In any of the readings assigned this week, how are social relationships shaped by different aspects of capitalism? How do different configurations of social relationships shape specific capitalism economies, global or local?
The Purchase of Intimacy explains that social relationships in that "people routinely differentiate meaningful social relations..." and "they use different payment systems to create, define, affirm, challenge, or overturn such distinctions." Purchase, in this sense, is two tiered; first, "the frequent accusation that people use money to buy intimate relations," and second, "the grip of intimacy on the forms and meaning of payments" (Zelizer 818). This link between social relations and capitalism can be seen throughout all time and history. It occurs in instances like bride wealth, dowry, gifts, compensatory payments for seduction, etc. Within the terms of bride wealth, it "serves to distinguish sexual relations within marriage from concubinage or short-term liaisons, thereby establishing rights to marital property, inheritance, and the jural status of children" (Zelizer 820). In relation to different configurations of social relationships, negotiation serves to match a definition of payment to a definition of the relationship. These practices are established throughout the world from South Africa to Brazil to the USA. According Zelizer, "what is generally striking is the concern of people to distinguish kinds of intimate relations and to devise systems of monetary transfers that support those distinctions..." "Monetary transfers and erotic relationships, then, have actually coexisted and shaped each other for centuries." In other words different levels of a relationship align to different monetary transfers, thus social relationships are shaped by different aspects of capitalism.
The Purchase of Intimacy explains that social relationships in that "people routinely differentiate meaningful social relations..." and "they use different payment systems to create, define, affirm, challenge, or overturn such distinctions." Purchase, in this sense, is two tiered; first, "the frequent accusation that people use money to buy intimate relations," and second, "the grip of intimacy on the forms and meaning of payments" (Zelizer 818). This link between social relations and capitalism can be seen throughout all time and history. It occurs in instances like bride wealth, dowry, gifts, compensatory payments for seduction, etc. Within the terms of bride wealth, it "serves to distinguish sexual relations within marriage from concubinage or short-term liaisons, thereby establishing rights to marital property, inheritance, and the jural status of children" (Zelizer 820). In relation to different configurations of social relationships, negotiation serves to match a definition of payment to a definition of the relationship. These practices are established throughout the world from South Africa to Brazil to the USA. According Zelizer, "what is generally striking is the concern of people to distinguish kinds of intimate relations and to devise systems of monetary transfers that support those distinctions..." "Monetary transfers and erotic relationships, then, have actually coexisted and shaped each other for centuries." In other words different levels of a relationship align to different monetary transfers, thus social relationships are shaped by different aspects of capitalism.
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