The liberal tradition mapped out the logic of a modern society made up of emancipated individuals, who might voluntarily join together for different purposes but who retained a high degree of freedom to pursue their individual ends. An antitraditionalist like Mandeville who wished to affirm the emerging freedoms of modern society could do so with little or no reference to the gift. Thinkers with greater breadth could ponder the inadequacies of a society that ran only on self-interest; they could appreciate the mutual obligations of traditional European society and the important place of voluntary acts of generosity in modern society. But gift giving remained a secondary topic, a historical memory or a corrective to modern society's unprecedented freedom from the past's dense network of dues. As late as the eighteenth century, Europeans went from one gift-giving society – their own – to other gift-giving societies overseas. But by the mid-nineteenth century, Europeans had little comprehension of the colonial societies they were attempting to subdue and rule. Even though gift networks had by no means disappeared at home, pragmatic administrators, soldiers, and businessmen had difficulty understanding the rudimentary social expectations of the people they were supposed to turn into peaceful, productive subjects. A sophisticated social scientist like Karl Bücher struggled with limited success to understand the nonmarket rules of indigenous economies.