Abstract:
In the West, neoclassical economics is the dominant discipline and discourse shaping conceptions and perceptions or world-views of exchange and economy. Human exchange is defined by most economists as a matter of competition and scarcity, and by most exchange theorists as a matter of reciprocity and equivalence. In such definitions, there is no excess in exchange; there are no gifts; the economy is closed and restricted. Altemative discourses of exchange are offered in the four nonfiction texts of Marcel Mauss, Raymond Firth, John Maynard Keynes, and Georges Bataille, and these are my focus. Part One introduces the interdisciplinary debate on the effect of conceptual or ideational systems on discourses, thoughts, languages, politics, and behaviours; and develops the theory and method of critical discourse analysis applied in Part Two to each of the texts. Mauss constructs the gift as a polite fiction, and equivalent exchange as the total social fact. In contrast, Firth argues that early Oceanic exchange involves excess in the retum gift, a deliberate disequilibrium precluding closure. Keynes implies that collaborative human exchange produces a surplus, an excess that could benefit all. In Bataille's text, Keynes's surplus is the second gift, while the first is the excess of free energy in the biosphere, particularly from the sun. "General economy" is Bataille's useful term for this alternative economy which contrasts with and contains the neoclassical "restricted" economy. In Part Three, a comparative study of the four texts shows how critical analysis makes their commonalities available. In place of scarcity, competition, and closure, their discourses of exchange involve excess, complexity, and collaboration. Their texts contribute to a conversation that constructs an excess economy, they contribute to an exchange of ideas in search of a practical elsewhere.
