© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. Mirror for Humanity Conrad Phillip Kottak Fifth Edition Chapter 6 Making a Living

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. Overview Adaptive strategies –Foraging, horticulture, agriculture, pastoralism Economic systems –Industrial vs. nonindustrial modes of production Distribution and exchange –Market principle, redistribution, reciprocity

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Adaptive strategies –Cohen’s study of adaptive strategies – systems of economic production Similarities between unrelated societies reflect comparable adaptive strategies Five main adaptive strategies: –Foraging –Horticulture –Agriculture –Pastoralism –Industrialism

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Foraging –All humans were foragers until 10,000 B.P. –Most foragers became food producers –Remaining foragers are at least partially dependent on food production or food producers –All modern foragers live in nation-states, depend to some extent on government assistance, and are influenced by the world system –Foraging survived mainly in environments unfavorable to food production

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Correlates of foraging –Bands Small groups – fewer than a hundred people Members related by kinship or marriage May split up during part of the year –Social mobility – foragers may join any band to which they have kin or marital links –Egalitarianism – only minor contrasts in prestige, based on age and gender

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Correlates of foraging –Gender-based division of labor Found in all human societies Among foragers, men typically hunt and fish, women gather and collect (these roles are not always exclusive) Gathering tends to contribute more to the diet than hunting and fishing do (tropical and semitropical foragers) –Age-based social distinctions Older people typically respected for their special knowledge of ritual and practical matters

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Horticulture –Cultivation that does not make intensive use of land, labor, capital, or machinery –Simple tools, slash-and-burn techniques –Shifting cultivation Relationship between people and land is not permanent Shifting between plots of land – exhausted plots left fallow for a period of time

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Agriculture –Cultivation that involves intensive and continuous use of land –More labor intensive than horticulture – use of domesticated animals, irrigation, and/or terracing –Animals used for transport, as cultivating machines, and for their manure –Irrigation Decreased dependence on rainy season Plots may be cultivated year after year Enriches soil –Terracing – allows steep hillsides to be cultivated and irrigated

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Agriculture –Costs and benefits of agriculture Does not necessarily produce higher single- year yields than horticulture does Very labor intensive – lower yield relative to labor invested (in comparison to horticulture) Main advantage: greater, more dependable long-term yield

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Agricultural intensification: people and the environment –Agriculture has allowed human populations to move into, and transform, a wider range of environments –Intensified food production is associated with: Sedentism Increased population size and density Increased regulation of interpersonal relations, land, labor, and other resources –Negative environmental effects of intensive agriculture: Disease Deforestation Loss of ecological diversity

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Pastoralism –Economies based on domesticated animal herds –Symbiotic relationship between pastoralists and their herds –Direct use of animals for food –Pastoralists supplement their diets by hunting, gathering, fishing, cultivating, or trading –Two patterns of movement: Pastoral nomadism – entire group moves with the animals throughout the year Transhumance – part of the group moves with the herds, but most people stay in the home village

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Economic systems –Economy – a system of production, distribution, and consumption of resources –Economics – study of economies –Economic anthropology – studies economics in a comparative perspective

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Economic systems –Mode of production – a way of organizing production –Capitalist mode of production: Money buys labor power Social gap between people (bosses and workers) involved in the production process –Nonindustrial societies: Kin-based mode of production Labor usually given as a social obligation (rather than being bought) –Societies with the same adaptive strategy tend to have a similar mode of production

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Means of production –Include land, labor, and technology –Land Foragers – ties between people and land are less permanent than they are among food producers Nonindustrial food producers –Descent groups (groups whose members claim common ancestry) are common –People who descend from the founder share the group’s territory and resources

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Means of production –Labor Nonindustrial societies –Access to both land and labor comes through social links (e.g., kinship, marriage, descent) –Mutual aid in production is part of ongoing social relations –Technology, technical knowledge less specialized in nonindustrial societies than in states –Craft specialization (e.g., ceramic production) – occurs in some tribal societies

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Alienation in industrial economies –Industrial workers are alienated from the product of their work –Products are sold, profits go to employers –Consequence of alienation: workers have less pride in and personal identification with their products –Industrial workers also have impersonal relations with their coworkers and employers –Contrast with nonindustrial societies: Economy is embedded in society – relations of production, distribution, and consumption are social relations with economic aspects

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Alienation in industrial economies –Example: female factory workers in Malaysia Suffer from difficult and exhausting work conditions, constant male supervision, low wages, job uncertainty Spirit possession of female factory workers – may represent unconscious protest against labor discipline and male control of the industrial setting

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Economizing and maximization –Classical economic theory assumes that individuals act rationally and strive to maximize profit (profit motive) –Anthropology demonstrates that people are not always motivated by the desire to maximize profit People may try to maximize profit, wealth, prestige, pleasure, comfort, or social harmony

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Economizing and maximization –People invest scarce resources in subsistence, replacement, social, ceremonial, and rent funds Subsistence fund – replacing calories used in daily activity Replacement fund – maintenance of technology and other items essential to production and everyday life Social fund – to help friends, relatives, in-laws, and neighbors Ceremonial fund – expenditures on ceremonies or rituals Rent fund (in nonindustrial societies) – rendering resources to an individual or agency that is superior politically or economically

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Economizing and maximization –Peasants: Small-scale agriculturalists who live in nonindustrial states and have rent fund obligations Produce to feed themselves, to sell their produce, and to pay rent Lack elaborate technology of modern farming or agribusiness Rent fund often becomes peasants’ foremost obligation

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Three principles orienting exchanges (according to Polanyi): market principle, redistribution, reciprocity –Market principle Dominates in capitalist economies Items are bought and sold, using money Goal is to maximize profit Value determined by the law of supply and demand Bargaining

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Redistribution Goods (or services) move from the local level to a center, usually through a hierarchy of officials who may consume some of the goods Goods are eventually redistributed – flowing in the opposite direction, down through the hierarchy and back to the local level

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Reciprocity Exchange between social equals – normally related by kinship, marriage, or another close personal tie Dominant in more egalitarian societies (foragers, cultivators, and pastoralists) Three degrees of reciprocity: generalized, balanced, and negative

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Generalized reciprocity Prevalent among foragers Someone gives to another person and expects nothing concrete or immediate in return Expressions of personal relationships, rather than primarily economic transactions –Balanced reciprocity Exchange occurs between more distantly related people Reciprocation is expected at some point in future Complete failure to reciprocate strains the social relationship

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Negative Reciprocity Exchanges with people outside or on the fringes of a social system Such exchanges are full of ambiguity and distrust (at least initially) Each partner attempts to maximize profit and expects an immediate return

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Coexistence of exchange principles Different exchange principles may be present in the same society – govern different kinds of transactions United States – market principle predominates, but redistribution and reciprocal exchanges also occur

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Potlatching Practiced by tribes of the North Pacific Coast of North America (e.g., Kwakiutl, Salish) Rituals in which sponsors (assisted by members of their communities) gave away resources in exchange for greater prestige Traditionally viewed as economically wasteful and driven by irrational desires for prestige

© 2007 McGraw-Hil Higher Education. All right reserved. CHAPTER 6 Making a Living Distribution and exchange –Potlatching Cultural ecological view: –Potlatches are cultural adaptations to alternating periods of local abundance and shortage –Resource fluctuation from year to year and place to place –Potlatching linked villages together in a regional economy –Exchange system that distributed food and wealth from wealthy to needy communities, and rewarded potlatch sponsors and their villages with prestige