Altruism, Gifts and Symbolic Exchange

From Comte, to Durkheim, Mauss and Bourdieu

Series: 

Author:
Philippe Steiner
Translator:
Peter Hamilton
Altruism, gifts and symbolic exchange refer to a vast set of practices deeply embedded in our market societies. They were successively theorized by Auguste Comte, Marcel Mauss, and Pierre Bourdieu. This book follows the outline of a history that has hitherto been glimpsed only as a series of fragments and which needs to be reassembled in order to see its full scope. This history is structured in terms of three stages: a critique of political economy, a theoretical construction backed by empirical practices, and, finally, an assessment of the social effects of the dissemination of economic knowledge.
Copyright Year:
2026
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978-90-04-74137-9
Publication:
24 Nov 2025
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ISBN:
978-90-04-42246-9
Publication:
27 Nov 2025
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Philippe Steiner is emeritus Professor of sociology at Sorbonne University. His work focuses on the history of social sciences and economic sociology. He haspreviously published Durkheim and the Birth of Economic Sociology (Princeton University Press, 2011) and Calculation and Morality, co-authored with Caroline Oudin-Bastide (OUP USA, 2019).
List of Figure and Tables

Introduction

1 Theoretical Critique of Political Economy
 1 Sociology and Political Economy
 2 Comte: “Reforming Political Economy”
 3 Theoretical Critique of Political Economy
  3.1 The Rejection of a False Science
  3.2 The Economic Fact Is Social Fact
  3.3 The Rational Economic Actor, a Monstrous Fiction
  3.4 History
  3.5 Politics
 4 Implications

2 Comte and Altruism
 1 From the Critique of Political Economy to Altruism
  1.1 The Production of Morality
  1.2 Typology of Exchange
  1.3 Economics of Altruism
 2 Altruism and Economic Theory
 3 Altruism and Transfers of Resources
  3.1 Inheritance as a Political and Affective Principle of Exchange
  3.2 Inheritance, Economic Growth and Inequality
  3.3 Inheritances and Intra-Family Gifts: the Percolation of Wealth
 4 Familial Altruism and Market: a Shifting Boundary
 5 Conclusion

3 Durkheim and Mauss: from Altruism to the Gift
 1 Altruism and Forms of Solidarity
  1.1 The Division of Labor in Society
  1.2 Socialism and Political Sociology
  1.3 Altruism at the Center of Empirical Research
  1.4 Nurturing Altruism and Egoism
 2 Exchange, Gifts, and Solidarity
 3 Mechanical and Organisational Gifts
  3.1 Which Actors for Which Transactions?
 4 Biomédecine and Organisational Gifts
 5 Selflessness, Markets and Contested Gifts
 6 Conclusion

4 Bourdieu: from the Gift to the Exchange of Symbolic Goods
 1 Algeria, Peasants and Economic Activity
 2 From the Gift to the Denegation of the Economy
  2.1 From the Gift to the Logic of Honor
  2.2 From the Logic of Honor to “Interest in Disinterestedness”
  2.3 Symbolic Interest and Capital
 3 The Production of Symbolic Goods
  3.1 The Housing Market
 4 The Economy of Singularities and the Exchange of Symbolic Goods
  4.1 Singularities, Fans and Judgments
 5 Decommoditisation and Management of the Commercial Tie
  5.1 Singularities and Decommoditization
  5.2 Murakami and Parker
 6 Conclusion

5 Exchange Mapping
 1 Exchange Mapping: from Comte to Polanyi
 2 A Map of Contemporary Exchange
 3 The Market as a Political Challenge

6 Economic Knowledge
 1 From Theory to Knowledge
  1.1 Practical Representations
  1.2 Constructed Representations
 2 Economic Knowledge, Markets and Market Practices
  2.1 Polanyi and Political Economy
  2.2 Callon, and the Pragmatic Critique of Economics
 3 Teaching and Machines
 4 Conclusion

7 The Great Performation
 1 Experimental Economics and Economic Engineering
  1.1 The Economic Theory of the Construction of Markets
  1.2 Performation Institutions
 2 The Performative Double Moment
 3 Economic Performation
  3.1 Financial Markets
  3.2 “Nudges” and the Economic Performation of Everyday Life
 4 Axiological Performation
  4.1 Organ Transplantation
  4.2 School
 5 Conclusion

Conclusion

References

Index
This book will be of interest to academic institutes and scholars and students in social sciences and economics.
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