IN GENERAL, scholars have posited a radical distinc- tion between societies where gifts predominate and "the class society, where private property and the com- modity are the norm" (Morris 1986:2; see also Gregory
1982). While no one would deny the centrality of gift giv- ing in the political economy of egalitarian societies, scholars have ignored and even denied its significance in classstratified societies.' Thus, although Pierre Bourdieu portrays gift giving in precapitalist societies as "an ele- mentary form of domination," he suggests that state- based societies have developed objective mechanisms of domination which are more indirect and impersonal (1977:189-191). Jonathan Parry indicates that gifts carry a social load in "primitive" societies "which in cen- tralised politics is assumed by the state," adding that "in an economy with a sizeable market sector gift-exchange does not have the material significance it has for the many tribal societies in which it provides the only ac- cess to crucial scarce resources" (1986:467).2 Similarly, David Cheal, while arguing for the symbolic and ritual importance of gift giving in complex societies, suggests that "gift transactions do not have as their principal pur- pose the redistribution of resourcesn and that "in mod- ern societies there exist a variety of means of domination in which gifts play little partn (1988:3).