otueqcxaJo flgleloru aql pup fauo;41

Money and the morality of exchange

EDITEDBY

I. P A R R Yand M . B L O CH

CarvrnnrDcE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Publishedby the PrcssSyndicateof thc Univcrsity of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Streer,Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 U/cst 20th Street, New York, NY tOOil.f2ll USA l0 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Mclbourne 3166, Australia @ Cambridge Univcrslty Press 1989 Ftrst publisM 1989 Rcpintcd 1991,1993,1995,1996 British Librurv cataloguingin publication data Money aod the moralityof exchange. l. Monetarysystems I. Parry. Jonathan.1943II. Bloch.M.

332.4
Library of Congresscataloguing in publication data Money and the moralityof exchange/edited by J. Parry and M. Bloch. p. cm. (pbk.) ISBN 0-521-36597-X. - ISBN 0-521-3677a-3 l. Exchange studies. - Cross-cultural 2. Money - Special aspects studies. - Cross-cultural 3. Economicanthropology. L Parry.JonathanP. ll. Bloch. Maurice. GN450.M66 1989 306'.3- dcl9 88-37709 CUP ISBN 0 521 36597 X hard covers ISBN0 521 367743 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2000

Contents

List of contributors l.

page vii

Introduction: Money and the moralityof exchange pARRy JoNATHAN and ue,uplcr BLocH, London School of Economics

2. Misconceiving the grainheap:a critiqueof the concept of the Indianjajmani system c. J. FULLEp., London Schoolof Economics 3. On the moral perilsof exchange pARRy, JoNATHAN LondonSchoolof Economics 4. Money, men and women R. L. srrRRA"r, University of Swsex 5. Cookingmoney:genderand the symbolictransformation of means of exchange in a Malay fishing community JANErcARsrEN,ClareHall, Cambridge 6. Drinking cash: the purificationof money through ceremonialexchange in Fiji c. roREN, London Schoolof Economics 7. The symbolism of moneyin Imerina BLocH, London School MAURTcE of Economics to the present by the past:mediums and money 8. Resistance in Zimbabwe DAvID txN, London Schoolof Economics

JJ

64

94

r17

142

165

191

vi

Contents 209

metals in the Andeanmoral economy 9. Precious M. J. sALLNow, LondonSchool of Economics 10. The earth and the state: the sourcesand meanings of moneyin Northern Potosf,Bolivia olrvrA HARRIs, Goldsmiths College Index

232 269

Contributors

Maurice Bloch obtained his PhD from Cambridge University. At presenthe is Professor of SocialAnthropologyat the London Schoolof Economics.His latest book is From blessingto violence,Cambridge Togetherwith J. Parry he editedthe volumeDeathand UniversityPress. the regenerationof life. obtained her PhD at the LondonSchoolofEconomics JanetCarsten and associate in the Departmentof Anthropology at is currently a Research of Cambridge the University anda Fellowof ClareHall. Sheis theauthor of a numberof articles on Malaysia. hisPhD from Cambridge ChrisFullerobtained University. At present he is a Readerin SocialAnthropologyat the London Schoolof Economics. His fatestbook is Servants of thegoddess, CambridgeUniversityPress. Olivia Harris studiedat Oxford and the London Schoolof Economics. She is currentlySeniorLecturerat Goldsmith's College,Universityof on the Laymi of Bolivia. London.Sheis the authorof various articles David Lan obtained his PhD at the London Schoolof Economics.As playright. He is the well as being an anthropologist he is a successful of California Press). author of.Guns and rain (Currey/University JohnnyParryobtainedhis PhD at Cambridge University.Currentlyhe is a Readerin the Departmentof Anthropology at the London Schoolof and kinship in Kangra.Together Economics.He is the author of Caste with M. Bloch he edited Death and the regeneration of life, Cambridge UniversityPress. University. Currently obtained his PhD from Manchester Mike Sallnow at Lecturer in Anthropology the London he is Senior School of Economics.He is the author of Pilgrims of the Andes. Smithsonian InstitutionPress.
vlt

viii

Contributors

Jock Stirrat obtainedhis PhD from CambridgeUniversity.Currently he is Lecturerin Anthropologyat Sussex University.He is the author of On the Beach,HindustanPublishing Corps. Christina Toren obtained her PhD from the London School of Economics.She has taught at the Universityof Manchesterand at the of the Universityof London. At Schoolof African and Oriental Studies presentshe is preparingtwo books,one on the learningof symbolismin Fiji and the other on anthropologyand psychology.

1
lntroduction:money and the morality of exchange
MAURICE BLOCH and JONATHAN PARRY

with the way in whichmoneyis symbolically This collection is concerned in a rangeof differentsocieties and, more especially, represented with as against the moral evaluationof monetaryand commercialexchanges exchanges of other kinds.The focus,then, is on the rangeof cultural whichsurround monetary transactions, and not on the kindsof meanings preoccupied problems of monetary theorywhichhaveconventionally the economist.There is now a very large literature on so-called'primitive us heresince all the chapters concern money',but thisdoesnot centrally which currencies in this volumedeal principally eitherwith state-issued or - as in our two Andeanist act as a generalmedium of exchange. contributions- with the symbolismof preciousmetals and their releand exchange, vanceto Andeanideologies of production collectively emphasise is the enormous The first thing theseessays and in which culturalvariationin the way in whichmoneyis symbolised relatesto culturallyconstructed notionsof production, this symbolism It becomes clearthat in orderto circulation andexchange. consumption, understand the way in which moneyis viewedit is vitally importantto This may understand the culturalmatrix into which it is incorporated. but it is one which hasoften beenforgotten seema bland enoughlesson, writing about money - and lessculpably also by by anthropologists and sociologists. As a resultthey havecommonlyfallen into historians set of the trap of attributing to moneyin generalwhat is in fact a specific which derivefrom our own culture. meanings reveala unity which underlies At anotherlevel,however,our essays diverse they consider. This is to be found examples all of the apparently nor the to money in moral evaluation in the meanings attributed neither way in the the totlity of particular of but rather types exchange, of general part of patternwhich is of the reproduction form a transactions with a time-scale systems concerned far longerthan social andideological the individual human life. It is only when these total patternsare

M. Bloch and ). Parry

that we canbeginto go beyondthe conclusion that the variable compared symbolicelaboration of moneyand monetaryexchange is yet another way in which cultures of the different seethingsdifferently. illustration we argue,reveals a strikinglysimilarconcern Eachof our casestudies, with the relationship between a cycleof short-termexchange which is the legitimate domainof individual often acquisitive activity, and a cycle with the reproduction concerned of long-termexchanges of the social and cosmicorder; and in each case the way in which the two are very articulated turns out to be very similar.This suggests something general about the relationship between the transient individualand the socialorder whichtranscends the individual. enduring we are centrallyconcerned Thus in the first part of this introduction with the way in which our own cultural discourse about money has inhibited a proper appreciation of the variabilityin its cross-cultural part we try to develop In the second the thesis lhat oncewe construction. wider, Ievel more encompassing, of the total systemof move to the important begin to emerge. exchange some continuities The revolutionary implicationsof moneyin lVesterndiscourse which goes One particularlyprominentstrand in Westerndiscourse, generalcondemnation of moneyand tradein the backto Aristotle,is the andproduction for use.The lightof an idealof household self-sufficiency goes this. other animals, man is naturally argument something like Like his wants finite. Trade can only be natural in sofar and are self-sufficient such asin the restoration of self-sufficiency. Just asit is orientedtowards not there, it is with too and enough so naturethere may be much here which will forced to exchange on the basis of mutual then be households of this kind is not contrryto natureand is not a form need.'Interchange of money-making;it keeps to its original purpose - to re-establish (Aristotle 1962:42). Profrt7 nature'sown equilibrium of self-sufficiency' of the bonds is, however,unnatural;and is destructive orientedexchange Pricesshould therefore be fixed, and goods and betweenhouseholds. with the statusof those who proservicesremuneratedin accordance vided them. Money as a tool intended only to facilitate exchangeis wealth,lending at interest naturally barren,and,of all thewaysof getting 'crop' yield 'litter' is 'the is made to a or most contrary money - where (Aristotle 1962:46). to nature' in the Westernworld in the thirteenth Aristotle's writingsre-surfaced centuryand were taken up by ThomasAquinas through whom they on the economicthought and achieved a new renown. His influence (1971:79) quiteas observes, was, as Polanyi attitudes of the MiddleAges to on thinking of which were exercise the SmithandRicardo greatasthat

Money and the morality of exchange

a subsequent epoch;and his authoritywas invoked in supportof the Church'sprofound disquietabout materialacquisition. Some of the for this medievalunease ideological reasons about money- especially profitandthe usurer's interest moneyasrepresentative of the merchant's - are briefly reviewed in Parry'scontribution to this volume. Here we wasthat the merchant may simplynote that one of the major problems apparently creatednothing,while the usurerearnedmoneyevenas he slept.'The laboureris worthyof his hire', but it wasnot at all clearthat the merchant and the money-lender laboured. It wasessentially thisidea of materialproduction as the source of value(Le Goff 1980: 61) which promptedTawney(1972:.48) to remarkthat 'the true descendant of the doctrinesof Aquinas is the labour theory of value. The last of the wasKarl Marx.' Schoolmen tradition,however,alsocontainsanothervery Our own intellectual aboutmoneyand monetary which differentkind of discourse exchange seesit as a far more benigninfluence on sociallife. for the conclusion to be drawn from Mandeville'sFable of the beesand from the 'many advantages' Adam Smith put down to man's propensity'to truck, was that the happiness barter and exchange' and prosperity of society wasfoundedon the individualpursuitof monetaryself-gain. In fact as Hirschman(1977)points out, and we return to his argumentbelow, this theory goes back mucb further than either of thesewriters and originally took the form of condoning money-makingas a comparativelyharmless and gentlevice that could be positivelyharnessed of a more dangerous to the commonweal as a curb on other 'passions' and disruptive kind. Between these two radically opposedviews of money there are, of positions. course,a very largenumberof intermediate Simmel(1978), ancla conditionfor the for example, sawin it an instrument of freedom, personality extension of the individual and the expansion of the circleof trust; but at the sametime as a threatto the moral order. But what all thesedifferent strandsin our cultural tradition appearto agreeabout is that - whetherfor good or ill - moneyactsas an incrediblypowerful agent of profound social and cultural transformations.Regardless of relations culturalcontextandof the natureof existing of production and exchange, it is often creditedwith an intrinsicpower to revolutionise and culture,and it is sometimes assumed society that thispower will be recognised construct money in the way in which the actorsthemselves symbolically.The essays collectedhere cast some doubt on both these propositions.Money, we believe,is in nearly as much dangerof being as by stockbrokers. fetishised by scholars

M. Bloch and ], Parry Marx and Simmel on the social corollariesof money This 'fetishism' appearsin different degreein the work of two highly writerson money,to whom we havealreadyreferred:Marx influential and Simmel. For Simmel(1978),moneywasof major significance for the developworld we now inhabitsinceit helpedto promote ment of the cognitive rational calculationin social life and encouraged the rationalisation characteristic of modernsociety; whilein the same vein othershaveseen moneyasthe basis for an abstract ofthought(cf. Frankel1977:7). system More thana reflection of otherstructural features of a moderneconomy (asDalton[1965]would andsociety represent it), Simmelsaw moneyas 'the major mechanism that pavesthe an activeagentwhich constitutes way from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. Under its aegis, the modern has prevailedover an older world spirit of calculation and abstraction that accordedprimacy to feelingsand imagination'(Coser 1977: 194). the modernspiritof rationality, Encapsulating calculability and anonymity, it represents a privileged instance for investigating the whole Unlike Simmel,who sees moneyitselfas the principalcatalyst for the of sociallife, Marx's tretmentlinks it to the (for him) transformation phenomenon for exchange of production more fundamental - this being money medium. For what ultimatelycreates the need for an abstract with, and promotes,the both writers, however,money is associated growthof individualism of solidarycommunities. and the destruction of moneyand marketexchange Like Aristotle,Marx'scondemnation nostalgia for a world in whichproduction was reflects a certainromantic for useand the interdependence of the humancommunityhad not been the old order. it wasnot shattered by exchange. Howeverexploitative as capitalism is - based solelyon explicit,relentless, egotistical calcula(and of tion. If the labourtheoryof valueinviteda critiqueof capitalism moneymediumwith which it is associated) on groundsof the abstract equity, the new mode of productionalsogaverise to a gravemisgiving writers- that it deniedthosemoral sharedalso by many non-Marxist 'bondswhichunite men one with another'which Durkheimemphasised (by which Marx meant as the basisof all socialsolidarity.Exchange betweencombeginswith the exchange of surpluses market exchange) commodities in external trade, But onceobjectshavebecome munities. within the communityand they inevitably tend to become commodities betweenits members. the bonds of personaldependence to dissolve Independent communities become dependent, and dependent individuals become independent(Roberts and Stephenson1983: 13). thus Exchange and the abstract moneyform from whichit is inseparable, (cf. Marx l9M:96) and as agents of individualisation standcondemned

Money and the morality of exchange

of the dissolution of thecommunal bondswhichobtained in the world of production for use. When,Marx argues. the directlaboura medieval serfowedto his lord wascommutedinto a rent-in-kind and then (more significantly) into a money-rent, a contractual relationship replaced the bondsof personal dependence betweenthem and many peasantholdingswere expropriated,whilesomeserfs managed freefrom their rent to buy themselves peasants with independent propertyrightsin the obligations and become 20-1). land (Robertsand Stephenson 1983: traces a rathersimilarevolution but emohasises the advance Simmel in humanfreedomwhichresults. of beeror poultryor honey The lordof the manorwhocandemand a quantity froma serf, thereby determines of thelatterin a certain direction. But theactivity he imposes themoment merely a money levythepeasant is free , in sofar ashe (Simmel whether or anything candecide to keepbees or cattle else 1978:286). While money erodesolder solidarities, for Simmelit also promotesa wider and more diffusesort of socialintegration. In the caseof barter, to the parties directlyconcerned in the transaction; trust is confined but monetary exchange extends expanded this trustto an enormously social 'Now each,' as Frankel puts it (1977:31-2),'[is] no longer universe. dependent only on his relationto the other but alsoon relations to the circle which, in an abstract and indefinable way, guaranteed economic and acceptability the functioning of the moneythey madeuseof.' the way in which people Not only is it claimedthat moneychanges persons based think, and dissolves bondsbetween on kinshipand other persons criteria,it is alsoheldto effectthat separation between ascriptive is deniedby manyprimitive and thingswhich,as Mauss(1966) stressed, at a distance.Only in and archaicsocieties. Money permits possession the form of money can profits be easily transferredfrom one place to another, allowing for a spatial separationbetweenthe owner and his exclusively accordproperty which 'enables the propertyto be managed while it givesits owner a chanceof leadinghis ing to objectivedemands (Simmel1978: of his possessions' 333).While the gift life independently object always'retainsan elementof the personwho gaveit', of a specific and more relationships tend to be 'more completelydissolved exchange cf. radicallyterminatedby the paymentof money . . .' (ibid. p.3761' Mauss1966). that propertyis really a relationNotwithstanding Marx's insistence betweenpersons as a relationship ship betweenpeoplemasquerading moneyasdriving a in which he too represents and things,there is a sense wedge between persons and things in that it appears to sever the relationshipbetweenthe producerand his product. The worker has no

M. Bloch and J. Parry

access to the means of productionand is paid a wagefor his labour. As a resulthisproductis heldto belongto somebody else,and is alienated on the marketin an absolute way as if it had no connection with him. The to ppear commodity comes asthoughit has'a"naturalprice", a relation to money and other commoditiesindependentof the human factors involved'(Ollman 1976:196).While in the feudalworld the lord and his serfs were inseparablefrom the land in which they had rights, with privatepropertyfreelyexchangeable moneya man'sindividualagainst ity is not conflatedwith his property in the sameway (ibid. p. 208-9). andanonymity of money,it is argued, lendsitselfto The impersonality the impersonal and inconsequential relationships characteristic of the market-place and evento a complete anonymity in exchange. Destrucsocialrelations. 'The indiffertive of community, moneydepersonalises ent objectivityof moneytransactions is in insurmountable conffictwith . . . The desirable party for the personal character of the relationship . . . is the personwho is completely financial transactions indifferentto us, engaged neitherfor us nor against us (Simmel1974:227). by the same and impersonal, moneymeasures everything Anonymous yardstick of qualityto and thereby - it is reasoned - reduces differences those of merequantity.It is in its denialof the unique,andin the factthat it may easilycome to be regarded as the meansto a// endsso that its possession confersan almostgod-likepower, that Simmel locatesits potential. speaks of moneyas mostdangerous Similarly Marx ( 1961: 132) 'the radicalleveller, that . . . doesawaywith all distinctions'-not even this alchemy'. the bones of the saints beingable 'to withstand that money In the light of sucharguments it is temptingto conclude acts as a kind of acid which inexorably dissolvescherishedcultural differences pereats away at qualitative and reduces discriminations, then, that It is only to be expected, sonal relationsto impersonality. which must for the first time come to terms those'traditional'cultures force tearingat the very with it will represent moneyas a dark satanic fabricof society. that moneyis creditedwith a It is not only in sucha world, however, of fully fledged capitalism no mastery over men.Thoughin the ideology with credited longeran agentof someevil empire,moneyis nevertheless a life-likepower.Indeed,as Marx sawit. this fetishism of moneyas the from pre-eminent of thefetishism is inseparable example of commodities with fecundity. Money'breeds' Here moneyitselfis endowed capitalism. - as 'it is an attributeof pear moneymuch - Marx ironicallyobserved transformed treesto bear pears. . .' Money as capitalis ideologically of production, reducing the workersto mereappendages, into the source makingit appearonly right and properthat capitalshouldreap its 'just standardof value misrepreward'. Moreovermoney as a generalised

Money and the morality of exchange

resentsproduction by making the value of a commodity expressed in asan intrinsic qualityof the commodity itself- like moneytermsappear one of its physicalproperties - rather than of the labour which went into lost from sight. Relationsbetween its production, which now becomes peoplemasquerade as relationsbetweenthings. : :'traditional':'modern'? Non-monetary: monetary Giventhat moneyis held to havethe kind of profoundimpacton society that and cultureto which we havealludedabove,it is hardlysurprising divisionbetweennonto postulate there is a tendency a fundamental (or evensocieties). By the process of and monetary economies monetry (chapter10),it is also slippage whichHarrisdescribes in her contribution easy to see how this oppositiongets elided with a seriesof other and capitalist, dichotomies - 'traditional'and 'modern', pre-capitalist gift economiesand commodity economies,production for use and production for exchange - with money actingas a major catalystof the 'greattransformation' between them, or at leastas a tellingindexof it. The effectof thishasbeento blinda numberof writersto the importance pre-capitalist economies. of moneyin many 'traditional', effectin reference to Fuller's chapter makes thispointwith devastating been called the anthropological discussions of what has inappositely What he shows is how thisso-called'system'has 'Hindu jajmanisystem'. been usedto exemplifya radicaloppositionbetween'traditional'and 'modern'economic and how, in the service of this andideologies systems (and others) have managedto ignore the objective,anthropologists overwhelminghistorical evidencefor the importanceof monetary Indianruraleconoin the 'traditional' exchanges and marketintegration purportto refer.This is lrue of a wholerange miesto whichtheir models writers for whom the from thosenineteenth-century of commentators world of the jajmani 'system'was part of a picture of the moneyless unto itself,to Wiserwho village community asa 'little republic'sufficient to demolish the perpetuates thisstereotype, to Dumontwho isconcerned meaningfulisolate but who idea of the village as a sociologically of marketexchange to downplaythe significance contrives nevertheless in the pre-Britishera. What implicitly seemsto underlie this misrenotion about the transformative presentation is a deeply entrenched becomes an indexof a 'modern' potential of moneysuchthat its presence society,with the corollarythat in a 'traditional'one it can only be of its But whateverthe causeof such blindness, peripheralsignificance. of his highlyquestionMarx in the formulation effectwas10encourage and Dumont 'Asiaticmodeof production', abletheoryof an unchanging the politicaleconomyof pre-British contrastbetween in his overdrawn

M. Bloch and J. Pany

and British India, and perhapsalso between Homo hierarchicusand Homo aequalis. More generally, Fuller'sargumentshouldalert us to rhe possibility that the significance of money and market exchange has been similarly under-estimated in the ethnographic description and analysis of precapitalist economies elsewhere in the world, and to the fct that the extentof monetisation is not a reliable indexof the atrophyof the 'moral economy'. As Bayly(1985: 286)hasconcluded from the lndian historical record, the expansion of the casheconomy'did not . . . dissolvethe relationsof dominancethat arosefrom the interplay betweenthe norms of caste andthestructure of the pettykingdoms'. Evenwithin the domain of the market buyersand sellerswere constrained by obligations that requiredthat they purchase certainthingsat certaintimes,in certainmarkets. The widespread existence of markets. money-lenders. account anddouble-entry wasnot books incompatible withthepersistence of pre-capitalist mentalities in material culture . . . money of itself nottransform could relationships . . . (ibid.p. 316) Gifts and commodities A further opposition in this sequence on which several of our chapters have some bearingis that betweengift and commodityexchange. In Gregory's(1982)neat formulationthe first is basedon an exchange of inalienableobjects betweeninterdependen, transactors;the secondan exchangeof alienableobjects between independent transactors.It is, moreover, often assumedthat this radical opposition between the which underliethe two typesof exchange principles will be reflected in an equally radical contrstin their moral evaluation.Stirrat's chapter, however, reminds us that there are commodity contextsin which the alienableobject is transacted betweenconceptuallyinterdependent persons;while in the casewhich Parry describes the gift is alienatedas aspossible and mustneverreturnto the donor, for it is held to radically embodyhis sins(cf. Parry 1986) - and this is so regardless of whetherit is in cash or kind. Here moneyis clearly far from beinga purelydepersonalisedinstrument.Like the gift in kind it containsand transmitsthe moral qualities of thosewho transact it. As thissuggests, the ideathat the very impersonality of moneymakes it of questionable appropriateness as a gift (except significantly in charitablecontextswhere the relationshipbetweendonor and recipient is similadyimpersonal) seems to be a peculiarity of our own culture* a peculiaritywhich is exploredin somedetail in the chapterby Bloch (see (1967) alsoWolfram(1987). The gift, asSchwartz hasnoted,imposes an 'the ideawhich identityon both the donor and the recipient, and reveals

Money and the morality of exchange

the recipientevokesin the imaginationof the giver'. But gifts of money do not imposean identity in the sameway, and in this respectits abstract impersonalitydissolves the giver's authority. The problem seemsto be thatfor rs moneysignifies a sphereof 'economic'relationships which are inherently impersonal,transitory,amoral and calculating.There is therefore something profoundly awkward about offering it as a gift which are supposed expressive of relationships to be personal,enduring, moral and altruistic.But clearlythis awkwardness derivesfrom the fact that here money's 'natural' environment- the 'economy' - is held to constitutean autonomousdomain to which general moral preceptsdo not apply (cf. Dumont 1977).Where it is not seen as a separateand amoraldomain,wherethe economy is'embedded'in society and subject to its moral laws, moiletary relations are rather unlikely to be repreof bondsof kinshipand friendship, sentedas the antithesis and there is consequentlynothing inappropriate about making gifts of money to cementsuchbonds. The radicaloppositionwhichso manyanthropologists havediscovered between the principles on which gift and commodity exchangeare foundedderivesin part, we believe,from the fact that orr ideologyof the gift hasbeenconstructed in antithesis to marketexchange. The idea of the purely altruisticgift is the other sideof the coin from the idea of the (Parry1986), purelyinterested utilitarian exchange and we cannottherefore expectthe ideologies of non-marketsocieties to reproducethis kind of opposition(cf. Strathern1985).In his contributionto this volume Parry discusses a seriesof cases which exemplify a whole range which runs from a situation in which the (supposedly) morally unproblematic sphere of gift exchangeis opposed to morally perilous commodity exchange,to one in which it is gift exchangewhich representsa dire moral peril while commodity exchangeis distinguishedfrom it by its moralneutrality, to,acontextfrom whichthiskind of opposition in moral evaluation appears to be largelyabsent. While thosewho write in the Marxian tradition stress the mystification which accompanies commodityexchange, they tend by antithesis to treat the world of gift exchangeas non-exploitative, innocent and even transparent. An instance of this romanticidealisation of the world of gift exchange is Taussig's otherwise highlysuggestive discussion of the way in which the peasantry of the Caucavalleyin Columbiahavesymbolically constructedthe world of commodity relations (Taussig(1980). By contrastthe chapters by Sallnowand Bloch in this volumeshowjust how far from beingpoliticallyinnocentsuchnon-commodity exchanges often are, while Parry argues in it is that Hindu India not commodityexchange which is ideologicallyproblematicand loaded but rather what is often madeto standfor innocence in Marxist writing - the exchange of gifts.

10

M. Bloch and |. Parry

How misleading it may be to imply that thereis universally somekind of unbridgeablechasmbetweengift and commodity exchangeis illustrated by Hart's recent discussion of exchanges of fish for yams and vegetables betweencoastaland inland villagesin the Trobriands.Some(known times theseexchanges take the form of ceremonialprestations as wasi) between community leaders;sometimesof barter between (vava). Hart arguesthat the first reflects: individual households distance big menandcorporate highsocial andweakpolitical order,bringing into play.Informalinterpersonal haggling organization reflects low social dispolitical tance andstrong order.The issue is whether individuals belonging to withoutinvoking groups different feelfreeto risk theconflict inherenl in barter prestige thatgowilh ceremonial magic, andhierarchy exchange. all thedanger, created in the relative absence Thusoneform is a temporary social framework predicated on the presence the otheris an atomised interaction of of society; (Hart 1986). society point for our purposes is that Hart's approachallows him The essential arrangements, of to emphasise the dynamicaspects theseinstitutional political in relations between for it is easy to see ho\rya breakdown from barter to ceremonial coastaland inland villageswould effecta shift and their reestablishment a move back in the other direction. exchange. and 'commodity Here at any rate the oppositionbetween'gift exchange' is often implied, for it seems looks rather lessabsolutethan exchange' other. that one may evolverather easilyinto the We are similarly somewhat sceptical of the radical opposition to 'gifts'and 'commodities' impliedby the notionof 'fetishism' between of the enormous significance which we have previously referred, and attributed to money in the creation of such phantasmagoricconstructions. For Marx there is a crucial distinction * though i is not always consistentlymaintained - between money as capital when it is for labour power, and money as mere money when it is exchanged for the productsof labour. Sincesurpluslabour is the source exchanged that labour and sinceit is only in capitalism of capitalaccumulation, poweris routinelyexchanged for money,it may be arguedthat it is only value here that money will generallyappearto have the self-expanding implied by the notion of fetishism- that it becomesan aspectof the natureof moneythat it 'breeds'more money.At any rate Marx writesas mediatedby money, the of commodityexchange though,in the absence what they really are. In the products of labour are recognisedfor 'abstract' form but rather this pre-capitalist world, relationsdo not take the form of concrete personal relations. In the Middle Ages, for example, the personalisednature of economic relations meant that there was

Money and the morality of exchange

17

anditsproducts a fantastic no necessity for labour to assume formdifferent from in thetransactions of services in kind theirreality. Theytaketheshape, of society payments in kind.Heretheparticular andnatural formof labour, andnot,as and in a society based on production itsgeneral abstract formis the of commodities. labour. labour isjustasproperly measured immediate formof social Compulsory producing labour; whatheexpends by time,ascommodity butevery serfknows quantity power of hisownpersonal labour in theservice of hislordis a definite of theirlabour . . . thesocial relations in theperformance of individuals appear personal at allevents astheirownmutual relations, andarenotdisguised under (Marx1961: relations between theproducts of labour 77). theshape of social formulathat: Or again,we havethe more general of commodities, andnecromancy thatsurrounds thewhole mystery all themagic vanishes the products of labourso longastheytakethe formof commodities, (ibid.p. 76). assoonaswecometo otherformsof production therefore, wouldseemto suggest is that in the pre-capitalist What suchstatements world the productsof labour are not surroundedby 'magic and necromancy' - a proposition which is difficult to squarewith Mauss'scharwhich he acterization of the gift in primitive and archaicsocieties, of Marx'sdescription of the commodity describes - in termsreminiscent - as 'not inert' but 'alive and often personified'(Mauss 1966: 10). (ibid. pp. 43-4) suggested evidence Moreover,Mauss's that the ceremonial 'coppers' which were exchangedin the potlatchesof the northwest-coast AmericanIndiansare represented as 'begetting' other (Mauss1966:434),muchasmoneyis saidto'breed'money.On coppers the faceof it, then, it would seemthat the objectsof exchange are as asin a capitalist in a pre-capitalist economy one (cf. likelyto be fetishised 1985: chap.9). Josephides Comaroff1985:72-3: possible halo acquired to arguethat the magical by the It is, however, It have quite different origins in the two cases. objectsof exchange of commodities derives might, for example,be said that the fetishism from the separation between the product and the producer, which confers on the commodity the appearanceof a quasi-independent while - followingMauss- that of the gift would derivefrom existence, and things,which givesit the betweenpersons the lack of separation of the donor (Taussig of beinganimated by the personality appearance the'fetishism'or between 1980: 3G7). Or, again,one mightdistinguish where for the most part 'objectification' characteristic of capitalism, persons are spokenof as thoughthey were things,and the 'personifieconomies where thingsacquire of pre-capitalist cation' characteristic the attributes of persons(cf. Gudeman 1986: 44). Such distinctions 'Money pleading. and special of a certainarbitrariness smack,however, are sometimes transferred in a conomy;persons talks' in a capitalist

12

M. Bloch and f. Parry

remarkably'thing-like'mannerin some pre-capitalist ones, while (to givebut oneexample) 'the historyof clothin Indiaalsoshows how things could retain the quality of the people who fashionedand exchanged them, evenin a fully monetized economy'(Bayly 1986). It is therefore quite unclearto us that there is any simpledivide between the kind of mysticalaura which surroundsthe objectsof exchange in capitalistand pre-capitalist economies, or that it can be money which explainsthe (alleged) difference. The impact of money on'traditional' worlds The dominant notion which we have identifiedin our own cultural an intrinsically aboutmoney- that it represents revolutionary discourse power which inexorablysubverts the moral economyof 'traditional' societies - hasoften,we believe, beentakenover somewhat uncritically by the anthropologist. The effectof this hasbeento misrepresent the real complexityof the causalfactorsat work in the transformations experiby manycultures astheyaresucked into the world of the capitalist enced market. It is perhapsworth pausingover two particularlystriking examples of this kind of misrepresentation. the best-known Probably discussion of the impactof Westernmoney on a previouslynon-monetary subsistence economy is Bohannan's account of the caseof the Tiv of northernNigeria(Bohannan1955,1959; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968). The 'traditional' Tiv economy conrankedspheres ofexchange: a lowestrankingsphere tainedthreedistinct goods transacted of subsistence in which mainly by market exchanges people tried 'to maximizetheir gainsin the best tradition of economic 22'1); goodsin which brass man' ( 1968: a sphere of prestige rodsservedas of payment a mediumof exchange, of valueandmeans standard ; and the highestrankingsphere of rightsin humanbeingsand, in particular,of rights in marriageable women. Small localisedagnaticlineagesformed groupsin which rights in the daughters ward-sharing of the group were vested.The elder men of the group were the guardians of one or more girlswhom they exchanged with outsiders for a wife for themselves or for recompense the only acceptable for one of their closeagnates entirely the gift of a girl beingthe returnof another. were what Bohannan calls 'conThe vast majority of exchanges within the sphere,and thesewere morally neutral. But under veyances' werepossible, between spheres and certaincircumstances'conversions' - grudgingadmiration thesewere the focusof strongmoral evaluations for the man who converted'up', scornfor the one who converted'down'. occurred, betweenthe subsistence and the prestige spheres Conversions forced by an acute scarcity when an individual was of for example,

Money and the morality of exchange

13

products to exchangebrass rods for food. Conversions subsistence betweenthe prestigesphereand the sphereof rightsin womenoccurred, for example,when a man managed to contracta kem marriage which did not involve giving a ward in return, but which did involve a paymentof brassrods for the wife's sexualand domesticservices and a subsequent payment for the rightsof a fatherover any of the childrenshebore him. Since such a wife had been acquiredwithout obligation to the wardsharinggroup, they had no claim in her daughterwhom the father could allocatein marriageas he chose.He had in effect convertedbrassrods into rightsover people. analysis Centralto Bohannan's is the importance he attaches to the introduction of Westernmoney in subvertingTiv spheresof exchange andconverting this'multicentric' into a'unicentric' economy one. Other factors,like externaltrade,are acknowledged to be of significance, but main emphasis is on the new medium of exchange which Bohannan's provideda commondenominator which allowedall commodities to be compared against a single measure and made them immediately 'It is in the natureof a general-purpose exchangeable. money that it standardizes the exchangeability valueof everyitem to a commonscale. It is precisely thisfunctionwhichbrass rods,a "limited-purpose money" in the old system, did not perform.''Money',he concludes, is'one of the simplifyingideasof all time, and like any other new and shatteringly compelling idea,it creates its own revolution'(1959). we believe, considerably the casefor it is not a priori overstates This, obvious that by itself moneydoesindeed reduceeverylhing to a common measure, or make it impossible for the Tiv to deny that certainthingscan and politicalhonours, be boughtfor money- aswe denythat academic change marriagepartners,sexualfavoursand so on can legitimately handsagainst a moneypayment. Nor is it clearthat sucha reduction has in fact occurredto the extentwhichBohannan's more generalstatements for example, therewaslittle evidence imply.At the time of hisfieldwork, it was that landwasbecoming a commodity. The ideaof rentingor selling immoral,andastantamount regarded asthoroughly to rentingor selling position (1969: 9n-. Nor could it be exchanged one's genealogical plot of land- and all thisin against anything elseat all - not evenanother spite of the fact that for various reasonsthere was now increasing pressure on what wasalreadya scarce resource. - only that the This is not, of course,to claim that nothinghaschanged transformationof Tiv economicbehaviourmay not have been quite as radicalas Bohannanimplies,But more importantlywe would arguethat the introductionof lVesternmoneydoesnot accountfor thesechanges, The first of thesewas and that other factorsareof far greatersignificance. asa result an expansion of the 'economicfrontier', in significant measure

14

M. Bloch and f. Parry

of the Pax Britannica, and the penetrationof an external market into Tivland- moneybeingone indexof this penetration thoughincorporation into the wider marketmeantfar more than the introduction of a What it meantaboveall wasthat 'general-purpose'medium of exchange. Tivlandbecame a marketfor silnificant numbers who paid of Ibo traders cash(essential to the Tiv for the paymentof tax) for agriculturalproduce - drivingup pricesand creating which they then exported shortages in Tivlanditself. It is smallwonder.then. that the Tiv claim that the lbo 'spoil a market' and try to excludethem from it. What's more, these outside traders hadno commitment to the moraleconomy of the Tiv, and were presumablyquite ready to trade prestigegoods for cash - thus effectivelydestroyingthe barriersto conversionbetweenthe prestige spheres. and subsistence At the other end of the scalethe British effectively destroyed the impermeability of the highestsphereby legislative fiat. Traditionally what had inhibited the conversionof prestigegoods into rights over women was the institutionof exchange marriagewhich meant that normallythe only way to obtaina wife wasto offer a girl in exchange. But pressure and'whatappeared undermissionary superficially to be popular demand'(Bohannan and Bohannan1968:248)the colonialauthorities success managed - with surprising - to outlaw suchexchange marriages. The result was that instead of brides being exchangeable only for and sisters. they now became freelyavailable on paymentof daughters to have beento deprive the lineage brassrods. The effect of this seems wielded influence elders of muchof theirpower,for theyhadclearly over to women.Unableto convert the youngmen by controlling their access payments. the young men had the fruits of their labour into marriage traditionally beenbeholden for wivesto the eldersof the ward-sharing group. 'Populardemand'to do awaywith exchange marriagewas not perhapsso 'supercial'after all. At any rate it would seem to be a inference that Tiv spheres a system of reasonable of exchange buttressed poseda direct threat to 'gerontocratic' authority,and their subversion that authority, writesaboutthe Tiv's It is not surprising, then, that whenBohannan mistrustof moneyit alwaysseems to be the elderswho are deploringthe Althoughwe can find no directevidence that the youngmen situation. invokeda differentdiscourse about money,we rather doubt that they weresounanimous or unequivocal in theircondemnation. It is, however, clearthat Tiv elderstalk about moneyin the way that we are apt to do they makeit into a condensed fetishise symbolof marketrelations, it by of humanwill, and blameit attributing to it an innateforceindependent for all the woesof their world. and more recent,example of this tendency Our second, to represent

Money and the morality of exchange

15

money as the crucial agent of social and economictransformationis paperon 'The cultural biography Kopytoff's (1986)rich and fascinating of things',in commenting on whichwe confineourselves exclusively to that part of his argument which bears most directly on our central difficulty. themeand with which we have the greatest For Kopytoff, the crucialattributeof a commodityis its exchangeability, and commodity exchange is a feature of a// societies.A perfectly world would be one in which everythingis exchangeable commoditised for everythingelse; while in a completelydecommoditised one everything would be singular, unique and unexchangeable. Neither, of in practiceand all real world situations course,is conceivable fall somewhere betweenthe two poles- exactlywheredepending on the balance towards an expansionof the struck betweentwo opposingtendencies While a radicalmovement field of commoditisation and its restriction. in the first direction denies cognitive discrimination, and thereby would make culture itself, a trend towardscomplete'singularisation' exchange impossible. - and therebysociallife - progressively The natural world must thereforebe arrangedinto value classes for exchange,and these value classes - which necessarilyexist in every have conventionally called society- constitutewhat anthropologists 'spheresof exchange'.Acknowledgingthe difficulties involved in the for an understandlabour theory of value, Kopytoff notesits relevance Produce and itemsof manufacing of theseseparate exchange spheres. ture, say, yams and pots, can be comparedby referenceto the labour whichwentinto their production. is availbut no suchcommonstandard or yamsand wives,and it ablein the case of, say,potsand ritualoffices, which forms 'the of equivalence is the absence of any obviousmeasure natural basis for the cultural construction of separate spheres of (p.72). exchange' The problem, then, as Kopytoff seesit, lies not in explainingwhy the why they Tiv had separate spheres of exchange but ratherin explaining - and this bringsus to had only threespheres and not more.His answer with him - lies in the technology of the heart of our disagreement for commoditisation is pushedto the limits which the relaexchange, of the Tiv allowed. exchange technology tivelyinefficient systemloward One perceives in this a drive inherentin every exchange the fundamentally seductive optimum commoditization - the driveto extend exchange technology willcomitems of exchange to asmany astheexisting idea whenever it hasbeen of money acceptance fortably allow.Hence the universal conquest of the into non-monetized societies and its inexorable introduced of initialrejection andof indiinternal economy of these societies, regardless well illustrated vidualunhappiness by the modern aboutit - an unhappiness in a wide of the introduclion of money alsothe uniform results Tiv. Hence

16

M. Bloch and J. Pany

commoditization moreextensive andthe different societies: range of otherwise It is as if the internallogicof spheres of exchange., mergerof the separate all economies uponthenewopportunities that to seize exchange itselfpre-adapts with it (p.72). widecommoditization brings soobviously of the with this, Kopytoff goeson to claim that the expansion Consistent capitalismis not a confield of commoditizationwhich accompanies with which technology of capitalismitself, but of the exchange sequence wider limitsto maximum it is associated and whichplaces'dramatically (p. 72).In everyeconomy, we are told, there commoditization' feasible is an inherentdrive - restrained only by the cultural needto discriminate that the exchange - toward 'the greatestdegreeof commoditisation permits';and in small-scale societies this drive is critically technology (p. 87). of the technology of exchange' inhibitedby 'the inadequacies As will be clearfrom whathasgonebefore,we areextremely sceptical and would instnce determinism, Barth's of this kind of technological (1967) whichclearly shows that it cannotbe Darfur studyasoneexample of the technology of exchange alonewhichprovides the inadequacies the for herewe find both. Moreover,if moneyis reallysuch basisfor spheres, strangethat the colonial seductive idea' it is perhaps a 'fundamentally powersin Africa should have repeatedlyfound that they neededto tax peoplein order to draw them into the wider economy.It is alsosurprising that a great many societiesfailed to borrow the idea of a generalised medium of exchange from more astuteneighbours. One might have like wildfire.The main to spread expected Kapaukuor Tolai ingenuity pointwe wantto stress, is that by coupling however, moneyto capitalism that it was money- and not capitalism with which in his suggestion for a dramaticexpansion moneywasassociated - that wasresponsible of commoditisation, Kopytoffignores the existence of moneyaswe know it in many pre-capitalist economies. He does not sy exactlywhen he believes the 'dramaticexpansion' occurred,but it is surelyclear that pre-dates widespread monetisation considerably the dominanceof a capitalist sector,while experience in the world would suggest elsewhere that the existenceof money does not inexorably result in wholesale (and ratherseldom commoditisation in the commoditisation of land and argued, in the Tiv case. labour).As we havepreviously at any rate there Kopytoff's proposition:the expansion seemto be groundsfor reversing of the marketsector owedfar moreto an expansion of commoditisation than it did to the introductionof Westernmoney. In the 'inexorable conquestof the internal economy'of this previouslynon-monetised the heavyarmourwasnot moneybut the new setof exchange economy, with whichthe Tiv wereforcedto cometo terms. relations

Money and the morality of exchange Money and the end of evil

17

which runs through much of the literaturewe have Another assumption reviewed,and is marked in the work of both Marx and Simmel, is that moneygivesrise to a particularworld view. It occursin a particularform in a recentpaperby Macfarlane(1985),on whichwe commentin order to signala more generaldoubt. generalisation, Macfarlanesuggests that a As a broad cross-cultural is a in hunter-gatherer societies; strongsenseof evil is undeveloped dominant aspectof the value systemof the denselypopulatedagrarian of China,India, partsof SouthAmericaand Catholic 'peasant' societies from 'modern'society.His central Europe; and haslargelydisappeared and this he doesin for this (alleged)disappearance, problemis to account currents.The termsof a contradictionbetweentwo different ideological in St Paul'swarningthat 'the love of money first of theseis encapsulated observais the root of all evil': the secondin Adam Smith'shard-nosed of the butcher.the brewer.or the tion that 'it is not from the benevolence baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own (Smith 1904:16). Avarice, the root of all evil, becomes the self-interest' foundation of society; Publick Benefit derives from Private Vice; the of the individual. goodof the collectivityis servedby the evil propensities In the face of this contradiction, Macfarlane argues, the absolute impossible distinctionbetweenvirtue and vice is eroded,and it becomes of unmitigatedevil. sense to sustainan overpowering might seemto be culturallyhighly double-bind While this ideological points coucheshis argument in more various Macfarlane specific,at that moneyis subversive of Simmel's observation Echoing general terms. writes that: for example, he polarities', 'moral values, relations, market 'Money', wayof saying capitalist which is a short-hand . . . [it] complicates confusion the ushers in a worldof moral andexchange, trade . . . it is whatwasformerly blackandwhiteinto greyness moralorder,turning ... absolute moralities that eliminate and marketcapitalism markets money, (p.72). (1969) of the preoccupationwith money in the Burridge's discussion cargo cults is cited in support of this general Melanesian of symbolism disrupts the moral as well as the economic 'money proposition that world.' Interesting though Macfarlane'sargument is, we believe it to be applicationto WesternEurope and flawed- both in its specific seriously in its more generalform. With regardto the latter, it is abundantlyclear from the different chaptersin this volume that money and market exchange are centralfeaturesof the political economyof many Peasant

18

M. Bloch and f. Parry

societies of the type in which,in Macfarlane's view,an ideology agrarian To cite Bayly(1985: 316)oncemore: of evil is mostlikely to flourish. What istheway in which theformal apparatus of markets and isstriking {inIndial economy moldedthemselves to and were accommodated a monetized by between that still viewed the relationships men,commodities, mentalities and of good(pure)andevil (polluting). othermenin terms Not only is it entirely illegitimate to conflate money with capitalist relationsand market values,but the extentto whicheither moneyor the capitalistmarket 'ushersin a world of moral confusion' is culturally extremelyvariable,and depends shows- as our collectionrepeatedly it is on the nature of the syslemthey confront and on the mechanisms able to develop for 'taming' and 'domesticating'them. Contrary to Macfarlane'sassumption,the concern with money we find in many - a concernwith its Melanesian cargocultsis not - Parry'schapterargues quality, but merely with morally perilous nature or its subversive discovering the secret of its fecundity,of makingit multiply; a possibility which appearsquite 'natural' in a world in which traditional valuables regularlyattract an incrementin exchange. As for its specific application to Western Europe, what we find surprising about Macfarlane'sargument is its curiously ahistorical nature. He writes as though St Paul'scondemnation of avaricewere a valuein Westerncivilisation.But while it may constantand unchanging pursuitof richeshasbeenwidely frowned well be lrue that an unswerving upon at all times, it is clearly the case that the extent to which and money-mindedness have beenseenas a moral peril money-making has undergonconsiderable shifts of emphasis.Little (1978:34),for example,noteshow it wasat the end of the thirteenthor beginning of the fourteenth century that 'the pictorial theme of men and also apes defecatingcoins made its appearance in the marginsof gothic manuscripts',and explicitlycontrasts the mentalitythat producedthesedrawingswith 'the one that, in the ninth and tenth centuries, useddepictions of royal and imperialcoinsto decoratesacredbooks'. It wasduring the eleventh (Little 1978:36), or perhapsthe twelfth (Duby 1982: 322), centurythat avaricesupplanted pride asthe vicepar excellence, and this periodsawa burgeoning of satires on the themeof money(Murray 1978: 72).The timing is significant sincethiswasa periodof rapid urbangrowth and of a major expansion of market trade. In other words,the attention devoted to money, trade and avariceas a moral peril grew with the significance of the moneyeconomy.So far from a generalerosionof the sense of evil, as Macfarlane's what we really seem thesiswould suggest, to witnessis a heightemng of the sense of evil inherentin money. What happenedin the West, we would argue, is not that money

Money and the morality of exchange

19

(amongst a sense of evil, but rather that one discourse subverted others) aboutmoneymademoney-making moreandmoremarginaltothe devil's domain, and almost(but neverquite) succeeded in wrestingit from him entirely. Hirschman(1977)tracesthe fascinating story of how, from the later Middle Ages on, the sin of avaricebecomes in officialideologyless and less heinous, and is eventually removed from the category of 'passions' to becomean 'interest'. Crucialto this transformation is the theorythatone 'passion'can be setto tameanother; that'greed,avarice, or love of lucre, could usefullybe employedto opposeand bridle such other passions as ambition,lust for power, or sexuallust' (ibid. p. 40) which were seenas more sociallydisruptive. The notion that Publick Benefitderivesfrom PrivateVice wasa theory about statecraftbeforeit became a justification for marketcapitalism, for money-making wasseen wayof conducting asa moreenlightened affairs than'passions' of a more pronouncement nature.With Dr Johnson's bellicose tht 'thereare few waysin which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting pastime. money',it becomes a positively harmless Indeed,as the most dogged and persistentof passions,it ceasesto be a vice at all and a legitimate'interest'of theindividual, opposed becomes to his'passions' by its very predictability and rationality;and a societyin which men to 'the calamitous freely pursuetheir interests is contrasted state of (ibid. affairs that prevailswhen men give free reign to their passions' p.32). The paradox,however, wasthat: was triumphant as soon as capitalism and 'passion' seemed indeedto be peaceful, andperhaps tranevenextinguished in the comparatively restrained quil,andbusiness-minded Europe aftertheCongress of theperiod of Vienna, the petty,andboring worldsuddenly appeared andtheworldwas empty, setfor the critique impoverished Romantic of thebourgeois orderasincredibly in relation grandeur, seemed to Iack nobility, mystery, and, to earlier ages - thenewworld p. 132). above all,passion'(ibid. The meaningsof money seemoneyas giving rise to a While writers like Simmeland Macfarlane world view,whatwe wouldlike to emphasise particular is how an existing world view givesrise to particularwaysof representing money. (1980)failure to suggest, it is Taussig's As our two Andeanistchapters give due weight to this cultural template that vitiates much of his of Nash's(1979)ethnography on the folklore and ritual re-interprettion practices of Bolivian tin-miners.According to this folklore, Tio - 'the devil'- controlsthe fertility of the mine, claimsthe miners'liveswhen he is not properly reciprocatedfor his gifts of ore by appropriate sacrificial by offerings,and enablessome individual miners to enrich themselves

20

M. Bloch and J. Parry

enteringinto a secretpact with them. As Taussiginterpretsit, such beliefs representan indigenousreflection on the power, danger and immoralityof the new capitalist and on the perilswhich result economy, from the fact that what is extractedas a gift from the spirit guardians of the mine is then transformed into a commodity. This makes miningvery differentfrom the traditionalpeasant economy of production for usein whichthereis an unproblematic andundisrupted reciprocity between the peasants and the supernatural sources of fertility. What Harris'schaptershows,however,is that pesants too may be said to owe their richesto a pact with the 'devils'.and it is therefore to interpretthe beliefin such'devilcontracts' implausible as a commentary on the evils of proletarianisation and capitalistrelationsof production.Neither in symbolism nor in ritual are agriculture and mining opposed.The fertility of the minesis ritually restoredin a strikingly similarway to the fertility of the fieldsand flocks;minerals are held to grow in the mineslike potatoes, and it is said that - like land - a mine its fertility. As Sallnowpoints shouldbe left to lie fallow to recuperate out, it is only in mining that death at the hands of the spirits is a permanent occupational hazard,but this is only an extremevariantof the requirement of a sacrificial of bloodin Andeanagricultural spilling ritual. have long been incorporated into the market, SinceAndean peasants and market relations do not representa comparablesupernatural itself which constitutes danger, it is clearly not commoditisation the problem.Ratherthe real explanation dangerof mining for the mystical lies in ideasabout the cosmological of preciousmetalsas significance supremecommodities, the proper use of which is to flow upwardsas tribute to the state. This tribute reproduces an ordered relationship - a relationship between the stateand the localcommunity which is the and whichis threatened source of the latter'sfertility and prosperity, by any individualappropriation of gold and silverthat would disrupt this flow. Hencethe dangers of miningderivenot from the fact that the ore: isextracted asa gift anddisposed of asa commodity - thatis, fromtheimperfect between thedictates of capitalism andthenorms of Andean culture articulation perilsof goldbut ratherfrom within the cultureitself. . . The supernatural mining not of the ultimate of all mining] area consequence [andby association in which butof thecultural it is initially commoditisation of theproducl, logic embedded. When the rgumentthat moneybringsabout a radicaltransformation by the proposition that it must thereforelead to of societyis extended revolutionaryandspecifiable in world view, it is easyto further changes whatmoney(supposedly) does.Regardless assume that moneymeans of will it always tend to much the kinds things. culture, symbolise same of

Money and the morality of exchange

27

asset,whatthe authors But seen in thisvolumeappear to showis that the with which moneyis invested meanings are quite as much a productof the cultural matrix into which it is incorporated as of the economic it performsas a means unit of ccount, functions of exchange, storeof value and so on. It is therefore impossibleto predict its symbolic from thesefunctionsalone. meanings At first sight,however,it might seemthat suchrelativismis calledinto question by several of the casesdiscussed by our contributors who where money does indeedappearto carry the kind of documentcases symbolicload with which we are familiarfrom our own tradition.The spiritmediums Shona described in Lan'schapter, for example, avoidand reject European goods as incompatible with the sacred domain of ancestral authority.Similarly,Stirratreportsthat the Sri Lankanfishermoney with disorder and a men with whom he worked associate disruption of the properhierarchical order of caste;and Toren that the of the orderedmoral Fijianstalk of the world of moneyasthe antithesis world of chiefsand kinship. with our own cultural In fact, however,theseapparentsimilarities discourseare largely illusory. Though Shona mediumsmust avoid all commodities like soap,petroland Coca-Cola, we contactwith Western find that there is no suchprohibitionon money- in part unexpectedly to a traditional item, hoes. becauseit is symbolicallyassimilated Unlike theseother items, money does not standin oppositionto the familiarityof the Sinhalese realm of the sacred.Again, the seeming caseturns out to reflect an entirely different set of meanings,for the fishermen'sdistaste for money has far less to do with an hostility towardscommoditisation and the market than it has to do with the fact that here the control of money is in the handsof women.The Fijian exampleis also a caseof false familiarity,but one which suggests a rather different kind of difficulty with those traditional arguments regardless which attribute to money a specificsignificance of context: a of the nature of difficulty which derives from a misunderstanding symbolism itself. for anti-social acquisimoney(standing The Fijian oppositionbetween tiveness)and yaqona drinking (standingfor community) does at first sight indeed seemredolent of our own oppositionbetweencommerce and instrumentalityon the one hand, and kinship and morality on the other. What Toren makesclear, however,is that this oppositionhas as and other kinsmenas cross-cousins muchto do with the contrastbetween it hasto do with the contrastbetweenthe market and the pre-monetary familiar from our economy.At this point not only doeswhat is seemingly own culture begin to look very much less familiar, but it becomes apparentthat we are not dealingwith a simpleoppositionof irreconcil-

22

M. Bloch and f. Parry

ables, but rather with interconnectedconceptswhich are part of a transformative discourse. to appreciate whenwe considerthe kinshipaspect This is easiest of the Fijian contrastwhich opposes an imageof societyas ordered by a fixed pattern of consanguinity, hierarchical affinity and chiefshiprepresented in the ritual of yaqonadrinking,to an imageof the ephemeral, egalitarian, sexual and chaotic relations of unmarried cross-cousins. The relationshipbetweenthesetwo ordersis not, however,one of staticand absoluteopposition, for one side of the contrast is continually being transformedinto the other in a way which, far from being threatening, actually representsan image of the successful reproduction of the community. This is because cross-cousins should becomespouses, and hence the chaotic world which is partly conjured up by rnoney is the precursorto the world of ordered hierarchyconjured up by necessary yqona. What we therefore have is a continuing dialectic in which who are opposed are then united by marriageswhich cross-cousins belong to the domainof hierarchical kinship,but thesein turn renewthe opposition through the birth of children who are again opposed as This synthesis is represented in the ritual of 'drinking cash' cross-cousins. by the combinationof the symbolism of money and of yaqonadrinking. In the first part of the ritual the subversive creativity of cross-cousins assumes the form of monetarycompetition,but in the secondpart this to the reproduction of the orderedyaqona chaoticbehaviouris harnessed drinking cornmunitywhen the result of the cash rivalry becomesa fund. This typeof transformation is- aswe shallsee- in beneficial social no way exceptionl. Not only doesmoneymeandifferent thingsin different cultures,but - it may meandifferent thingswithin the same as this examplesuggests of the most valuedsocial culture. Sometimes represented as subversive relations, it can alsobe viewedas an instrument for their maintenance. While in one contextlife 'in the mannerof money'is the antithesis of the 'Fijian way', in another,money is morally neutral or even positively unusual. What the Fijian beneficial. Again the ambiguity is by no means example also demonstrates therefore is the misleadingnature of the assumptionthat symbolic meaningscan be precisely specified. As (1958:147-80)has arguedis the casewith symbolism Lvi-Strauss in general, the Fijian symbolism of money and yaqona drinking are continually being combinedin creativeways to expressprocesses and [t is consequently not only impossible transformation. to saywhat money will 'mean' irrespectiveof cultural context, it is even misleadingto presuppose tht it will haveany fixed and immutablemeaningin a given context- a point which is also suggested by Appadurai's (1985)astute (aschamcomments on the typicallyantagonistic interests of merchants

Money and the morality of exchange

23

pions of unfetteredequivalence and the political elite (as in exchange) championsof regulation and control) in a world in which the status laws.What moneymeansis not only hierarchyis protectedby sumptuary definedbut alsoconstantly re-negotiated. situationally Transactionalorders We must,therefore,shift our focusfrom a consideration of the meanings of money to a considerationof the meaningsof whole transactional process systems and to the kind of transforrnative we haveidentifiedfor the Fijian case.When we do thisa very different kind of pictureemerges. which stronglyqualify the What we then find are significant regularities highly relativisticconclusions to which a consideration of money in isolationhas led us in the first part of this introduction. A particularly we havein mind is providedby clear instance of the kind of regularity Carsten's chapterin this volume. As in the Fijian case,the Malay fishermenshedescribes symbolically transformmoneyfrom a subversive and threatening force into something moral and socially positive. As in our Sri Lankan case, there is an intimateconnection between the symbolism of moneyand the symbolism of gender,but there the similarityends.Unlike Stirrat'sSinhalese, the Malay fishermenof Langkawiare quite willing to engagein commercial though they can only legitimatelydo so with comparative exchanges, for such relationsare seenas incompatible strangers, with the moral bondsof kinship.Once the moneyhasbeenearned,however,the men hand it over to the womenwho remainuncontaminated by contactwith The women can then, as it the amoraldomainof market transactions. were, 'de-contaminate' the moneythey receive,transforming it into a resourcewhich sustainsthe householdand the morally admissable community. This they do by analogy with the way in which they transformraw food into a cookedmeal, the eatingof which is one of the strongest Malay symbolsof solidaryrelations.Women, Carstenargues, symbolically 'cook' the money,and therebyconvertit into something whichcan be safelyincorporated into - and will nourish- the household. The fishermenof Langkawi are thus involved in two different transactionalorders: a world of fishingand commercein which men engage with strangers in a myriad of short-termtransactions and where individual competition,if not sharp practice,is acceptable; and a world which is oriented towards the longer-term goals of reproducing the household,which in Malay ideology providesthe model for representations of the widercommunity. point is that, as for the Malays,in one The crucialand more general form or another,eachof the cases in this volume revealsa discussed

24

M. Bloch and ]. Pamy

similar pattern of two related but separate transactional orders: on the one hand transactions concerned with the reproductionof the long-term socialor cosmicorder; on the other, a 'sphere'of short-termtransactions with the arenaof individual concerned competition. Amongstthe Shona,the long-term transactionalorder is symbolically constructedin terms of an image of an immortal chiefdom which is represented by the spirit mediumswho embodythe ahcestral rulers,who in turn dispensefertility to their descendants in return for obedience, respect and tribute. In both our Andeancases, it againrevolves arounda sacredand enduring polity which is represented as the source of the prosperityand increase which flowsdown to the local communityas long as tribute flows up. Again, in Fiji, exchanges of yaqona betweenchiefs people the image and construct an idealised of an unchanginghierarchicalorder; while in the Sri Lankan casethe predictablelong-term order of castewith which the men identify is opposedto the short-term amoral sphere of the market in which the women assumethe crucial roles.With the Merina of Madagascar, \rye similarly find an imageof the groupsymbolised eternaldescent by the immobileslonetomb, which is seenasopposed to - but alsoaspartiallydependent on - individualistic transactions acquisitive of a short-term nature.Finally,in India, gifts to the Benares Brahmans are concernedwith the reproduction of the cosmicand socialorder and - by ridding him of his sins- with restoring the pilgrim'splace within it. ln eachcasethis long-termtransactional with the attempt to maintaina staticand timeless order is concerned order. In each,however,cultural recognitionis alsoexplicitlygivento a cycle with individual appropriation,comof short-termexchanges associated petition, sensuous enjoyment, luxury and youthful vitality. This is variously the world of commerce,wage-labouror brigandage,and is often identified with exchanges betweenstrangers.In the Merina case, for example, such transactions are concernedwith harena - movable goodswhich are individuallyacquiredthroughcompetitiveactivitieslike war and trade. In life a legitimatesourceof sensual enjoyment,harena must at all costsbe dispersed beforedeathfor they are firmly rooted in a the imageof a permanentand transientworld which defiesand negates collectiveancestral essence embodiedin the tomb. As this might lead one to expect,there is a closeassociation between Merina funerary practicesand the two transactionalorders, and an explicitconnectionis madebetween ancestral body-substance and inherited wealthon the one hand, and between the vital substance of the living and hqrenaon the other. The caseis instructivefor it seemsto reveal something more generalabout the relationship betweenthe two cycles of exchange.The short-term individualistictransactionsconcernedwith

Money and the morality of exchange

25

so long as they remainsubordinated harenaare morallyacceptable to, with, the long-term restorative whichfocuson cycles and do not compete collectivity of the ancestors. Indeedsuchactivities the undifferentiated whenthe goods theyyield are usedto maintain areparticularly desirable this over-arching order - as, for example,when individuallyacquired wealth is employed to restore the tombs or fund the ceremonies with them. associated allthisis extremely similarto whatwe havealready But, of course, said wherethe morallyequivocalmoney aboutthe Fijian andMalaysian cases derived from short-termexchange cyclesis transformedby a simple which sustains resource operationinto a positivelybeneficial symbolic community.Much the samepattern the ideal order of an unchanging emerges once more from Parry'sIndian example,where even wealth banditsand acquiredthrough the most deviousmensby merchants, kingsis unproblematic so longasa proportionof it is giftedto Brahmans purification. Again, in Sri Lanka aspart of the long-term cycleof cosmic we find that moneyceases a legitimate interest to bedirty andbecomes of to maintainthe solidarityand class men rvhenit is usedin consumption the household; and this identityof the fishingvillageand to reproduce illustrated by Harris'svignetteof kind of conversion is alsographically pouringawaytheir wealthin libations Bolivianpeasants to impoverished holy drunkenness. the sacred earth,and down their throatsto produce by which What we consistently find, then, is a seriesof procedures goods which derive from the short-term cycle are converted into the which includethe 'drinking' transactional long-term order - procedures of of moneyin Langkawi of cashin Fiji, the 'cooking' , andthe 'digesting' the pilgrims'gifts by the Brahmans of Benares, And of courseit is no in an shouldso often be expressed accident that suchtransformations alimentary idiom, for everywhere this is one of the mostpowerfulof all possible metaphors for transformation. It is not that what is obtainedin gainwhichcan be 'laundered' cycleis a kind of ill-gotten the short-term channels of expenditure and into socially approved by beingconverted It is rather that the two cycles are represented as organconsumption. their relationship formsthe to eachother.This is because icallyessential of the problem posedby the fact that basisfor a symbolicresolution mustboth dependon, and transcendental socialand symbolic structures individual. negate, the transient It is widely arguedthat outsidethe ideologicalambit of the capitalist in society,that the market, the economyis seenas being 'embedded' discounteindividualpursuitof materialself-gain is generally relentless goals primacy accorded over are normally nanced,and that collective 'formalist-substantivist' those of the individual. Much of the so-called controversy turnedon the issue of whethermaximizing manexists, either

26

M. Bloch and J. Parry

world;and- thoughPolanyi in factor theory,in the pre-capitalist himself (see, wasa creditable - theanswers exception for example , Polanyi1971) providedhavegenerally tendedto take the form of a straightforward 'yes'or 'no'. What we believe our discussion illustrates. however, is that all thesesystems make- indeedhaveto make- someideological space within which individualacquisition is a legitimateand even laudable goal;but that suchactivities are consigned to a separate whichis sphere articulated with, and subordinated ideologically to, a sphere of activiry with the cycleof long-termreproduction. concerned The relationship between the politico-economic domainof srtha and the moral order of dharmain Hindu theory providesan almostparadigmatic caseof this kind of relationship between We therefore the two cycles. find it strange that Dumont {1970) shouldseethe world renouncer as moreor lessthe solerepresentative of the values of individualism in Indian society, and shouldapparently denyany role to suchvalues of arthrt. in the sphere That thisideological space shouldexistis, we believe. inevitable - for the maintenance of the long-termorder is both pragmatically and conceptually dependent on individualshort-termacquisitive endeavours. Not only do the latter in fact provide much of the material wherewithal necessary for the reproduction of the encompassing order, but it also hasto be acknowledged that this order can only perpetuate itselfthroughthe biological andeconomic activities of individuals. What we claimto be describing thenis an extremely general setof ideas about the placeof the individualin a socialor cosmic order which transcends the individual. The articulation betweenthe two spheres is, however,by no means unproblematic. If the long-term cycleis not to be reduced to the transient world of the individual, they mustbe kept separate - witness the Malay preoccupation with insulating the domestic domainagainst commercial transactions. But if the long term is to be sustained by the creativity and vitality of the short-term cycle,they must also be related- hencethe with the kindsof transformative processes concern of whichthe 'cooking' of moneyin Langkawiis just one example. The possibility of conversions the two ordersalsohasmuchto between do with their moral evaluation.While the long-rermcycle is always positively associated with thecentral precepts of morality,the short-term order tends to be morally undetermined sinceit concerns individual purposeswhich are largely irrelevant to the long-term order. If, however. that whichis obtained in the short-term individualistic cycleis convertedto serve the reproductionof the long-termcycle, then it becomes morallypositive- like the cash'drunk' in Fiji or the wealth givenas danain Hindu India. But equallythere is alwaysthe opposite possibility - and this evokesthe strongest - the possibility censure that

Money and the morality of exchange

27

in the short-termcyclewill becomean end in individualinvolvement to the reproduction of the larger itselfwhich is no longersubordinated individuals will divert the cycle;or, more horrifyingstill, that grasping transactions. cyclefor their own short-term of the long-term resources is illustrated by our two spectre of thislasteventuality The nightmarish Sallnowvividly evokesthe extremedangerand secrecy Andean cases. peasants the mining of precious metals. associate with which Peruvian but onewavof unravelling its logicis to for thisarecomplex, The reasons - precious startfrom Harris' report that - thoughinfinitelymore valuable Fertility metalsare seenasgrowingin the earthlike tubersor potatoes. spirits, of the mountain and normal of all kindsis a blessing andincrease - require the normal reciprocation of libationsand crops- like potatoes an occasionalblood offering. One who obtains precious metals, a kind of supercrop, for which the only possible however,is obtaining of course is to returnis the life of the minerhimself.But the temptation the appropriation and thusavoid the debt; thoughsucha try to conceal sincethe mountainspiritswill then is thoroughlyanti-socil stratagem of this sort who threatens to extracttheir returnat random.A renegade permanentlydivert the resourcesof the long-term cycle to his own who liberally pours is the antithesis of the paragon advantage, short-term through libations on to the erthor into his body in order to transcend, drunkenness,his calculatingindividualist self. Through his selfthe latter ensures that what he derivesfrom the long-term abnegation cyclehas beenreturnedto it even before it hasbeen given. case, the Brahman who receives in the Benares danabut fails Similarly it on rn rotois in effectdivertingwealthdestined for the long-term to pass is not only that he ends.The consequence cyclefor his own short-term himselfwill rot with leprosyand sufferthe tormentsof hell. but that since he is blocking the channelsof purificationwhich flow in the oppositedirection to dana - he also brings sin and misfortune to his unwittingdonors.But whenthe munificentmerchantconfersdanaon the Brahmanshe is doing exactlythe opposite.He is convertingwealth activity into a long-termcycle in short-termacquisitive accumulated purification with whole a chainof andelimination concerned both of sin, Brahmans whose ritual activities and with the supportof sustainthe cosmos. the other horrendous possialsoillustrates Equally,our ethnography individual will embroiled in become so the short-term cycle bility that the of the long cycle.It seems to be this that he will ignorethe demands danger with which Merina notions about tree-plantingare concerned. who plantedit, it represents the individual a kind Sincethe tree outlasts of illicit immortalisationof the type of wealth that should be dispersed hisown individuality beforedeath.This anti-social attemptto perpetuate

28

M. Bloch and J. Parry

with to a denialof the claimsof the long-term cycleassociated amounts collectivity of the dead,and is therefore the undifferentiated liableto be punished by the ancestors. Again,for the Sri Lankancase, Stirratdocuments the existence of two of consumption': with reproducing one concerned the different'spheres basicviabilityof the household and markingits equivalence to all other within the community; theotherconcerned with an intensely households competitive expenditurebetweenhouseholds. Though both kinds of valued,expenditure are positively in the second consumption sphere of is most fully justifiedwhen it is conspicuous consumption competitive directed at social reproduction through marriage; but it becomesdisthe viabilityof the household tinctly immoralwhen it jeopardises and thereby subverts the long-term order.Much the same considerations, we 'the world lie behindthe tiradeof Toren'sFijian teacher against suggest, Fijians regard money as morally of money'. In other circumstances but what the old man bewailsis that it tendsto take unproblematic, people them to neglect chiefship and kinship.V/hen over andencourage the short-termcyclethreatens to replacethe long-termcyclethen the world is rotten.It is in suchcircumstnces that a morallyindeterminate instrument becomes something morallyopprobrious. Money and the two transoctionalorders We haveargued, quite differentmeanings then, that moneyis accorded cultures, we focus in different but that once on the broaderpatterning of transactions some rather significantregularitiesbegin to emerge.With hindsight. however,this conclusion is what we might haveexpected to start with, for the symbolismof money is only one aspectof a more generalsymbolicworld of transactions which must always cometo terms with someabsolutely fundamental humanproblems. One of theseis the relationshipbetween the individual human life and a symbolically constructed imageof the enduringsocialand cosmicorder within which that life is lived; a relationship alsodiscussed in our introductionto Death and the regeneration of hfe (Bloch and Parry 1982), with which the argument of the previous section is very muchin line. The obvious corollary of our relativistic conclusion about the meanings of money is that it is quite impossible to pnetratethese meaningswithout an understandingof the ways in which they are informed by the wider symbolic and social orders, a point which is demonstrated by Martin's(n.d.) discussion admirably of the contrasting significance of money in Taiwan and the United States.Suchsuperficial whichdo emerge similarities givento moneyin different in the meanings cultures is, we would suggest, a kind of epiphenomenon of regularities

Money and the morality of exchange

29

which exist at a deeper level. That is, they are a consequence of world as a whole is in the wav in which the transactional regularities in terms of what we have called long and constructed symbolically cycles. Both in Madagascar andin the Andes,certain short-term formsof money are closelyidentifiedwith the long-termorder of exchange. to which moneylendsitself,the more of the instrumental uses Because with the familiar casehowever is for it to be most closely associated order (as, for example,in our Fijian and Malaysian short-term cases). symbol of that order. Such and it may even becomea condensed in symbolic construction asexist,we arearguing. derivefrom similarities in the way in which this order is constructed by different similarities cultures. assumption that moneygives It is. aswe haveseen, a commonplace rise world view and to particular kindsof social to a specific relationship, but this is very dubious.The further implicationof cur discussion hcweverrs circumscribed limitsandwith or withoutmoney that- withinrigorously which the vast majority of culturesmake some spacefor exchanges asin our own society. display manyof the features whicharesometimes, (a degree with monetary associated exchange of impersonality, considergratification for individual for pureinstrumentaablescope anda concern lity, for example). Thosewriterswho creditmoneywith the paternity of a falsehistory in which what is thesefeaturesare thereforeconstructing actually an extremelygeneral contrast within cultures between the of the long and short-term ordersbecomes a contrast between domains - and it is on thisbasis that the notionof a 'greatdivide'between cultures worldshasrested. In onewayor another the monetary andpre-monetary by Fuller.Harris,Lan and Blochwhichfollow all makerefthe chapters erenceto this kind of historicalfalsification. We do not. of course,intend to imply that everything is everywhere thesame, or to downplay the greatvarietyof symbolic systems documenwe that the kind of scheme ted in thisvolume.Nor do we wishto suggest or eternal.While we believe the pattern haveoutlinedis eitheruniversal we haveidentified ascommonto all our casestudies is typicalof a wide it is arguable that the matureideologyof capitalism rangeof societies, would be an exampleof something entirelydifferent.By a remarkable whathasuniquely happened in capitalist revolution ideology, conceptual of the short-term would run, is that the values order have the argument into a theory of long-termreproduction. What our elaborated become culture (like others) had previouslymade room for in a separateand domain has,in somequartersat least,been turned into a subordinate order - a theoryin which it is only unalloyed theoryof the encompassing the publicbenefit. privatevice that can sustain shift has been What is also possible,however,is that the conceptual

30

M. Bloch and J. Parry

rather lessradical, and that what has really happened- as Mauss'sessay on the The Gift implied long ago - is rather that rty'estern ideology has so the distinctiveness of the two cyclesthat it is then unable to emphasised irnagine the mechanisrnsby which they are linked. One of the merits of this formulation would be that it suggestsa way of understanding the quite contradictory representationsof money - as devilish acid or as instrurnent and guarantor of liberty - to which we are heirs. What, in other words, these two different discourses would reflect is the radical divorce between fhe two cycles, each discourse deriving from the perspective of one side of the dichotomy aione. These are issueswhich we cannot properly tackle here, however, for the central focus of this collection is on ideologies which have been largely developed outside the centres of capitalism. The general comparative lesson of which they provide a timely reminder is that the specificity of the particular symbolic system, the similarities in the solutions which different cultures provide to the same fundamental problems of human existence, and tbe way in which historical forces act on and transform an existingcultural template, all have to be taken into account if we are to begin to understand the meaningsof money. The lessonis also one which we need to take to heart if we are to understand our own representations of exchange. References Appadurai,A. 1986.'Introduction: comrnodities and the politicsof value',in The social life of things: commodities in a cultural perspective,pp. 1-63, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. PenguinBooks. Aristotle 1962.Thepotitics.Harmondsworth; Barth, F. 1967.'Economicspheres in Darfur', in R. Firth (ed.), Themes in pp. 14v-^74, economic anthropology, London: TavistockPublications. 'The originsof swadeshi (homeindustry): Bayly,C. A. 1986. cloth and Indian society. |TUJ-1930',in A. Appadurai (ed.), The social life of things: pp. 291321, Cambridge:Cambridge in culturalperspective, commodities UniversityPress. Bloch, M. and Parry, J. {eds.) 1982. Death and the regeneration of ltfe, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. Bohannan,P. 1955.'Some principlesof exchange and investmentamong the Tiv', AmericanAnthropologist, 57: 6A-9. i959. 'The impactof moneyon an African subsistence economy',TheJournal of Economic History, 19 ($: 9I-503. Bohannan,P. and Bohannan,L. 1968,Tiv economy,London: Longmans. Burridge, K. 1969. New heaven,new earth: a study of miltenarianactivities, Oxford:BasilBlackwell. Comaroff, Jean 1985.Body of power, spirit of resistance. ChicagotUniversity Press.

Money and the morality of exchange

31

Coser, L. 1977. Mastersof saciological thought: ideas in historical and social (2ndedition),New York: HarcourtBraceJovanovich. context Inc. Dalton, G. 1965.'Primitivemoney',AmericanAnthropologist.6T:44-65. Duby. G. 1982.The threeorders:feudal societyimagined(trans. A. Goldhammer), Chicago:ChicagoUniversityPress. Dumont, L. 1970. Honto hierarchicus: the castsystem and its inplications, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. and triurnph of economicicleology, 1977 . From Mandevilleto Marx: thegenesis Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress. Oxford; Basil Blackwell. Frankef , S. H. 1977.Money:two philosophres, London: AcademicPress. Gregory,C. 1982.Gifts and comntodities, Gudeman, S. 1986.Econonticsas culture: models and ntetaphorsof livelihood. London:Routledge and KeganPaul. 'Headsor tails? Two sides of the coin', Man,21 (4): 631*56. Hart, K. 1986. and rhe interesrs: political argutnents Hirschman,A. O. 1977.Thepassions for capitalism beforeitstriumph, Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress. Josephides.L. 1985. Theproduttion of inequality: genderand exchange among the Kewa.London: TavistockPublications. Kopytoff. I. 1986. 'The cultural biographyof things: commoditization as process', in A. Appadurai (ed.). Thesociallife of rhings: commodities in a culturalperspecrive, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. Le Goff, J. 1980.Time, work and cuilurein the middle ages,Chicago:Chicago Press. University structurale, Lvi-Strauss, C. 1958.Anrhropologie Paris:Plon. Little, L. 1978.Religiouspoverty and the profit economy in medieval Europe. London:PaulElek. 'The root of all evil', in D. Parkin(ed.),Theanthropology A. 1985. Macfarlane, of evil, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Martin. E. (forthcoming).Themeaning of moneyin Chinaand the Uned States (1986Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures,Universityof Rochester.). Marx, K. 1961.Capital,vol. 1, Moscow:ForeignLanguages Publishing House. 1964.Pre-capitalist economic formations,London: Lawrenceand Wishart. Mauss, M. 1966. The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies (trans.I. Cunnison), London:Cohenand WestLtd. Murray, A. 1978. Reason andsociety in the Middle Ages.Oxford: ClarendonPress. Nash,J. L979.Weeatthe minesand the mineseat us:dependency and exploitation in Boliviantin mines,New York: ColumbiaUniversityPress. (?nd Oflman, B. 1976. Alienarion:Marx'sconceprion of man in capitalist society edition),Cambridge: Cambridge Press. University gift. the Indiangift and the "lndian gift"'. Man.2l (3): Parry,J. P. 1986.'The 45173. Polanyi, K. 1971. Primitive. archaic,and modern econonties: essays of Karl Polanyi,ed. G. Dalton, Boslon: BeaconPress. Roberts,P. C. and Stephenson. M. A. 1983.Marx's theoryof exchange, alienaion, and crjsri, New York: PraegerPublishers. Schwartz, B. 1967.'Thesocialpsychology of the gift', TheAmericanlournal of T3 (l): l-ll. Sociology.

32

M. Bloch and J. Parry

Simmel, . 1978. The philosophy of money, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Snith, Adam 1904.dr inquiry into the nstanesnd suses of the wealthof *ations. ed. E. Cannan,2 vols., London: Methuen. Strathern, M. 1985.'Kinship and economy: constitutive orders of a provisional kind'. American Ethnologist,vol- 12. Taussig,M. i980. The devil and commodityfetishism in South America, Chapel Hill: The Univenity of North Carolina Press. Tawney, R. H. 1972. Religion an the rise of capitalism, Harmondsworth; PenguinBooks. Wolfram, S. 1987. Inlaws and outlaws; kinship and marriage in England, Beckenham:Croom Helm.