Today I bring a subject that has always been and will be present in society, and sometimes quite forgotten. On the basis of the whole relationship between the members of society, we find something, and this is nothing more than the EXCHANGE or TRADE.
In these troubled political, economic, and social times we are living now should reflect on the path we have followed and continue to do so without our awareness.
To help us with this reflection, I bring a very interesting book, Essay on the Gift, written by Marcel Mauss in 1925.
In this book Mauss tells us about exchanges in general terms within the various societies (Polynesia, Melanesia, Northwest American) using the comparative method of the various ethnographic facts that were available to him.
Mauss talks to us about what he called "total social fact" and makes a foray into what he calls the total benefits system, and the idea of the institution known as potlatch emerges, which is what we might call the instrument of socioeconomic, political, and economic relations. even spiritual.