Alain Caillé and the gift paradigm as a response to the problem of social order

Abstract

This text proposes a reading of the work of the French sociologist Alain Caille, focusing on the problem of the social order that the author works on the basis of Marcel Mauss’s “theory of the gift”. This problem is fundamental to position the gift as the third paradigm of social action, and that problematizes the utilitarian model. So, in our argument, we try to account for the problem of social order in sociology; from here to relieve Mauss theory as an alternative paradigm to individualism and holism, showing in this review the consequences that utilitarianism has generated in the way of thinking about the gift. In this line, a reading is proposed that highlights the dialectical component of the gift as logic as strategy and as a relational paradigm; and that allows another form of critical intelligibility for the social sciences in order to enable contemporary social struggles.