George Lakoff and Alan Fiske

Alan Fiske classified human interactions into four types:

Communal sharing is how you treat your immediate family: All for one and one for all. Or as Marx put it: From each according to ability, to each according to need.

Equality matching, by contrast, means we all take turns. From kindergarten to the town meeting, it's all about fair shares, reciprocity, doing your part.

Authority ranking is how tribes function, not to mention armies, corporations and governments. Know your place, obey orders, and hail to the chief.

Market pricing, of course, is the basis of economics. It's what we do whenever we weigh costs and benefits, trade up (or down), save or invest.

I just realized that George Lakoff's analysis of politics is based on the assumption that communal sharing (called the “Nurturant Mother” frame) and authority ranking (called the “Strict Father” frame) are the only two types of interaction worth considering.

There are, of course, situations in which communal sharing is preferred and market pricing is wildly inappropriate.