Revisiting Mauss: Can the Symbolic Perspective Provide Insights to Economics?

Abstract

The article presents gift and counter-gift as a third interpretative paradigm, alternative to both the homo oeconomicus and to the normative ethical acting of more sociological flavour. It then applies this perspective to the relationship between employer and worker. The contribution to the existing literature is that gift-exchange can be seen not only as an institution reinforcing the need for economics to adopt an institutional approach tout court and a total interdisciplinary attitude (Cedrini et al. (2020) point out how the co-presence of obligation and freedom in gift giving is an evidence of the irreducibility and complexity of human action), but also as an institution still operating today; even if it does not explicitly organize exchanges as in the societies described by Mauss (2000).

Keywords: Gift/counter-gift, reversibility and reciprocity, Marcel Mauss, labour market

JEL Classification: A12, Z13