object of power

is a gift object such as a necklace which circulates not because of its value but because of its power. Also called primitive money or valuables, the circulation of these objects accounts for a separate economy from the market economy which is collapsing under capitalism.

Then I have a small program for myself as a sort of hobby. I want to work on with what I call 'objects of power,' what was called sometime primitive money, valuables, and so on. If you go back to Mauss, there is what he calls the 'power' of objects, the source of the obligation to give and then return the gift. Because I think there was something wrong with Levi-Strauss' comments on Mauss, and because I've had some experience with the encounter and interaction of capitalist money and so called primitive money. I would like to continue with this subject for the next two or three years. I'm discussing it with a group of people, and well, that's about it. (interview net) . . .Some valuable enters into the society as a commodity, a necklace produced by another tribe one five hundred kilometers away which is produced to be exported, but often as it enters into the society it is no more bought or sold. It circulates as a non-commodity, as an object of gift and power. And so you see that people know very well the difference between a market exchange economy and things coming into their society as objects of gifts, of 'God,' or valuables to be manipulated through kinship, power structures and so on. So that disjunction between the two domains is very important. And so with capitalist society the two domains are collapsing. In capitalist societies, power often takes the form of money. And so the first category fuses with the second one. There is a sort of collusion and collapse of the distinction. But in New Guinea today, natives go to a farm and buy pigs, 'agro-business' pigs... they know they are not the same as the local ones, they are the English brand of the species, weigh much more, they have nothing to do with a local pig. So New Guineans buy twenty of these English pigs with the money they earned from selling their coffee, and introduce them into the network of traditional competitive exchanges like native pigs... they transform industrial products and commodities into pigs to give. So Papua New Guineans know the distinctions, and oscillate between the two... there are modern things going on at the same time as the traditional ones... that is, before a total collapse of tradition itself. It takes a long time, as long as they can play this double game, it takes generations before the traditional logic fades away and disappears.

object of power, n.Definitions

object of power