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Questions and Controversies 23 own.”14 The economic functioning of these institutions was not based on the simultaneous functioning of interconnected markets, with exchange mechanisms and supply-and-demand equilibriums that permitted the circulation of goods throughout the society. It was based, in general, on either reciprocity or redistribution. In reciprocity, the individual hunts, farms, or otherwise works to produce a product, which may then be given to a relative, clansman, or other address dictated by customary rules. The recipient may not repay the gift directly, but somewhere in the society (or perhaps in a neighboring one), there is a person or group of persons who give produce to the donor. The producer works not directly for the goods produced but for the societal prestige of being a good producer; this in turn, but very indirectly, may result in getting more physical goods, but under normal circumstances, that is not the goal. It should be noted that the term reciprocity, as used by Polanyi, does not apply to what we would call ordinary exchange; on the contrary, it is opposed to the kind of trading that goes on in a market. Polanyi’s reciprocity is the fulfilling of social responsibilities in such a way that everyone is a giver in certain situations, a receiver in others. Marshall Sahlins distinguishes three kinds of reciprocity: generalized reciprocity (you give if you have, take if you need, but there is no calculation of relative values), balanced reciprocity (a trade should be fair), and negative reciprocity (you try to get the best of the deal).15 Polanyi’s reciprocity belongs under Sahlins’s category of generalized reciprocity, but even there it sits uncomfortably, for Sahlins’s way of describing the matter disembeds the economic question from the society, putting us back into the situation where the relevant question for the individual is how to get a return, not how to fit into society. The sort of organization described by Polanyi as “reciprocity” may be seen through other glasses. In a challenging paper, Annette B. Weiner holds that the organization whereby each individual produces for some other individual can more properly be seen not as “reciprocity”—a sort of vast generalized trade taking place throughout the society—but, rather, as “reproduction ,” the constant labor for “the renewal, revival, rebirth or recreation of entities previously reproduced.”16 Weiner, however, has not yet found her Finley, and her theory has not yet been influential in the field of ancient history. 14. Polanyi, Livelihood, 51. 15. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 191–96. Donlan (“Reciprocities”) cites Homeric examples for all three types. 16. Weiner, 71. 24 Invention of Coinage and Monetization of Ancient Greece In the form of redistribution most relevant to our discussion, products are given to a central figure, normally a chief or other important man; he collects vastly more products than he can possibly use, and may indeed be expected to demonstrate his wealth by ostentatiously letting them rot or destroying them. He is also expected, on the other hand, to offer feasts, help, and other forms of largesse, so that much of the produce eventually gets redistributed throughout the society, with everyone receiving a share according to what the society considers appropriate.17 It should be noted that redistribution can be managed either for the maintenance of societal solidarity or for the accomplishment of external goals, whether of the ruler or of the group as a whole. In the first instance, redistribution is a form of pooling resources; in the second, it is a form of mobilization.18 Although these two forms can be distinguished, it will be obvious that different observers may judge differently which we have in a given case and that, moreover, one form of redistribution can slip into another, as the history of the Soviet Union has demonstrated.19 Polanyi, who spoke of redistribution in relatively benign terms, was not thinking of societies in which redistribution is a form of mobilization. In his early work, Polanyi mentioned a third form of organization, which he called “householding,” the organization of the self-sufficient household, village, or manor;20 in his later work and in that of his followers, little is made of this third method, which is generally subsumed under the category of redistribution.21 The strong indictment of modern economics contained in Polanyi’s thought—the claim that modern economics, whether capitalistic or communistic , leaves the individual alienated by addressing physical needs in isolation from the social integration that is essential...

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