Gifts and Commodities: A Dialectical Thought Experiment for Sublation

Abstract

The core motivation for this study is the realization that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encounter temporary obstacles, conflicts, or inconsistencies that impede progress and generalization. According to the authors, sustainable development across social, environmental, and economic dimensions is unlikely to occur without redefining the meaning and recalibrating the metrics used to measure commodities. These meanings and metrics must align with values such as general reciprocity, morality, and the common good, going beyond mere calculations of means and ends and personal preferences. The research has three primary objectives: first, to compare and reassess the meanings and responsibilities assigned to “items” traded in indigenous and modern economies; second, to use Hegelian dialectics to enhance and transform the notion of a commodity by revising and expanding its current understanding; and third, to introduce a new construct—the giftized commodity—along with potential implicational scenarios and recommendations for its inclusion in theory development in stakeholder capitalism, sustainable consumer behavior, and ecological economics. Through a dialectical interaction (in a Hegelian sense), by integrating seminal and diverse viewpoints from economics and anthropology, such as Neoliberalism, commodity theory, gift theory, and production and consumption in indigenous societies, the authors intend to modify and restructure the scope of responsibilities associated with commodities and commodity exchange.