The Moral Economy of Digital Gifts

Abstract

Giving is a seriously neglected component of the contemporary economy, whose significance tends to be obscured both by mainstream economics and by the influence of the anthropological tradition on social science’s understanding of the gift. Andrew Sayer’s concept of moral economy offers a more fruitful framework for understanding the nature and significance of contemporary giving. This paper analyses giving from the perspective of moral economy, questioning the view that giving is a form of exchange, and opening up the prospect of seeing it as the outcome of a more complex constellation of motivations and expectations. It focuses on developments in the digital economy, in particular the phenomenon of open source software, which nicely illustrates both the progressive potential of digital gifts and the ways in which they can be absorbed into the commercial economy.