Sacred Commerce: Rites of Reciprocity in Ruskin

Abstract

Suggests Ruskin’s theory of political economy refashions the notion of ritual sacrifice by transposing the concept to the capitalist idea of labor and exchange as a kind of communal rite of self-sacrifice. Believes Ruskin’s ideas on political economy expose the Victorians’ preoccupation with that subject and with anthropology, noting their similarities in that ritual and exchange coordinate individual acts into a system rooted in reciprocal self-sacrifice.