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Abstract In this essay, Alain Caillé reconstructs the “singular history of the MAUSS (Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences)” from when in early 1980 a group of friends from different disciplines (sociologists, economists, philosophers, etc.) decided to found the “Bulletin du MAUSS” to counter the growing hegemony of utilitarianism and economism in the human sciences and in the philosophical disciplines themselves. The Bulletin would initially become the “Revue du MAUSS trimestrielle” from 1988 to 1992 and from 1993 to 2022 the “Revue du MAUSS semestrielle” until its current anglophone extension “MAUSS International”. The author takes Marcel Mauss’ definition of the gift as a “total social fact” and explains that the gift paradigm is a “translation operator” in the sense that it is continuously enriched in interaction with existing discourses. The theoretical operation that Caillé proposes is to explicate Mauss’s discovery by moving from a simple gift paradigm, based on the perspective of simple reciprocity between giver and recipient, to an expanded gift paradigm. In this way, it can dialogue with other paradigms and other currents of thought (theory of recognition, theory of care, theory of human development, etc.). And from here to a conception of the gift as “adonnement”, i.e. the commitment of human subjects to bring something new and unprecedented into the world.

O autor busca, neste texto, inicialmente, estabelecer uma relação entre a teoria da dádiva e as teorias sobre o cuidado em sua acepção ampla contida na noção ingle sa de care, abordadas sob a perspectiva da saúde. Com base nesta reflexão, propõe um paradigma ampliado da dádiva que permita a reinterpretação das teorias sobre care segundo a linguagem da dádiva e conclui convidando a repensarem-se as hierar quias e as formas de motivações que estruturam as organizações da saúde.

Neste artigo, procura-se demonstrar que as noções de razão utilizadas nas ciências sociais são largamente determinadas pela tradição utilitarista e que, por conseguinte, na prática, o conceito de racionalidade tem limites discutíveis dados pela subordinação do mesmo à questão do cálculo interessado. Mas a crítica à racionalidade utilitarista é complexa na medida em que existem diferentes registros do utilitarismo: o prático, como é o caso do utilitarismo economicista que prega a satisfação primeira de interesses egoístas materiais; o teórico, que propõe serem todos os homens egoístas e calculistas por natureza; e o normativo, que vincula o ideal de justiça à satisfação do maior número de indivíduos. A crítica às teses utilitaristas leva o autor a lembrar a contribuição de Marcel Mauss na fundação de um novo paradigma, o da dádiva. Enfim, este texto é fundamental para se compreender a passagem de uma crítica antiutilitarista negativa para uma outra, antiutilitarista positiva, que se apoia na criação do novo paradigma.

In an exchange with the Nouvelle Revue du Travail, Alain Caillé and Norbert Alter pursue their Maussian analysis of the reality of contemporary work by discussing questions that are central to capitalism, wage-earning, enterprise and the sociology of work. This follows their contribution to this issue of Chorus entitled “Conceptualising work as a gift: Implementing the gift/counter-gift paradigm in the sociology of work” (Peut-on penser le travail par le don? De la mise en œuvre du paradigme du don contre-don en sociologie du travail).

Alain Caillé starts by resituating the gift paradigm that the “Anti-Utilitarian Social Sciences Movement” (Mouvement anti-utilitariste en sciences sociales, MAUSS) has tried to mobilise for nearly 30 years now. He then goes on to show how seeing things through the filter of gift-making makes it easier to see what lies in organisations’ black box, starting with the ravages of neo-management. Norbert Alter has written a response to this contribution under the aegis of his “Conceptualising work as a gift” (Peut-on penser le travail par le don?) Chorus file.

Although worldwide we can account for more and more sociologists, sociology is revealing in fact to be more and more uncertain of its identity, meaning and legitimacy. It is indeed marked by a triple burst : a double internal burst between theory and empiry and between rival schools and an external burst between sociology, history, literary criticism and philosophy – to which we can add a fourth one that overlaps and doubles them : the absence of sociology from major and current theoretical and political debates. It is then urgent to identify the common denominator to all these currents of thought mentioned in this paper, so that it can organize a reasoned knowledge transfer of modern reflexivity, powerful enough to oppose an alternate legitimate theory to economics’ legitimate imperialism.

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