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The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Derrida’s pursuit of the pure gift is premised on a strict dichotomy of “economy” and “gift.” “Economy” includes anything done for gain, no matter how meager that gain is (it might be the feeling of satisfaction I get from giving something useful to someone); “gift” is the impossible purity of disinterested generosity.
As a number of my students have pointed out, this dichotomy is wholly bogus. It exists only theoretically. In practice, gift is infused into economy, even the most self-interested capitalist economy.
Milbank points out the various liminal cases – business lunches, tips, customer loyalty, and so on. Even gift exchanges strictly speaking usually begin with economic transactions: I buy something to give it away, or buy the materials from which I can make a future gift. The isolation of “economic” activity from various forms of gift exchange is unreal.
And yet, this unreality seems to be inherent in modern economic theory (seems to me, but I might stand corrected). Classical economists tend to examine “purely economic” production, distribution, exchange, ignoring all the gift/gratitude/relationship dynamics that surround and infuse economic activity. More recently, economists have attended to these other factors, but much of economic theory seems (again, I may stand corrected) to isolate economy.
Economy is as much a figment as “the social.” That means that “economic explanations” are fictitious. To be an explanatory, “economy” has to be isolatable from everything else, but it’s not in reality.
If I am right about classical economic theory (and I might stand corrected), the question arises of why it should have developed this way. Why would gift/gratitude/relationship be left out of economic consideration? And, how would economic theory be different if it’s included?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 6:41 am
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