👏 Normalise 👏 Anonymous 👏 Gifts 👏

I actually don't know how normal it is, but it's a popular format, so...

Gift giving is an ancient practice which strengthens social bonds. It also has the potential, as per the Sam Vimes Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness, to help bootstrap someone to a higher level of wealth by providing them with goods that they can't afford for themselves. If the man who is buying the cheap cardboard boots has a wealthy friend, that friend could buy him a pair of leather boots that he could not afford to buy himself, and raise his disposable income by some ten dollars a year.

However, there's a catch. Gift giving between non-kin is generally understood to be reciprocal. We are naturally predisposed to look favourably on people who give us things, that is why it is possible to buy peerages. Quid pro quo isn't a bad thing, it's what creates a mutual bond of obligation. But if one person in the relationship can afford significantly greater value gifts than the other, giving according to what you can afford serves instead to highlight the power disparity. It weakens, rather than strengthens, the relationship. To be given a gift feels all too much like charity, reminding you of the position of poverty you are in relative to them, and risks creating resentment instead of gratitude.

This is not such a problem with giving between relatives -- it is understood that the way to reciprocate gifts from your parents is to bestow gifts upon their grandchildren; wealth going down the generations is the normal way of things. If the man in this example had a wealthy uncle, said uncle could buy him a pair of boots without any awkwardness -- buying your relatives expensive gifts if you can is expected, especially if they're your descendants (wealth moving generationally downwards). But between unrelated people in a position of ostensible equality, it's not so easy.

But what if the boots are given anonymously? It still might not deal with the issue of feeling like the recipient of charity (although I would certainly feel a lot less awkward accepting an anonymous gift of great value, than if I knew the giver), but without knowing who the giver is, it should not affect any relationships (assuming it is such a gift that you can't guess who gave it). As Jesus said, when you give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. It's okay for small gifts, essential even so that they can serve their function in social bonding (and tell the other person how little you know of them -- that's a different kind of awkwardness, receiving a gift that you really didn't want because the giver hasn't updated their understanding of you, if it was ever even accurate). But if you're going to give big, give anonymously.

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