What do you think the author means by that term? Why would women be more vulnerable to living in poverty? What cultural facto

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Chapter Outline

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Explain the role of culture in the definitions of commodities and economic value.

2. Explain the roles of use rights and the ownership of resources in the process of economic production.

3. Discuss the concept of division of labor.

4. Explain the existence of common gender pat- terns in the division of labor.

5. Discuss the economic differences among the U.S. social classes.

6. Relate the forms of economic distribution to the four societal types.

The Economic System 9

9.1 The Definition of Economic Systems

• The Cultural Definition of Commodity • The Cultural Definition of Value

9.2 Production: The Control and Use of Resources

• Use Rights • Ownership • Division of Labor

9.3 Distribution

• Reciprocity • Redistribution • Markets

9.4 Consumption

• Subsistence Economies • Status Income

• Race and Poverty in the United States • The Feminization of Poverty

9.5 Social Agents of Economic Control

• Community Control of Production • Kin Control of Production • Association Control of Production • Corporation and Government Control of

Production • Social Class and Production

9.6 The Diverse Forms of Human Economies

• Subsistence Adaptations and the Environment • Foraging • Food Production • The Trend Toward Food Domestication

7. Compare and contrast subsistence economies and consumer economies.

8. Define status income and explain its economic functions.

9. Discuss the relationships between race, gender, and poverty in the United States.

10. Relate the four systems of economic control to the four societal types.

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.1 Definition of Economic Systems

In this chapter, we will discuss how economic systems work in different societies and natural environments. We will first examine how cultures define what they value as potential economic commodities. We will consider how the relative values of commodities may vary from culture to culture as well as how different cul- tures handle production, distribution, and consumption. Finally, we will discuss ways in which societies have adjusted to different conditions by using the resources available in their environments.

9.1 Definition of Economic Systems

The system by which people obtain or produce, distribute, and consume valued material goods and services is called economics. An economic system includes the subsistence customs most concerned with the production of needed goods as well as the rules that govern what is then done with those goods and how they are used. In this chapter, we will examine in more detail how people organize themselves socially to facili- tate the production, exchange, and use of goods and services. For instance, considerations other than the motive of strict material gain are required to explain why human beings commonly engage in charitable acts.

The Cultural Definition of Commodity In many ways, people all around the world strive to maximize the material goods they obtain while minimizing the effort to do so. Although few would argue with such a prin- ciple in general, it alone is not sufficient to account for the diversity of things that people endow with economic value throughout the world. An overzealous application of the principle would imply that people would rely on the minimum number of food types nec- essary to meet their nutritional needs. Nowhere do people do so, however, except where they are forced to by dire circumstances. We seek variety in our diets and even expend extra effort on special occasions to obtain and prepare unusual delicacies.

Cultures differ in what they define as useful or valuable, that is, as commodities. People work to produce food, provide themselves with shelter, and defend and reproduce them- selves in all cultures. However, as was pointed out in the discussion of culture in Chapter 2, the specific goods and services by means of which people obtain food and shelter differ from society to society, and nowhere do people make use of every potential resource. For instance, milk and dairy products were unacceptable foods for adults in traditional East Asian cultures, while North Americans reject the use of dog or snake meat, both of which are eaten in various parts of Asia. In studying the diet and work patterns of one band of Dobe Ju/’hoansi in the Kalahari desert of Botswana and Namibia, Richard Lee (2003) found that the drought-resistant and highly nutritious mongongo nut comprised 31% and meat 28% of their diet by weight. The remainder of their diet was made up of only 20 or so of the 105 species of plant foods they classified as edible (p. 40). They didn’t routinely eat the rest of these potential foods simply because they didn’t really like them. In times of hardship, when they couldn’t afford to be so fussy, they would eat the less desirable foods.

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.1 Definition of Economic Systems

Cultural differences are even greater when we consider the range of varia- tion that exists in pleasurable activi- ties that are not mandated by survival needs. Consider, for instance, art, rec- reation, and religion. Although each category is a cultural universal, and even though the psychological prin- ciples that guide people’s behavior in each category may also be univer- sal, the specific behaviors and objects people find beautiful, sacred, or fun are not readily predictable.

Cultural variation in the definition of commodities to be produced, exchanged, and consumed is not lim- ited to tangible things. Intangibles, too, may be defined as commodities. Navajos, for example, consider the sacred chants used in their curing ceremonies to be personal property, and an individual must pay an appropriate price to be taught a chant known to another. Northwest Coast Indians of North America considered titles of nobility to be a form of property, the ownership of which had to be validated by gift giving. North Americans also assert ownership over the expression of ideas and songs in their copyright laws. That peoples around the world are now vigorously asserting their intellectual prop- erty rights is evidenced by the 1993 passage of the Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the First International Conference on the Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In addition to asserting their rights, the conference left it to each people to decide for itself what consti- tutes its intellectual and cultural property, a clear recognition that what may be important to one culture may not be to another.

The Cultural Definition of Value Cultures do not simply differ in what they consider a commodity. They also differ in how much value they place on any commodity. The same things are not of equal worth every- where. The sacred zebu cow of Hindu India would not command a high price at a North American cattle auction, and the dogs that so many North Americans esteem as house- hold pets are seen as too dirty to be pets by Iranians.

Supply and Demand as a Cultural Construct Supply and demand is widely discussed in U.S. commerce as if it were a law of nature. Such a view of supply and demand overlooks the fact that the value of a commodity is culturally defined. Sahlins (1976), for instance, has pointed out that cut for cut, meat in U.S. culture is valued and priced higher the less closely the animal from which it comes is

iStockphoto/Thinkstock Markets develop with the rise of specialization, and societies begin to identify items as commodities, or items for sale.

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.2 Production: The Control and Use of Resources

symbolically associated with human beings. For example, dogs are named and live within the house like one of the family, so the eating of their meat, though perfectly nutritious, is tabooed. Horses, too, are named, but they live outside the house and work for people like servants instead of living with them as kin. Americans somewhat grudgingly admit that horses are edible, but they are not commonly eaten in the United States. Pigs and cattle are clearly defined as foods, but the pig, which lives closer to the human domain as a barnyard animal and scavenger of human food scraps, usually commands a lower market price than the cow. Such symbolic influences certainly don’t explain fluctuations in pric- ing at different seasons or over years because factors such as changes in availability may influence pricing. Nonetheless, the underlying idea that the desirability of an animal as food is inversely related to its symbolic closeness to humans still applies, at least generally, to most food tastes in the United States. The importance of examples such as this is that they illustrate that such concepts as supply and demand must not be taken to refer to a set of principles that operate in isolation from culture. “Demand” is not simply controlled by some intrinsic value of a commodity such as nutrition. Rather, it is a cultural construct that can be highly influenced by the arbitrary effect of a culture’s symbolism.

The Profit Motive as a Cultural Construct In the United States, people often speak of the profit motive as a basic economic incentive. Indeed, one theme of this text has been that material benefits are important elements in shaping customs. However, the profit motive concept is often used to imply that material benefit is the sole motivator in economic transactions. This extreme view, common in U.S. society, overlooks the important role of culture in defining value. Efforts to obtain valued commodities are not limited to the acquisition of material things. People also work to obtain intangible goods. For instance, people may willingly accept material loss for spiri- tual merit or for increased social honors such as prestige, respect, admiration, personal honor, mana, luck, or a reward after death. Any view of the profit motive as nothing more than the principle that people will always try to maximize their immediate material gain in any exchange of goods is much too narrow.

9.2 Production: The Control and Use of Resources

Just because a resource is available does not mean that everyone in the society has the right to use it. The right to exploit resources is divided among the members of a society based on concepts such as use rights and ownership. Differences in the right to use or own resources can be linked to status differences such as gender or age and to social inequality based on such things as social class membership.

Use Rights Use rights, or the right to use a resource, may be held by individuals or groups. For instance, according to Allan Holmberg (1950), the Sirionó of eastern Bolivia, who were a nomadic hunting people before they adopted a sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture, marked wild fruit trees with a notch as a sign that their finders had claimed the right to harvest the fruit for at least the current season. The Waorani, who are horticultural villagers in Ecua- dor, have more complex customs concerning the ownership of wild trees. They value the

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.2 Production: The Control and Use of Resources

fruit of the wild chonta palm, but the trunk is impossible to climb because it is ringed with spiky thorns. When a wild chonta palm is discovered, its finder claims it by planting a cecropia tree next to it. Years later, when the cecropia is large enough, the owner harvests the chonta fruit by climbing the cecropia. The fruit is shared with other members of the village, but the chonta is considered to be owned by its finder and is even inherited by the descendants of its original discoverer.

The right to use a resource may also be based on such social status char- acteristics as rank, age, or sex. Use rights may be allocated by rules such as “first come, first served.” This is

common, for instance, among semi-nomadic peoples who survive by fishing and gath- ering wild plant foods (see the discussion of foraging in Section 9.6: The Diverse Forms of Human Economies). In such cases, it is often more efficient for each group to simply begin obtaining food in a location that is not already being used than to compete with others already working in a particular area. Another example of use rights is the treatment of beaches on the East Coast of the United States, where only those who own or rent a cot- tage on or near the shore have the right to use the adjacent beach.

Ownership The simultaneously held right to use and to deny use rights to others is called owner- ship, a right that is held even when it is not being exercised. Thus, people are expected to obtain permission to use property owned by others. Ownership can be transferred from one person to another by being given away, bought, or sold. The concept of ownership is most often applied either to easily transported goods (such as one’s own clothing or small objects of high value) or to fixed property (such as farms) that is the basis of one’s abil- ity to produce needed things such as food. In groundbreaking ethno-historical research, Eleanor Leacock (1954) demonstrated that the Montagnais hunters of Labrador had no concept of private property ownership prior to the introduction of the fur trade. As long as hunters were only hunting for furs and food for their own use, land was communally held. When pelts became commodities that could be exchanged in market transactions for other desired goods, their value increased, as did the value of the lands upon which the fur bearing animals were to be found. Only then, according to Leacock, did private property concepts develop.

Division of Labor Production is never accomplished by requiring everyone to perform the same work. In all societies that anthropologists have visited, the labor of production is divided up by age

Maria Stenzel/National Geographic Stock The dispersal of economic resources can have far reaching consequences. Here, a woman of the Kenyan Rendille tribe covers a shelter with old boxes and burlap.

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.2 Production: The Control and Use of Resources

and gender. How this is done is referred to as the society’s division of labor. In horticul- tural and pastoral societies (discussed later in the chapter), one also finds the beginnings of occupational specialization by age, gender, and group. Specialization becomes increas- ingly important the larger and denser the local groups become; it is particularly important in large industrialized societies throughout the world today.

Age and Gender Where specialization is limited to age and gender differences, the various productive forms of work are thought of as simply roles that males and females of particular ages play as members of their families and local groups. Work as an activity is not divorced from one’s family or community relationships and is not thought of as a specialized activ- ity to be done for hire. Children are socialized to help the adults in their productive activi- ties and are gradually given more and more responsibility in these tasks until they achieve adult proficiency. In most societies, the contributions of children add to the total produc- tive resources of the family. The most productive years tend to be from puberty until the beginning of old age, when intensive work efforts are often replaced by more organiza- tional and managerial roles.

It is common in societies throughout the world for gender differences in the division of labor to be based on the expectation that routine and domestic labor will be done by women and the heavier and nondomestic labor will be done by men. For example, men are more often expected to hunt larger game animals, fish in offshore waters, herd large animals, clear the land in preparation for planting, do the heavier work of house construc- tion, and manufacture stone and metal implements, as well as goods for trade. Women frequently cooperate in communal hunts of smaller game, gather aquatic foods near the shores, herd smaller animals, weed and harvest gardens, take primary charge of domes- tic chores such as cooking and childrearing, weave textiles, and make pottery. However, these common ways of dividing up the work of men and women are certainly not the only conceivable ones, and they are not necessarily rigidly enforced in societies where they are the usual ones. There are many societies that assign individual activities to women and men differently than most others do. For instance, among the Toda of southern India, men prepare the meals; among the Dani of New Guinea, men are the weavers of household textiles; and among the Great Basin Shoshone, where men were nominally called the hunt- ers, women actually did most of the work during the communal rabbit hunts. So although common physiological differences such as those associated with a woman’s reproductive capacity and a man’s ability is exert greater strength in short spurts may often play a part in defining the roles of men and women, it is clear that biology does not control the gender division of labor in any fixed or necessary way.

Occupational Specialization In societies without domesticated food resources, work tends to be unspecialized except by age and gender. Limited specialization exists but only to the degree that certain indi- viduals devote more of their time than others to tasks such as basket making or weaving. The products of their labor are then exchanged for other things that they need. Domesti- cation typically brings greater control over the food supply, allowing local groups to be larger and more sedentary than those of societies that survive by foraging for wild foods. Societies with domestication tend to have additional specialized roles besides that of food

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.2 Production: The Control and Use of Resources

producer, including such roles as potters, political specialists, warriors, religious special- ists, and traders. In societies where food production has been industrialized, the percent- age of persons involved in food production can be quite small, and the number of types of occupational specialization tends to be large.

Occupational specialization can be quite elaborate in the most technologically complex and industrialized societies, in which occupation is typically linked to social class and income differences. In these societies, labor is treated as a commodity, and the difference between selling one’s labor and buying the labor of another can be linked to exploitation that grows out of the greater bargaining power that is often available to those who buy labor rather than sell it. Elites such as ruling classes who have greater control of economic surpluses are particularly advantaged in these cases.

Specialization by Group In food-producing societies, entire groups may also specialize in producing crops indig- enous to their environment, which they then exchange for other foods they need. Thus, in the Andean empire of the ancient Inca civilization, villagers who lived between sea level and 11,000 feet grew maize and potatoes. Between 11,000 and 14,000 feet, potatoes were the primary crop. Above 14,000 feet, villagers specialized in raising llamas, alpacas, and quinoa, a protein-rich grain capable of growing at high altitudes. The specialized crops of different altitudes could be easily transported from one part of the empire to another with the aid of llamas as pack animals. Such symbiotic relationships also exist between differ- ent groups. For example, the forest-dwelling Mbuti foragers of Zaire have long traded forest products for foods produced by their farming neighbors, to the mutual benefit the farmers and the foragers (Hart & Hart, 1986).

Social groups such as families or age mates may also work together in some specialized productive activity. For example, among the pig-herding Tsembaga Maring of Papua New Guinea, children and young adults specialized in tending the pigs, while adults worked the fields to produce root crops such as sweet potatoes. In his research among the Betsileo of Madagascar, Conrad Kottak (1980) found that the division of labor in rice cultivation was by age and gender. Different tasks were assigned to men and women by age. Young men, for example, were responsible for driving the cattle into the fields to trample soil and water into mud in preparation for transplanting the rice seedlings, a task undertaken by adult women but only after senior men had finished breaking up the remaining clods of earth. Other tasks were assigned to other age and gender groups.

Occupation Based on Social Class An important measure of one’s position within contemporary nation-states is one’s occu- pation. Which occupations are available to individuals is greatly influenced by the social class to which they belong, and the social class to which they belong can be influenced by the kind of occupation they have. Thus, different forms of employment can be ranked in terms of both the income they command and the social class with which they are associated.

The least prestigious and least well paid of the economic statuses in class-stratified societ- ies are unskilled laborers. They usually are paid by the hour or by the quantity of goods

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.3 Distribution

that their work produces. Unskilled laborers are often hired for part-time or seasonal work, such as food bagging at supermarkets, waiting on tables at restaurants, and har- vesting crops on farms. Many of these jobs are held by young people who are not yet economically self-sufficient, by a disproportionate percentage of ethnic minorities, and by migrant workers.

In societies that have economically advantaged social classes, the low bargaining power of unskilled laborers has, at times, been somewhat enhanced by bonding together in unions so that the collective bargaining power of the group is strengthened. Historically, unions have also offered training to their members that can enhance their upward social mobility. On the other hand, unions themselves are not egalitarian organizations because union leaders typically have greater power than do their individual members within the organization. The differential influence on group policies that is held by leaders can lead to policies that undercut the ideal goal of restraining exploitation. For instance, unions sometimes foster a differential labor market not always based on skill, but on the unions’ power to restrict nonunion labor’s access to the market. They do so as a means of strength- ening their own collective bargaining power.

Blue-collar workers are manual laborers other than farm workers. Although they com- mand little prestige, some of these statuses have access to above-average incomes due to the economic importance of the commodities and services that they control. Examples of blue-collar workers are garbage collectors, dockhands, factory workers, taxicab and bus drivers, janitors, and supervisors of manual laborers.

White-collar occupations are clerical workers, sales workers, technical workers, manag- ers, and administrators. Their work is primarily the providing of services. Although many of these occupations are fairly prestigious and relatively well paid, over the years many white-collar offices have become more and more like factories in the repetitive nature of the routine work.

Professionals are typically providers of services whose work generally requires a gradu- ate-level university degree. They may be employed for the services they perform within an organization, but they may also be self-employed. Included in this category are the most prestigious nongovernmental occupations such as medical doctors, lawyers, scien- tists, and university faculty. These highly ranked positions, as well as highly ranked gov- ernmental positions, have generally been dominated by men.

9.3 Distribution

The movement of resources or goods from where they are found or produced to where they will be used is referred to as distribution. There are three major principles that control distribution: reciprocity, redistribution, and markets. All three of these may coexist within the same society, but reciprocity is the primary mechanism of distribution within the socially simplest societies. Middle-range societies have both reciprocity and redistribution, and all three forms coexist in nation-states.

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.3 Distribution

Reciprocity The system of exchange in which goods or services are passed from one individual or group to another as gifts without explicit contracting for specific repayment is called reciprocity. Unlike buying and selling, reciprocity does not involve bargaining over what is to be given in return. There is merely an understanding that the sharing is mutual and will eventually be evenhanded, except in the case of negative reciprocity (as discussed later in this section).

Reciprocity is the primary form of economic distribution in bands and tribes, where the small number of people in each local community makes gift giving a sufficient proce- dure to meet everyone’s economic needs. The mutual sharing of surpluses in the form of reciprocal gift giving within the local community equalizes wealth and helps mitigate the impact of lean times for individual members. The valued trait of generosity, so char- acteristic of band peoples, is actually a very effective economic device for ensuring the survival of the entire group. When a hunter shares excess food after a successful hunt, for example, it is a kind of insurance against future times of need. Every hunter is bound to experience some periods of poor luck in the chase. Those with whom a hunter has shared food or other useful goods in the past will make return gifts of their own later surpluses to ensure the continuation of his goodwill in the future and to maintain their own stand- ing in the community by complying with the social norms. In the long run, the economic system of reciprocity maintains a balance in the distribution of goods. No one prospers at the expense of others, but neither does anyone need fear the specter of starving alone during the inevitable periods of personal failure or illness when hunting is not possible. Indeed, as Kathleen Mooney (1978) and Asen Balikci (1970) found among the foraging Coastal Salish and Netsilik Inuit, respectively, food sharing may actually increase during times of scarcity, although Mooney noted that during times of extreme hardship it may be restricted to the family.

The enforcement of reciprocity is based primarily on the desire of the participants not to be excluded, rather than on formal sanctions. So long as everyone involved participates to everyone else’s satisfaction, the rules of the exchange do not even need to be discussed. However, a group or individual that fails to engage in a fair share of gift giving may be censured or excluded by the others. In economically more complex societies, reciprocity is found within families and among acquaintances, and it typically involves symbolic goods and services such as holiday greeting cards or parties. In very simple societies, the gifts that are shared may be life-sustaining ones, such as food. In such cases, participation is likely to be self-enforcing even if it is not mandatory, as exclusion from the system may be life threatening. Sometimes reciprocal gift exchanges perform multiple functions, as in the case of the giveaway ceremonies of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians studied by Mary Jane Schneider (1981). She found that the Mandan and Hidatsa giveaways—ceremonies in which large quantities of food, star quilts, other material goods, and even cash are distrib- uted amongst audience members—serve both economic and social functions. They create new social ties and acknowledge or reaffirm old ones while at the same time redistribut- ing wealth. As noted by Sahlins (1972), reciprocity takes three basic forms: generalized reciprocity, balanced reciprocity, and negative reciprocity.

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CHAPTER 9Section 9.3 Distribution

Generalized Reciprocity Gifts given with no expectation of immediate exchange, as in the case of the Mandan and Hidatsa giveaway ceremonies, are classified as generalized reciprocity. The persons involved are most likely to be motivated by a sense of obligation toward the welfare of the others. For instance, in families, goods and services are provided for children by their par- ents even though the children may not reciprocate in kind even later in life. Generalized reciprocity may also be exemplified by the care that is given to elderly or incapacitated people who are unable to respond with a return of goods or services of equal value.

The feeling of obligation that minimizes an expectation of an immediate return of favors can be based on a sense of community as well as on the bonds of kinship. In foraging soci- eties such as the Dobe Ju/’hoansi studied by Richard Lee (2003), generalized reciprocity is the basic economic mechanism for ensuring that everyone within the local community, nonrelatives included, is provided for. Where generalized reciprocity is practiced, gener- osity is likely to be an expected characteristic of normal behavior. Thus, for example, in the language of the foraging Shoshone of the intermountain region of the United States, the word dzaande meant both good and generous. The good human was a generous person, and because generosity in sharing was understood to be a natural attribute of the normal person rather than an unexpected or surprising behavior, no word or phrase existed that was equivalent to the English “Thank you!” In cases like this where sharing is a normal and expected part of everyday life, to say “thank you” for a gift of food might strike the gift giver as odd or even offensive, as Robert Dentan discovered in his research among the Semai foragers of Malaysia (1979).

Balanced Reciprocity Between persons who lack a sense of kinship or obligation to help one another with no expectation of return, but who each have something that the other would like to have, balanced reciprocity, in which a return gift is expected within a relatively short time, is likely to occur. Although the bond between the two parties is not so great as is present where generalized reciprocity is practiced, the desire to maintain good relations is great enough that haggling over the exchange is not necessary, as both parties try to respond with something of equal value. Balanced reciprocity is commonly practiced by members of neighboring communities that each specialize in the production of different goods or that control different resources. Even without direct ba

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