Reciprocity: An Economics of Social Relations,Serge C. Kolm.

摘要

Reciprocity is an old issue in economics. Given its focus on human interactions, economics may even be defined as the study of relations of reciprocity. Such a thesis however would be true only if we understood reciprocity in the old Latin and Greek original meaning. Reciprocity comes from reciprocus or reciprocitate, which means 'returning the same way, alternating': reci-procus, where reci is from recus (from re- 'back' + -cus, adjective formation), and procus (from pro- 'forward' + -cus, adjective formation). The verb reciprocate means 'to return, requite'. Etymological dictionaries translate reciprocity as 'retrogression, alternation, ebb', or 'move back and forth'. Aristotle, for example, uses the expression antipeponthos in order to express both commercial relations and civil ones, because an idea of proportionality and mutuality exists in all relations within the polis.