Gilder argues that capitalism is what drives people to give gifts to each other and from those gifts capitalism grows and advances throughout history. I flat out disagree with this and believe that gift giving is completely separate from capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that describes the ability for people to own and sell goods and services. True gift giving is not monetary in nature. Neither is the gift giving that Gilder describes either. His type of gift giving calls for people to understand the recipient and get them something they need or like after you come to understand them. This is more of a social system than an economic one. While it is understandable to get them confused as they are closely linked, we buy gifts or make them which takes money after all, it is a subtle difference but important one. It is known as ‘correlation is not causation’. Just because one thing increases and another thing increases at the same time does not mean that one causes the other.
Gilder argues that native tribes would give feasts and gifts to other tribes to show friendship and to show support. However this does not mean these tribes were capitalistic. In-fact native tribes were much more socialistic in nature than they were capitalistic. Almost all property within the tribe was communally owned and used without regard to private property. So if anything we should say that these tribes and their gift giving was actually the foundations of socialism rather than capitalism. What made these tribes more capitalistic was the ‘encouragement’ of European settlers who forced them to adopt the foreigners' ways at threat of being kicked off their own land, which still happened but the threat was there. This was only achieved because the Europeans had a society that prioritized science and advancement while the native tribes were mostly cultural in nature and so didn’t strive to make the same kind of scientific advancements that the Europeans did. They did not willingly join the capitalist system or embrace it smiling. Instead they only joined it when it was clear that the new people had weapons that could massacre and did massacre them that they tried to assimilate to the western way of life.
Capitalism by definition allows private individuals to make their own decisions with regard to their own personal economic development. This means that the individual can decide whether they want to make more money through nefarious methods or make less with altruistic methods. This gives real tangible rewards to those that choose to take the more greedy and selfish choices. They make more money which in turn allows them to make more deals which gives them more money in an endless loop until they eventually pass away. Capitalism does not encourage gift giving. In fact in our society it encourages the opposite because it looks down upon those that don’t have ‘enough’ money or those that are considered poor. If you take the time to make a personable gift for someone then you have wasted time that could be used to make more money. If you buy a gift for someone then you wasted money that could have been invested and used to start a business. In our society we constantly show off how much money we have, from the iPhone releasing the same phone every year to Gucci bags that are no better than Walmart's great value. We love to waste money to show how much of it we have.
If we really wanted to become a gift giving society we would economically change how we look at ourselves. We would push for programs that ensured that every single person was housed, fed, watered, and clothed with the ability to get a job and earn their own money. This would make it so that every single person no matter who could give a gift to someone else because they don’t have to worry about spending too much so that they can’t afford rent or to eat. There is also the stigma of gift giving. It turns into more of a chore than a happy action as when you receive a gift your first thought isn’t to be excited that you got something special but rather to think of how much it cost and what you need to buy to be even with the person giving you the gift. This is the social air that we have created in a capitalist society because we view it as if you are worthless if you are unable to return the gesture with an equal amount of worth.
