In Scams and Sweeteners, author Masahiro Ogino presents his sociological
reflections on fraudulent acts, which are preformed in the space that is
not governed by social norms. In this ambitious study, he attempts to
develop a theory of what he calls a society of zero sociability on the
basis of Japanese, French, German, Swiss, Italian, and American cases.
He argues that there is no clear delineation between friendship and
respect, and gift-giving and scams, in degree-zero society. There is no
differentiation between a premeditated scam and the intention to give a
gift, and one could easily become the other, so that a situation may
seem like a scam but could easily seem like an example of gift giving.
There is a need for sociological theory focusing on [this] primordial
world.