There are a large number of these credit slips outstanding, often on both sides of a relation (for these credit slips appear often not to be completely fungible across areas of activity, so that credit slips of B held by A and those of A held by B are not fully used to cancel each other out). The El Khalili market in Cairo, described earlier, constitutes an extreme case of such a social structure. In other social structures where individuals are more self-sufficient and depend on each other less, there are fewer of these credit slips outstanding at any time.

DEFINE: The 'credit slips' concept here describes the accumulated imbalance of favors/obligations in reciprocal relations — a metaphor for social debt that isn't immediately settled.

Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, loc. 84