human economy

is an economy in which an individual is part of a network of particular social relations (as mother, brother, cousin, wife) and the principal function of exchange is to maintain that system of relations and to effect 'moves' within it.

Central to Graeber's historical account is a transition from what he calls 'human economies' to 'commercial economies'. Both are societies with some form of monetary equivalence, and with the possibility of debt and credit. But in a human economy, an individual is part of a network of particular social relations (as mother, brother, cousin, wife) and the principal function of exchange is to maintain that system of relations and to effect 'moves' within it. Debts may be incurred as the result of harms and get repaid with appropriate compensation. A marriage may require the bride's family to pay or receive some token (in cows or sheep perhaps). Similarly, gift exchange is a way of affirming and reproducing a system of social relations. In a commercial economy, by contrast, money is used to buy and sell things and the commodification of the necessaries of life (housing, clothing, food) raises the possibility of the oppressive subjection of the needy to their creditors, a subjection that is all the more humiliating because is between supposed equals.

human economy, n.All

human economy