El Intercambio Simbólico y las Antinomias de la Economía de Mercado

Abstract

The possibility of other economies other than the microeconomic structures imparted by neoclassical instrumental rationality are evident from the moment cultural social scientists are beginning to worry about the study of the autarchic practices of the indigenous, peasant, Afro-descendant communities, Guilds and family members. The everyday experiences in the mercantile exchange processes of these human conglomerates are consolidated in trade schemes that are not crossed by the logic of the western market (perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly) and even by the supremacy of money - sacred marriages, festivity, reciprocity, sacrifice, the gift - because their intentions are possibly overcoming the aggressive tendency of the accumulation of capital (Marx, 1867/1977, 1844/1993) prevailing in modern mercantile society. Since the categories of “premodernity” versus “modernity” are still absent in the imaginary of these collectivities, the most usual thing to understand the development of their economic bonds is to begin by recognizing them within the spaces of authenticity, without implying A rupture of mythological or epistemic order for its permanence in the time. Accepting other possible economies -emotional, moral, reason-, different from the instrumental rationality of the West, is a great step to understand our multicultural existence, despite the contradictions in which savage capitalism has kept us for a long time.