Grants adapt easily to multipartite relationships. In fact, they are the main creator of large-scale organizations. A hierarchy, for example, is composed of grants rather than exchanges. Despite all the edifying discussion about two-way communication within organizations, it remains true that, in communication, reciprocity rather than exchange is the only truly attainable ideal. An “order” from the “boss” is essentially a grant of information, often accompanied by grants of goods.
There are two main structures of multipartite relationships. What appears to be exchange is frequently reciprocity. Even in the labor market, the exchange relationship takes place between the individual worker and the organization. The actual organizational structure, if it is hierarchical, almost necessarily has to be formed by one-way transfers and communications.
Similarly, in a group, if exchange is relied upon as the form of social organization, it will soon break down into pairs, simply because it is very difficult to maintain exchange transactions with large numbers of people. In reality, there will be reciprocity, but, as we have seen, this is quite different from exchange.
Terms of exchange — what we receive per unit of what we give — are still very important in a multipartite situation, since if any one of the parties finds that their terms of exchange with the group or organization are unsatisfactory, they will tend to leave it. However, terms of exchange are determined within a system of reciprocity rather than within a system of exchange, which may be one reason why it is often difficult in such cases to correct unsatisfactory terms of exchange, even when it is in the interest of the parties to do so.
Thus, a man resigns from a company, leaves a church, or even divorces his wife because he feels that he is giving too much and receiving too little. If the transactions were simple exchanges, the terms of exchange could perhaps be renegotiated. When the transactions involve reciprocity, negotiation and bargaining are practically excluded by definition, and one must rely on spontaneous changes in the flow of one-way transfers, which may be very difficult to achieve consciously.
Some modern organization theorists have argued that the pathologies and inefficiencies of hierarchy could be corrected by developing simulations of exchanges within organizations. Whether this can actually be done, however, is subject to serious doubt, simply because of the sheer difficulty of organizing multipartite relationships by means of contract.
Another very significant aspect of the grants economy, also neglected by economists, is the “grant of labor,” or the voluntary provision of free personal services. It covers a very broad field of social life and, quantitatively, may be the largest single element of the grants economy, although I know of no aggregate estimate of its total magnitude.
It may be significant, however, that shortly after the formation of the Association for the Study of the Grants Economy in 1969, the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars was established, along with a Journal of Voluntary Action Research. There is also the Center for a Voluntary Society and a National Center for Voluntary Action in Washington, which operates “Volinfo,” a system partially computerized for the collection, storage, distribution and retrieval of information on this subject.
Voluntary action includes such things as voluntary work camps, helpers of all ages assisting in hospitals, work performed by honorary secretaries and officers in countless organizations, unpaid advisers in cities, counties, town councils and political organizations of every kind, board members of countless organizations, Sunday school teachers and religious workers, student volunteers of all kinds; the list could be extended almost indefinitely.
It is not always easy to say where voluntary work ends and leisure activities begin. Again, there is a broad spectrum of activities, and it is not especially important to know exactly where the dividing lines should be drawn. There is a broad distinction between voluntary action, or grants of labor, which is activity designed to benefit someone else, and leisure activity, which is designed primarily to benefit the person performing it.
Even so, there is a wide area of overlap. If a father takes his children camping, he is acting for his own benefit as much as for theirs, and a large part of the satisfaction derived from his leisure activity consists in obtaining some form of reciprocity, as in play.
Being a golf partner, for example, represents a service to the opponent, who could conceivably have had to pay someone to play with him, as well as a leisure activity for the person acting as opponent.
