The Work and the Gift

"Considers how, in a wide range of western culture and thought, the ideas of working and giving remain locked in a fatal dilemma, each one representing the other's aspirations and absolute limit. Ranging from Marx and Derrida to Friedrich Hayek and Alvin Toffler, Scott Cutler Shershow here explores the predictions of political thinkers on both the left and the right that work is fundamentally changing, or even disappearing; the debates among anthropologists and historians about an archaic gift-economy that preceded capitalism and might reemerge in its wake; contemporary political battles over charity and social welfare; and attempts by modern and postmodern artists to destabilize the work of art as we know it".--BOOKJACKET.