Despite how pervasive markets have become, the relationships and social units that we most value and prioritize, particularly friendships and the family, do not primarily involve the market, money, or contracts. They are expressed through a different economy, a gift economy. A friendship, for example, is a relationship based on sharing life and the gifts of time and attention. The family is a web of relationships established on gift exchange. A father does not charge his children for reading to them or cooking their dinner, for both are gifts. A wife does not charge her husband for caring for him when ill, for care is a gift. Indeed, we talk of “caregivers.” When children are taught to thank those who protect and provide for them, their thankfulness is an acknowledgement that what they have received is the gift of loving care; their gratitude is a return gift.

Life is not a matter of trade, possession, or right, but of gift.