A modern construct?

For our present purposes, what is important to note is that Derrida’s construction of the impossibility of the gift is based on the premise that the gift by definition should be free of reciprocity or return. But this definition, I have argued, is a modern construction, not a natural or necessary construal of the gift. The pure gift, free of interest and unsullied by return, is an extreme “perfection” of the gift, reflecting a modern ideological polarization between freedom and obligation, interest and disinterest. From an anthropological point of view, “even the idea of a pure gift is a contradiction,” since such a gift, anonymous and unreturned, does nothing to enhance solidarity. Taking a long historical and anthropological perspective, one might even retort that Derrida’s treatment of the aporia of the gift “speaks of everything but the gift.” In any case, we should be conscious that, despite the enormous influence of Bourdieu and Derrida, it would be arbitrary to make the absence of reciprocity and “self-interest” the very essence of the gift.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 63