ONE POUND GIFT

Marcel Mauss suggests in his famous essay, ‘Essai sur le don,’ written in the 1920’s that gift giving in pre-industrial societies was about making social transactions and contracts. This in turn indicates that it is a process of control, whereby exchange of goods promotes equilibrium.
The form usually taken is that of the gift generously offered, but the accompanying behaviour is formal pretence and social deception, while the transaction itself is based on obligation and economic self-interest.
A huge amount of money is now generated by the industries that create gifts. The design of gift items has always been problematic, presenting the industrial or product designer with a number of dilemmas to be overcome. Objects created specifically as gifts are almost always disappointing from a design point of view. This issue is discussed at length by Clive Dilnot in his essay The Gift.
There are different types of gift, and not all will be reciprocated exactly:
Of course a parent does not expect reciprocal generosity from a child, and of course a thief is not expecting to pay for his loot, but in every other case, a gift is very clearly intended to be reciprocated in rough proportion. The recipient is embarrassed not to have something to give in return, or is annoyed at the thought that you might feel a small box of chocolates to be sufficient payment for all the help they have given you in some way. Even if two payments are in entirely different currencies, the point of giving is to exchange. About the only exception, it seems to me, is sending flowers to a friend in hospital, and even there you expect him to send you flowers when you are in hospital
Christmas is the most significant gift-giving time in the Western calendar. Its importance in economic, as well as cultural (if not religious) terms, is huge:
With the secularization of society we have relegated the sacred to the material world. In so doing, the control of transcendence has shifted from the central authority of the church to the diffuse authority of the media and the merchant. It is not surprising that material values have come to be emphasised over (but sometimes under the banner of) spiritual values in Christmas celebrations given these circumstances.
Are things really so bleak? Maybe not. There is evidence that gifts can be given as partly, if not purely altruistic gestures, and that perhaps at some level, in some instances, it really is ‘the thought that counts.’
It is our good fortune that all is not yet couched in terms of purchase and sale. Things have values which are emotional as well as material; indeed in some cases the values are entirely emotional. Our morality is not solely commercial.

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