EXCHANGE RELATIONS

Exchange relations are characterised by a relation between at least two people where each offers a benefit to the other in order to achieve a response. Anthropologists who have studied the Kula ring in Melanesia have shown how one person will offer a gift to another and will then expect toreceive another gift of equal or greater value but the exchange is not immediate. The gifts themselves travel round the islands and a person hopes to rteceive their own gift back again at some point in the future.

An exchange relation is never instantaneous. If I offer you something you do not usually reciprocate straight away. For example, if a couple are invited out by another couple for a meal they will probably repay the invitation but at a later time. If you buy me a cup of tea in the snack bar you might expect me to buy you one next time we meet. We also have a whole range of intuitive rules about who leads, or pays for what when people meet.

Exchange relations in markets are based on 'deliberate control' (Lindblom, 1977). The benefit is something the person wants and sees as desirable. Getting a bus is an easy example. I am prepared to exchange my money to the driver and the company in exchange for getting a ride on the bus and getting off at a stop that is conveninent to me.

Now, several things are going on here. I might feel that the prices charged on the buses are too high but I think there are other benefits. For instance, I don't have to worry about driving or parking my car; I can read on the bus but I cannot read while driving a car; the service is reasonably prompt and I do not have to wait too long; I feel people should use public transport and not cars because of pollution and because there are too many cars that do not need to be on the road. Thus, I see benefits in both direct and indirect terms.

Obviously exchange is a means of controlling and managing behaviour. The so-called absolutist monarchs such as Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) were experts at managing people through controlling the distribution of favours. This is a well known political strategem.

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