Iona Heath is right to stress the importance of the gift economy in health care but if readers want a more accessible and relevant primary source than Mauss or Graeber, I suggest they take a look at Richard Titmuss' "The Gift Relationship: from human blood to social policy" published by Penguin in 1973. A forensic comparative examination of the American market based blood donor system with the UK gift based system which explores the consequences of paying often impoverished people to donate blood. Wilkepedia has an interesting entry on contaminated haemophilia blood products which highlights the very real dangers of a market based approach.
Rapid Response:
Re: The NHS gift economy is in peril
Iona Heath is right to stress the importance of the gift economy in health care but if readers want a more accessible and relevant primary source than Mauss or Graeber, I suggest they take a look at Richard Titmuss' "The Gift Relationship: from human blood to social policy" published by Penguin in 1973. A forensic comparative examination of the American market based blood donor system with the UK gift based system which explores the consequences of paying often impoverished people to donate blood. Wilkepedia has an interesting entry on contaminated haemophilia blood products which highlights the very real dangers of a market based approach.
Competing interests: No competing interests