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Quotes from The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies — Marcel Mauss

1872–1950 France

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Among the first groups of beings with whom men must have made contracts were the spirits of the dead and the gods. They in fact are the real owners of the world's wealth. With them it was particularly necessary to exchange and particularly dangerous not to; but, on the other hand, with them exchange was easiest and safest.

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (1966)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Marcel Mauss (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.