实质的经济:《礼物》和《大转型》的反功利主义经济人类学

Economy in a Substantive Sense: Anti-Utilitarianism Economic Anthropology as Seen from The Gift and The Great Transformation

莫斯和波兰尼在《礼物》和《大转型》中开创的经济人类学视角为反思当前状况提供了思想资源,但20世纪以英美人类学者为主的解读偏离了两位作者的真实意图并忽略了两者的相通性。这包括:对功利主义的形式经济概念及在此基础上确立的礼物与商品对立的反对;财富的观念和货币的形式性交换是对社会的实质性交换,即存在于社会深层结构和心智系统中的交换的组织和体现;莫斯和波兰尼在探索现代社会和个人观念的诞生问题上,可以构成互补。最后,波兰尼关于“双向运动”“虚拟商品”“嵌入”的观点以及莫斯关于“总体呈现”的论述,都应置于他们对社会的整体性和实质性的坚持中来理解。莫斯和波兰尼的论述拓展了个人和社会的概念边界,提供了对个体自由和市场的不同理解,他们提出了一种以社会整体性为基础的关于“经济”的多元概念,二者共同奠定了实质主义经济意义上的经济人类学基础。

Economic anthropology as seen from Mauss’ s The Gift and Polanyi’s The Great Transformation provides inspirations for thinking about the current situation of the world.However,the discussion and interpretation of both works by English and American intellectuals in the 20 th century deviate from the real intention of the authors and largely ignore the interconnection between these writings and the authors.Through a careful analysis of this interconnection,this study suggests that:1)Both Mauss and Polanyi oppose to the formalist economic model based on utilitarianism,and the contrasts of gifts and commodities,as well as the utopian dreams of liberalism and communism.2)A careful reading of Mauss’ s and Polanyi’s writings also indicates that both authors tend to see private property,market and money as formal means of social substance,i.e means of expression and organization of the substantial inter-exchange existed within society and frame of mind.Moreover,they regarded empirical studies of money,wealth and market as ways to approach the theoretical holism of society.By contrast,modern economic thought reverses the cause-effect sequence by making an independent economic sphere under the formalist model and a natural individual as the foundation of society.3)Mauss and Polanyi complemented each other on their studies of the birth of modern society and individuals.4)Polanyi’s double movement,fiction commodity and embedment,along with Mauss’ s total presentation have to be understood in relation to their discussion on holism and substance of society.Mauss and Polanyi have broadened our understanding of individual and society,as well as of individual freedom and market.In their view,studies of people in their real and everyday life should be the starting point of economic anthropology.In this respect,The Gift and The Great Transformationgive us an alternative and pluralistic way of explaining economy in a holistic society,together they lay the foundation of economic anthropology based on substantivism.