The General Principles of Sociability: Developing Sahlins' Theory of `Primitive Exchange'

Abstract

A new formal theory of social exchange is presented, which attempts to overcome the hedonistic and economistic bias of Homans' (1961) and Blau's (1964) approaches. In their analyses, principles of social exchange are essentially illustrations from social life of elementary economic principles. This paper argues that although the rational choice assumption - characteristic of economics - is useful in analysing social relationships, there is a distinct quality to social exchange which distinguishes it from economic exchange. The theory is based on the idea that this quality, which Sahlins (1965) calls `degree of sociability', has to do with a concern for the wellbeing of the other party to the relationship as an end in itself. The usefulness of the theory is illustrated by showing how some of Sahlins' empirical ganeralizations about `primitive exchange' can be seen as special cases of more general principles which are theorems of the formal theory. An additional result of this analysis is the discovery of certain conceptual ambiguities in some of Sahlins' formulations, which in the light of the theory are then restated in a more precise fashion.