Marcel Mauss

From iA wiki

See also: Good Guys

1872-1950

French anthropologist who devoted his professional life to the study and analysis of the Gift Economy in primitive and modern societies. Most influential work: The Gift (1925.) Introduced the concept of the "total social form" - the integration of cultural, economic, legal, and mythical functions into a single phenomenon, based on a study of the Potlatch of the northwest.

A good article on Mauss and gift-economics was posted to the Interactivist Info Exchange, which refers to a group of radical french intellectuals who have borrowed his name (MAUSS = Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales): "Marcel Mauss - Give it Away"