CARS 03 · Social science: anthropology and economic life
The Obligation to Return
A social-science passage on gifts, markets and why some debts are meant to be kept.
Passage
Economists tend to picture exchange as a transaction. Two parties meet, goods change hands, accounts are settled, and the encounter ends; if the exchange has been fair, neither owes the other anything afterward. Anthropologists who study gift-giving have repeatedly found, in very different societies, a pattern of exchange that works almost in reverse. A gift is not meant to settle anything. It creates a debt, and the debt is not meant to be cancelled but to be carried, so that the two parties remain bound to each other.
The details vary, but certain features recur. A gift is not returned at once: someone who hurries to repay a present on the same day is understood to be refusing the relationship, as though to say that he wishes to owe nothing. The return should not be identical or exactly equivalent, since an exact equivalent would again close the account. And the whole arrangement must be conducted as though no accounting were taking place at all. Participants insist that the gift was freely given, and they often feel real affection for those who give. Yet everyone knows, without being told, that something is expected in return.
It would be easy to treat this as a feature of small or distant societies, a stage that markets eventually replace. The evidence does not support that view. Our own habits show the same logic wherever we look. To leave the price tag on a present is a small insult. A neighbor who helps move a couch and is then handed a payment has been changed from a neighbor into a hired hand, and may not offer again. A nursery that begins to fine parents who collect their children late may find that lateness increases, because the fine converts what had been an apology into a price that can simply be paid. In each case the market logic does not merely add something to the relationship; it replaces the one that was there.
Skeptics reply that the gift is a disguised transaction, a way of pursuing advantage while pretending otherwise. This objection has some force, for people do give with an eye to what they will receive. But it gets the matter backward. If gift-giving were only calculation, there would be no reason to hide the calculation; the pretense of generosity would be pointless, and nothing would be lost by saying openly what is expected. The fact that open accounting spoils the exchange, even for people who privately keep count, suggests that the concealment is doing real work. It protects a relationship that would not survive being priced.
The distinction, then, is not between primitive and modern societies but between two logics that coexist in nearly every society. One aims at closing accounts and the other at keeping them open. Neither is better in itself. A world run only on gifts would leave strangers with no way to deal with one another, and a world run only on payment would leave no one with a reason to remain in anyone’s debt. What each society must decide, and what individuals decide daily without noticing, is which relationships belong to which logic.
Questions
Question 1 of 6
Which statement best expresses the central claim of the passage?
The third paragraph rejects this view directly: the evidence does not support it.
The fourth paragraph discusses this as an objection and argues that it gets the matter backward.
The author says neither logic is better in itself. The passage describes the logics but does not prescribe one.
Why the answer is what it is
The first paragraph contrasts the two logics, the third shows that both operate in our own society, and the last paragraph restates that they coexist. The remaining options describe views that the author rejects or never states.
Question 2 of 6
In the passage, what is the function of the example of the nursery that fines late parents?
The passage says only that the fine may increase lateness in this case, and the point concerns relationships, not fines in general.
The passage gives no information about parents’ motives. It says the fine may be read as a price.
Nothing in the example concerns the timing of returns.
Why the answer is what it is
The author says that in each of the three examples, market logic replaces the logic that was there. The fine turns an apology into a price.
Question 3 of 6
According to the passage, why does someone who repays a gift on the same day offend the giver?
The passage does not suggest that quick repayment signals a lack of appreciation, only a wish to end the obligation.
The passage says an exactly equivalent return would be a problem, but it does not say anything about a more valuable return.
The passage says that a return is expected, but that it should not come at once or be exactly equivalent.
Why the answer is what it is
The second paragraph says that hurrying to repay is understood as refusing the relationship, as though to say that he wishes to owe nothing.
Question 4 of 6
The author’s response to the skeptic who says a gift is a disguised transaction is that:
The author states in the second paragraph that everyone knows something is expected in return.
The author concedes that the objection has some force because people do give with an eye to what they will receive.
The author makes no claim about which kind of exchange is more beneficial.
Why the answer is what it is
The author accepts that calculation exists but argues that its concealment would be pointless if calculation were the whole story. The concealment must be protecting something.
Question 5 of 6
Based on the passage, which of the following situations would the author most likely describe as governed by the gift logic?
This is a closed transaction. Payment settles the account, and nothing is owed afterward.
The lease and monthly payment close the account each month, which is the market logic.
This is a clear example of a transaction that ends when the account is settled.
Why the answer is what it is
The favor creates an open obligation that is returned later, in a different form, and without any explicit accounting. This matches the features the author describes.
Question 6 of 6
Which finding, if true, would most weaken the author’s claim that exact, immediate repayment ends the relationship that a gift creates?
Public praise for a giver does not bear on how repayment affects the relationship.
The author does not deny that affection can arise in markets. The claim concerns what repayment does to a gift relationship.
This concerns the choice of gifts and not the timing or equivalence of the return.
Why the answer is what it is
The author’s claim is about what immediate, equivalent repayment does to a gift relationship. If friendships continue unchanged after such repayments, the claim is undermined.