Lecture
Prestige economy — a system for circulating the surplus product in late primitive society on the basis of horizontal exchange (see the article Reciprocation) and non-economic distribution. It is carried out in the form of gift exchange, as well as the ostentatious giving away or destruction (see Potlatch) of material and symbolic valuables accumulated by leaders (big men) in order to maintain or raise their status and prestige. The prestige economy is regarded as a factor in social stratification. It has been recorded and described among many peoples of Oceania and Africa, as well as among the ancient peoples of Europe and Asia (Germanic peoples, Chinese and others).
One of the first to describe the practice of the prestige economy was B. Malinowski (on the example of the ceremonial inter-community kula exchange in the Trobriand Islands and on the eastern coast of New Guinea).
The emergence of this stage in the development of humankind is connected with the fact that, although a family or an individual member of society had already obtained a surplus product, it came only into their disposal and not into their ownership, that is, it remained the property of the community. The share at one's disposal could vary, whereas the consumption share was only according to need. All this made the accumulation of surplus product impossible and its distribution necessary — first within the community and then outside it — giving rise to a special ceremonial gift exchange, a particular form of gifting that turns the surplus product into "prestige".
The emergence in late clan society of a stable surplus product gives rise to the question of its distribution and of further incentives to production. The first step is that the worker receives into their own disposal the entire product they have created, but with an obligation to share it with the other members of the community. The concepts of the disposal share and the consumption share appear.
The disposal share is the entire body of goods created by the worker through their labour; the consumption share is that part of the product which its owner used for their own needs. As Yu. Semyonov notes, it was the difference between the disposal and consumption shares that turned into prestige: "A person shared their product with other members of the collective, and they in turn also shared with them the product they had created... If the disposal share was greater than the consumption share, this difference secured respect and prestige for the person".
With the further development of society it becomes obvious that the entire product created by an individual must pass into their ownership and not merely into their disposal. Gradually special forms of distributing the product within the community arise, not just simple division of labour's product — for example, agreements on exchanging different products.
But a new contradiction arises — even though a person now receives the product as property, in primitive society it is still impossible to accumulate a surplus, since the community demanded its distribution, and refusal to do so was considered a crime. As a result, an ever greater part of the social product goes to other socio-historical organisms, and two kinds of product circulation arise: the circulation of the life-sustaining product, which takes place within the community, and the circulation of the surplus product, which takes place between different socio-historical organisms.
The system for circulating the surplus product came to be called the prestige economy.
The first to draw attention to this phenomenon was Marcel Mauss, who gave particular attention to gifting.
The chain of gift exchange forms a closed chain or circle and constitutes the concept of reciprocity — the exchange of gifts on a non-market basis, one notion within which is prolonged return — deferred return, in which the counter-gift is made not immediately but after a lapse of time.
B. Malinowski was one of the first to describe this socio-economic formation on the example of the institution of the Kula — a ceremonial exchange in Oceania. The outstanding ethnographer pointed out the inexpediency of such gift exchange from the standpoint of commodity-market relations, and also indicated which "institutions" grew up around it (mythology, boat-building, social structures and others).
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