynamic than ER.
Something similar goes for the “gift economy” concept. It’s an important phenomenon — but it’s more of a social, cultural, political, maybe even ethical concept than an economic concept. It pains me analytically to see the reductive term “gift economy” being used so often. Moreover, while its dynamics do indeed play a role in CS, Mode A, and the Tribes form, it is a subsidiary role, not a defining role. Gift dynamics may show up in the other models/modes/forms too, but usually as a persistence of its early cultural (not simply economic) role in CS, Mode A, and/or form T.
There may be a way to rethink the EM and gift concepts that suits my TIMN framework, though I’m not sure about yours or Karatani’s frameworks.
TIMN implies that, in the decades ahead the rise of information-age network (N, +N) forms will eventually generate, through differentiation, a fourth realm of actors and activities. It will be as distinct and separate from the existing/earlier three (civil society, government, market economy) as they are from each other; it will be on an interactive par with them. My best deduction so far is that it will be a pro-commons realm, consist mainly of health, education, welfare, environmental, and related insurance actors and activities (who will migrate into it from the existing three realms and their sectors), and will have networked care as its central organizing principle. But if my deduction wrong and something else evolves as a fourth realm, my points about the EM and gift concepts may still apply.
What I’m wondering is this: Both EM and gifting suit a larger purpose: making social connections. Connectivity for whatever purpose is the goal, the desire, the need, more so than is the case with (and in ways that don’t quite fit under) the other models/modes/forms. EM and the gift economy may overlap in some ways; but the purpose of “equality matching” is not to create a “gift economy” — nor vice-vera, at least not precisely. The purpose is to connect in order to circulate something, and to circulate it in order to deepen the connectivity, i.e., to network. The deep purpose is not equality but connectivity in the form of peer-bonding or network-building or match-making or out-reaching across distances in space and time. Or? It’s more a forward-looking spiritual act than a material act.
Thus, I think (and ask whether) it would mutually serve all our frameworks and purposes to supersede the EM and gift concepts with a broader one. My way of doing so will be to replace the broad N-for-networks form in TIMN with a more precise E-for-equinets when I get around to it. And I wonder what you and Karatani might come up with as well. KK’s Mode D still seems quite obscure to me, even though he recently provided some clarifying remarks here (especially about “spiritual powers” that attend each exchange mode):
Very good, Michel. It is great to see Karatani's thought so well explained!
I do have one clarification. I think Karatani does clearly distinguish between Communal Shareholding and the Gift Economy. He just doesn't consider the communal shareholding - what he calls "the pure gift" to be a mode of exchange.
Here is an excerpt from his book Isonomia, from the chapter summarizing modes of exchange:
"It has generally been accepted since Marcel Mauss that mode of exchange A (gift reciprocity) was the principle that governed archaic societies. However, it was not likely that anything like this principle existed in the earliest nomadic hunter-gatherer bands. Because their mobile lifestyle made the accumulation of goods impossible, things had to be pooled in common and distributed equally. This was a pure gift and not a return enforced by the reciprocal principle of gift exchange. As a result, the power of the group to enforce behavior in the individual was weak and conjugal relations fluid and impermanent. Consequently, each member of the group was free, at the same time they were equal."
(p. 138, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy).
thank you for these details; but I remain convinced, like Fiske, that it is a mode of exchange, i.e. general reciprocity between an individual and a 'whole', from which he/she benefits, but it is true there is no direct person to person exchange.
"General reciprocity between an individual and a 'whole.' " I like that! And I love that you and O.G. included spirit/fetish/social imaginary in your discussion!
Outstanding piece, my friend, and the conversation was a joy and honor to participate in. Looking forward to more!
Indeed, nice :) I, too, am nervous about categories and definitions - not because I am 'against' them, but because so much social and mental energy can be absorbed in arguing about them. So I'm wondering if some kind of app could be designed that alerts the user, "just to let you know that this proposed relationship is probably Type X"...
Nice. I tend away from categorisation, but appreciate the discernment. Valuable to have meaningful engagement. My own principles of practice is to have an enactment of the grammars/articulations in our personal engagement, before we can actually grapple with wider social structures or their historical evolution. We tend to objectify, categorise, and so on thereby keeping things at arms length, rather than appreciate the concurrent condition as we engage, ie up close and intimate. My hunch is: our discernment of social forms improves as we improve our interpersonal relationality. Be well!
yes, I tend to include both theory and practice <g>
As you may recall from prior exchanges, your P2P theory, Fiske’s Relational Models Theory, Karatani’s Modes of Exchange theory, and my TIMN efforts overlap a lot. Except in a few critical regards where they don’t, and crucial theoretical issues remain unsettled, up in the air. We’ve discussed these before. But I have a few new thoughts, and I’d like to know whether you (and others?) do too.
We all have fourfold frameworks, with three major overlaps.
• The first is between Fiske’s and your Communal Sharing (CS) model, Karatani’s Mode A about “the reciprocity of the gift” among early tribes and clans, and my Tribes (T) as a cardinal form of organization.
• The second is between Fiske’s and your Authority Ranking (AR) model, Karatani’s Mode B about “ruling and protection” by states, and my hierarchical Institutions (I) form.
• The third is between Fiske’s and your Market Pricing (MP) model, Karatani’s Mode C about “commodity exchange,” and my Markets (+M) form.
And we all pretty much agree that societies have progressed in complexity by adding those elements (models, modes, forms) together, after each has fully emerged in turn across the ages. Quite good consistency there.
But the role and place of Fiske’s Equality Matching (EM) model, Mauss’s “gift economy” concept, and the links between these two and with other models/modes/forms remains open to question. We all agree that equality-matching is a significant pattern in life, and so is gifting. But I have doubts as to how significant for theory-building.
The three models/modes/forms I listed above were each powerful enough to generate over time what today we identify as the three major realms of modern societies:
• Fiske’s and your Communal Sharing, Karatani’s Mode A, and my Tribes form lead to the realm we eventually call civil society, with its various kinship- and affiliation-based sectors.
• Next, the rise of AR, Mode B, and TIMN’s +I lead to the administrative state and the realm of government and its public sector.
• Then the growth of MP, Mode C, and +M lead to the realm we call the economy, particularly the capitalist market economy with it private sector.
In contrast, Equality Matching (EM) has had no such generative power. It shows up as a modifier or dynamic amid the other forms, and as a generator of some lesser activities that Fiske and you mention. But it hasn’t led to the rise of a distinctive realm or sub-system of society, as the other three have. Personally, I don’t see how EM as currently defined can ever have such generative power; it’s of a different lesser order than the other models/modes/forms. I’m inclined to think Fiske should have identified a deeper relational dynamic than ER.
Something similar goes for the “gift economy” concept. It’s an important phenomenon — but it’s more of a social, cultural, political, maybe even ethical concept than an economic concept. It pains me analytically to see the reductive term “gift economy” being used so often. Moreover, while its dynamics do indeed play a role in CS, Mode A, and the Tribes form, it is a subsidiary role, not a defining role. Gift dynamics may show up in the other models/modes/forms too, but usually as a persistence of its early cultural (not simply economic) role in CS, Mode A, and/or form T.
There may be a way to rethink the EM and gift concepts that suits my TIMN framework, though I’m not sure about yours or Karatani’s frameworks.
TIMN implies that, in the decades ahead the rise of information-age network (N, +N) forms will eventually generate, through differentiation, a fourth realm of actors and activities. It will be as distinct and separate from the existing/earlier three (civil society, government, market economy) as they are from each other; it will be on an interactive par with them. My best deduction so far is that it will be a pro-commons realm, consist mainly of health, education, welfare, environmental, and related insurance actors and activities (who will migrate into it from the existing three realms and their sectors), and will have networked care as its central organizing principle. But if my deduction wrong and something else evolves as a fourth realm, my points about the EM and gift concepts may still apply.
What I’m wondering is this: Both EM and gifting suit a larger purpose: making social connections. Connectivity for whatever purpose is the goal, the desire, the need, more so than is the case with (and in ways that don’t quite fit under) the other models/modes/forms. EM and the gift economy may overlap in some ways; but the purpose of “equality matching” is not to create a “gift economy” — nor vice-vera, at least not precisely. The purpose is to connect in order to circulate something, and to circulate it in order to deepen the connectivity, i.e., to network. The deep purpose is not equality but connectivity in the form of peer-bonding or network-building or match-making or out-reaching across distances in space and time. Or? It’s more a forward-looking spiritual act than a material act.
Thus, I think (and ask whether) it would mutually serve all our frameworks and purposes to supersede the EM and gift concepts with a broader one. My way of doing so will be to replace the broad N-for-networks form in TIMN with a more precise E-for-equinets when I get around to it. And I wonder what you and Karatani might come up with as well. KK’s Mode D still seems quite obscure to me, even though he recently provided some clarifying remarks here (especially about “spiritual powers” that attend each exchange mode):
https://www.crisiscritique.org/storage/app/media/2023-05-18/interview-with-kojin-karatani.pdf
Onward.