This may closely resemble exchange, since it generally involves a two-way transfer between two parties, sometimes separated by an interval of time, of goods or exchangeable items. However, it differs from exchange because, while exchange is conditional, “I will give you so much of x if you give me so much of y,” and is essentially based on the acceptance of a conditional offer, reciprocity is formally unconditional, although in practice it often tends to become confused with exchange.
Thus, reciprocity may be defined as mutual donations, or as a pair of donations. That is, A gives something to B solely out of the goodness of A’s heart and benevolence toward B, and B gives something to A solely out of the goodness of B’s heart and benevolence toward A. But the two acts are not formally related, since neither is a formal condition of the other.
Christmas gifts are a good example of an activity that frequently involves reciprocity and occasionally degenerates into exchange. Despite this, the unconditional nature of the operation differentiates it from exchange, and perhaps explains why people rarely receive at Christmas what they truly want.
The conditions under which it is or is not acceptable to give money instead of material gifts would make a very interesting study. The giving of a gift also carries with it a message that says: “I have taken the trouble to obtain something that I believe you will like.” This message implies consideration, affection or some kind of integrative relationship.
Reciprocity, although on the surface it resembles exchange, has integrative aspects that exchange does not possess. The fact that the “commercialization” of Christmas is so widely deplored suggests that reciprocity has a function to fulfill in the formation of a sense of community and a more complex structure of personal relationships, which pure and simple exchange is incapable of performing.
I would argue that even exchange requires a certain degree of integrative relationship between the parties before it can be legitimized. That is why exchange almost always develops originally out of reciprocity and may historically be regarded as the formalization of it.
The formalization of reciprocity into exchange takes place not only because exchange offers greater flexibility and convenience in obtaining what we truly want, but also because it may represent an escape from the inequality of status implied in donation.
Exchange has the same “eye for an eye” quality that characterizes the system of coercion against coercion, or retaliation, “if you do something unpleasant to me, I will do something unpleasant to you,” although there is much less aggression in the action.
The social customs and the non-material inputs and outputs that delimit the exchange process arise because the equality of status implied in exchange may diverge from the inequality accepted in the rest of society. This explains the politeness of the traditional shopkeeper toward more eminent customers.
The shopkeeper knows perfectly well that, in the exchange transaction, he has superior status because he has superior knowledge, but he must conceal this fact in order to avoid offending customers who are under the illusion that they have higher status. In a supermarket there is no obsequiousness, only concise rules of courtesy, because the equality implied in paying dollars for groceries cannot be denied. There is little difference in status between the housewife who pays for her groceries at the checkout and the clerk on the other side of the counter.
Even in modern societies, serial reciprocity is by no means an insignificant phenomenon. For example, it is very important in relations between generations. The debt we owe to our parents is often not paid back to them, but to our children, who in turn pay to their children the debt they owe us, and so on from generation to generation.
Of course, there is also a certain amount of deferred exchange, or simple reciprocity, in the relationship between two generations. Parents support their children through donations, or at least they did before pensions and social security developed, in the hope that when they are old, their children will support them through donations.
This is reciprocity over time, not exchange, since it involves complex integrative relationships that are not formally contractualized. Once support in old age is formally contractualized, it ceases to be reciprocity and becomes exchange.
Even Social Security contains a considerable element of “public reciprocity” and normally does not have the contractual framework of exchange, which is evident in private pensions and insurance.
