In other words, the problem is not the absolute possession of goods, but one’s attitude toward one’s possessions. Even the poor may fall under condemnation if they lack generosity and egalitarian acceptance of others. This principle is a fundamental aspect of the type of society that Benjamin is attempting to create. Ekkehard W. Stegemann, professor of New Testament at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Wolfgang Stegemann, professor of New Testament at the Augustana Hochschule in Neuendettelsau, Germany, describe the social implications of an economic system based on equality of exchange:
The most elementary form of the exchange of goods is reciprocity, the exchange of gifts between individual persons, households (families), or clans (relatives). This network of mutual production among persons and social groups with comparable status rests ultimately on the reciprocity (quid pro quo) and is not oriented toward profit (balanced reciprocity). Thus, in principle reciprocity presupposes symmetry or balance of exchange and is connected with a careful calculation of exchanged goods and services. Equivalents do not always have to correspond with each other directly but can also be granted the giver (on a delayed basis) through prestige or loyalty (say, in the relationship of patron and client). This form of exchange is called general reciprocity. If we can perceive a certain element of delay in the balance of quid pro quo in general reciprocity, balance is lacking altogether in negative reciprocity, which is ruled not by the ethic of the golden rule but by an interest in doing to another what one does not want done to oneself. This is the ethnic of hostility against enemies and all groups of people with whom one is not in a reciprocal relationship. Thus, for example, the form of balanced reciprocity within a small circle—the family, household, clan, and even neighbors—is not granted to strangers. Hence, relations with strangers are dominated by the negative form of reciprocity, in which self-interest and profit are permitted to dominate.…
Thus, if we may generalize, reciprocity rules above all in rural areas; and beyond village and kinship solidarity, negative reciprocity with unrelated people and strangers makes possible a modest amount of profit.
In terms of an economic model for society, Benjamin is clearly including the entire city as part of the in-group deserving of balanced reciprocity. Those who attempt to create social distinctions are treating members of the same city as though they were outsiders. They are giving them the same social treatment as they would an enemy, and Benjamin’s purpose in establishing the new covenant is to create of those who might have been considered socially segregated (or “enemies” in the social sense) a single in-group or clan that depends on egalitarian treatment (balanced reciprocity).