The unilateral gift economy conjecture

Abstract

I offer the conjecture that unilateral maternal provisioning constitutes a basic economic model for all with implications and a logic of its own. Market exchange is a derivative of this model, which contradicts it and creates its own area of life. The two models interact without our awareness because we have not taken unilateral gifting seriously. Renaming exploitation as the taking of unilateral gifts reveals another way to connect the dots between unwaged housework, surplus labor and ‘nature services’, and these are also connected to colonialism, corporate globalization and ecological devastation.