Chapter 6 Economics

Maine Lobster Markets

In sum, the Maine fishermen and the dealers have, over time, developed highly personalized exchange relations in order to manage the risky lobster market. While these market exchanges last over many seasons and rely on a certain degree of trust, neither the fishermen nor the dealers would characterize the relationship as reciprocal—they are buying and selling lobster, not exchanging gifts.

capitalist production

private property owned by a capitalist class

market exchange

form of trade that today most commonly in- volves general purpose money, bargaining, and supply and demand price mechanisms

Consumption

refers to the process of buying, eating, or using a resource, food, commodity, or service. Anthropologists understand consumption more specifically as the forms of behavior that connect our economic activity with the cultural symbols that give our lives meaning.

negative reciprocity

an attempt to get something for nothing. It is the most impersonal of the three forms of reciprocity and it commonly exists among people who do not know each other well because close relationships are incompatible with attempts to take advantage of other people. Gambling is a good example of negative reciprocity, and some would argue that market exchange, in which one participant aims to buy low while the other aims to sell high, can also be a form of negative reciprocity. nigerian email scammers

reciprocity

involves the exchange of goods and services and is rooted in a mutual sense of obligation and identity.

tributary production

is found in social systems divided into classes of rulers and subjects. Subjects, typically farmers and/or herders, produce for themselves and their families, but they also give a proportion of their goods or labor to their rulers as tribute. The tributary mode of production characterizes a variety of precapitalist, state-level societies found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. These societies share several common features: (1) the dominant units of production are communities organized around kinship relations; (2) the state's society depends on the local communities, and the tribute collected is used by the ruling class rather than exchanged or reinvested; (3) relationships between producers and rulers are often conflictual; and (4) production is controlled politically rather than through the direct control of the means of production. feudal europe medeival japan imperial china

Tiv Spheres of Exchange

Tiv had three distinct economic arenas and that each arena had its own form of money The subsistence sphere included locally produced foods (yams, grains, and veg- etables), chickens, goats, and household utensils. The second sphere encompassed slaves, cattle, white cloth, and metal bars. Finally, the third, most prestigious sphere was limited to marriageable females. Excluded completely from the Tiv spheres of exchange were labor (because it was always reciprocally exchanged) and land (which was not owned per se, but rather communally held within families).

mode of production

Way of organizing production—a set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, and knowledge. social relations through which human labor is used to transform energy from nature using tools, skills, organization, and knowledge. This concept originated with anthropologist Eric Wolf, who was strongly influenced by the social theorist Karl Marx. Marx argued that human consciousness is not determined by our cosmologies or beliefs but instead by our most basic human activity: work. Domestic, tributary, capitalist

generalized reciprocity

When we gift without reckoning the exact value of the gift or expecting a specific thing in return we are practicing Recall the Dobe Ju/'ho- ansi foragers who live in the Kalahari Desert: they have a flexible and overlapping kinship system which ensures that the products of their hunting and gathering are shared widely across the entire community.

three distinct types of reciprocity

generalized, balanced, and negative

There are three distinct ways to integrate economic and social relations and distribute material goods

market exchange reciprocity redistribution

redistribution

occurs when an authority of some type (a temple priest, a chief, or even an institution such as the Internal Revenue Service) col- lects economic contributions from all community members and then redistributes these back in the form of goods and services. requires centralized social organization, even if at a small scale (for example, within the foraging societies discussed above). As we will see, various modes of exchange can and do coexist, even within capitalism.

Ithaca HOURS

She found that while the complementary currency does not necessarily create full economic equality, it does create deeper connections among community members and local businesses, help- ing to demystify and personalize exchange The HOURS system demonstrates a relatively successful approach to challenging the inequalities fostered by general purpose money.

political economy

This approach recognizes that the economy is central to everyday life but contextualizes economic relations within state structures, political processes, social structures, and cultural values.63 Some political economic anthropologists focus on how societies and markets have historically evolved while others ask how individuals deal with the forces that oppress them, focusing on historical legacies of social domination and margin- alization.

structural violence

a form of vio- lence in which a social structure or institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. In other words, how political and economic forces structure risk for various forms of suffering within a population. Structural violence can include things like infectious disease, hunger, and violence (torture, rape, crime, etc.) ex: The conditions of everyday life in Haiti, which only worsened after the 2010 earthquake, are a good example of how structural violence limits individual opportunities. The relief money funneled through these organizations ended up supporting a new elite class rather than the impoverished multitudes that so desperately need the assistance.

domestic production

foragers, small-scale subsistence farmers social structures that are more egalitarian than those characterizing the other modes of production (though these structures are still shaped by age- and gender-based forms of inequality). In the domestic mode of production, labor is organized on the basis of kinship relations (which is why this form of production is also known as kin-ordered).

balanced reciprocity

more of a direct exchange in which some- thing is traded or given with the expectation that something of equal value will be returned within a specific time period. This form of reciprocity involves three distinct stages: the gift must be given, it has to be received, and a reciprocal gift has to be returned. A key aspect of balanced reciprocity is that without reciprocation within an appropriate time frame, the exchange system will falter and the social relationship might end. Balanced reciprocity generally occurs at a social level more distant than the family, but it usually occurs among people who know each other. The Kula ring system of exchange found in the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific is one example of balanced reciprocity. A Kula ring involves the ceremonial exchange of shell and bead necklaces (soulava) for shell arm bands (mwali) between trading partners living on different islands. The Kula ring exhib- its all the hallmarks of balanced reciprocity: necklaces are traded for armbands with the expectation that objects of equal value will be returned within a specific time period.

markets

social institutions with prices or exchange equivalencies. Markets do not necessarily have to be localized in a geographic place (e.g., a marketplace), but they cannot exist without institutions to govern the exchanges. Market and reciprocal exchange appear to share similar features: one person gives something and the other receives something. A key distinction between the two is that market exchanges are regulated by supply and demand mechanisms. The forces of supply and demand can create risk for people living in societies that largely distribute goods through market exchange. If we lose our jobs, we may not be able to buy food for our families. In contrast, if a member of a Dobe Ju/'hoansi community is hurt and unable to gather foods today, she will continue to eat as a result of generalized reciprocal exchanges. based on transactions, or changes in the status of a good or service between people, such as a sale.

Redistribution

the accumulation of goods or labor by a particular person or institution for the purpose of dispersal at a later date. The potlatch system of the Native American groups living in the United States and Canadian northwestern coastal area The anthropologist Stuart Piddocke found that the potlatch primarily served a livelihood function by ensuring the redistribution of goods between groups with surpluses and those with deficits.

Salaula in Zambia: The Informal Economy

the secondhand clothing markets in Zambia in southern Africa. interesting example of how material goods can flow in and out of capitalist modes of production and exchange.