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Polanyi Readings PDF
Polanyi Readings PDF
in the
Early Empires
ECONOMIES IN HISTORY AND THEORY
Edited by
HARRY W. PEARSON
THE
FREE
GLENCOE,
PRESS
ILLINOIS
&
Qontmts
The Authors
Editor's Preface
Conrad M. Arensberg
Terence K. Hopkins
professor of anthropology
INSTRUCTOR IN SOCIOLOGY
co-director: interdisciplinary
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PROJECT
Walter C.Neale
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
INSTRUCTOR IN ECONOMICS
Rosemary Arnold
YALE UNIVERSITY
INSTRUCTOR IN ECONOMICS
A. L. Oppenheim
BARNARD COLLEGE
Francisco Benet
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE IN ANTHROPOLOGY
INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT
Primitivism
by Hairy W. Pearson
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ADELPHI COLLEGE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Anne C. Chapman
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE
Harry W.Pearson
xix
Introductory Note
PROFESSOR OF ASSYRIOLOGY
INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
12
Daniel B. Fusfeld
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Karl Polanyi
THE TAMKARTJM
1947-1953
Robert B. Revere
RESEARCH ASSISTANT IN HISTORY
INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
27
38
by Karl Polanyi
64
aristotle's probings
the sociological bent
Xlll
Contents
xiv
NATURAL TRADE AND JUST PRICE
Contents
xv
EXCHANGE OF EQUIVALENCIES
THE TEXTS
by Walter C. Neale
BERBER; INDIA
by Conrad M. Arensberg
97
METHODOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS
114
GULF OF MEXICOXICALANGO
PACIFIC COASTXOCONUSCO
INLANDACALAN
GULF OF HONDURAS
by Rosemary Arnold
154
FOREIGNERS' ENCLAVE
ADMINISTERED TRADE
C. CONCLUSION OF PART I
III
188
4. CONCLUSION
A Theory of Development
EXPLOSIVE MARKETS
OF THE ECONOMY
CONCLUSIONS
239
W. Pearson
by Karl Pohnyi
218
PRICES
A RATIONALISTIC CONSTRUCT
REIFYING THE PROFIT CONCEPT
Contents
XVI
342
ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY
THE SOCIETAL APPROACH
Introductory
by Walter C.Neale
357
PRICE-MAKING MARKETS
Concluding Note
373
Index of Authors
375
Index of Topics
377
most of us have been accustomed to think that the hallmark of the
economy is the marketan institution quite familiar to us. Similarly,
our inquiries into general economic history have usually been con
cerned with market activities or their antecedents.
for more than sixty years a debate has been raging in the field of
economic history. Many features have faded out, some were irrelevant
from the start. Yet it containedand still containsthe elements of
tones working for export and competing with one another for sales in the
world market?
Or should we assume, on the contrary, that the stage of the closed
"household economy" had not yet passed; that economic activity had not
the character of economic life still agrarian rather than industrial? Was
commerce still restricted to a peddling of particular wares, the work of
craftsmen producing without the aid of machinery and using the raw ma
terials that were locally available to them?2
Oertel termed the first the positive, the latter the negative theory.
Johannes Hasebroek, more appropriately, called the first the modern
izing, the latter the primitivist view. But careful examination of the
terms employed by Oertel to describe the issues involved in the dispute
as well as the various attempts to characterize the opposing positions
serves well to indicate the lack of conceptual clarity which has dogged
the controversy from the beginning. Debates such as this are resolved
either by the appearance of new evidence or by the conceptual clarifica
tion of the problem so that the previously existing evidence falls into
new perspective. In this case, the facts, on what we will call the opera
tional level, can no longer be in dispute. It is, rather, the interpretation
of these facts at the institutional level which remains unsettled.
such as wages or salaries, which are due to the use of labor power, from
income that derives from impersonal property, or title to ownership,
such as rent; this latter may be either rent from land or profit; profit,
again, is split up into interest and entrepreneurial profit.
volved asocial structure entirely different from that which went with
an economy in kind. It was thisjAange in the social structure accom- '
panying thejase of monejTiaSber than the technical fact of its use which
ougfifto be emphasized, he thought. Had this point been expanded to
include the varying social structures accompanying trading activity in
the ancient world the controversy might have been resolved before it
began.
Instead the "household" or "oikos" held the center of the stage.
With Rodbertus the oikos was no more than a logical construct, a kind
of anticipation of a Weberian "Ideal type." He invented the term, "lord
of the oikos"5 to designate thejownerof all the various titles to property
and the corresponding incomes listed above. All this was designed to
Here the matter might have rested had it not been for Karl Biicher's
path-breaking work, Die Enrstehung der VoIJcswirtschaft, first pub
lished in 1893. The great achievement of Bucher^was to link the study
of economic life in the ancient world with primitive economics. His
aim was to establish a general theory of economic development from
primitive to modern times. He did not equate classical antiquity with
primitive society, but by emphasizing the relatively recent tribal origins
of ancient Greek and Roman society, he suggested that ancient eco
nomic life might better be understood if viewed from the perspective
of primitive rather than modern society.
Regarding our specific interest his thesis was that not before the
emergence of the modern state do we find'a Vollcswirtschaft, i.e., a
complex economic life on larger than a city scale. Up to the year 1000
a.d. the economy never passed beyond the stage of closed domestic
economy (geschlossene Hauswiitschait) where production was~solely
for one's own needs, involving no exchange between the household
units. The economic life of the Greeks, Caftriaginians and Romans, he
m :""~^7Fjr" .</
century historians' traditional view. But these terms do not convey the
the crucial point in regard to the position of Meyer and the "modern
ists" is that in asserting the existence of large scale manufacturing, trade
and money, they also assumed their organization to follow the market
pattern. But whether or not these elements of any specific economy are
so organized is a point for investigation at least equally as important as
the fact of their existence. The fact that the debate turned so much
upon the exclusive importance of the oikos obscured this point and
thereby weakened the position of the "primitivists." The "evidence"
clearly turned against them.
It can hardly be said, however, that Weber resolved the issues in this
secular debate, for while he sketched in the outlines of a new approach,
he did not provide the conceptual tools with which to answer specific
questions regarding trade organization, money uses, and methods of
exchange. And although Johannes Hasebroek's detailed and masterful
at the height of its development and that of the later medieval period,
but he emphasized the unique characteristics of ancient culture which
for him made all the difference.15
The force which moved the Greek and Roman economies in their
special direction, according to Weber/was the general military-politi
cal orientation of ancient culture. War in ancient times was the hunt
for men and economic advantages were won through the ceaseless
wars and, in peace, by political means. Even the cities, although super
ficially like those of the Middle Ages in economic outline, were essen
tially different in total outlook and organization.
world, and that the ideals of the new society retained the color of the
chieftain's society which had preceded it.18 But in effect this merely
moved forward the time setting of the controversy. Rostovtzeff argued
that the debate should focus on the high point of ancient economic
development, that is, the Hellenistic and early Roman period. And re
10
never existed, above all not in Greece where there was an active trade
with the highly developed Oriental empires. Arid did the Ionian*Gfeeks
gain nothing from the cities of the Near East where they settled?
"Surely something must have happened!"20
11
rate economy with trade, money, and market places being organized
in any manner other than that of the market system. The "primitivists,"
who insisted that the ancient world was different from the modern,
sought their support in the oikos, which to them represented an earlier
stage in the development of the self-same market system. The "mod
ernists" saw Greece and Rome resting on a foundation four thousand
years in the building, which included the high economic and cultural
life of the ancient Near East. Meyer emphasized the high economic
development of this area and Rostovtzeff the contact between it and
Greek and Roman culture. To them it was inconceivable that such a
long period, full of cultural achievement, would not produce an
economy at least up to the level of the later medieval period. As
Rostovtzeff declared, "Something must have happened!"
But what if those four thousand years of development had moved
along different lines than those of the modern world? Then the per
spective from which Greece and Rome should be viewed would have to
be shifted. Not capitalism, then, but a different organization bf~economic life would be the model from which to judge the high period of
ancient economy. Biicher's primitivist perspective and Weber's mili
tary-political approach had suggested this view of the question. But
neither Biicher nor Weber had provided adequate conceptual tools for
recognizing what had happened, i.e., the institutional foundations of
this different sort of economic development.
Notes to Chapter I
1. No attempt has been made in this chapter to summarize all of the contribu
tions to this debate; the intent here is to present only the essential outlines. The
best bibliographies are to be found in M. I. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic His
tory of the Hellenistic World, III (Oxford, 1941), 1327-28, fn. 25; and, more re
cently in Eduard Will, "Trois quarts de siecle de recherches sur Teconomie grecque
antique," Annales, IX (January-March, 1954).
Geschichte der sozialen Frage und des Soziahsmus in der antiken Welt, 3d ed.,
Ill (Munich, 1925), 516-17.
Jahr-
4. Ibid., p. 342.
5. Ibid., p. 344.
6. Ibid., pp. 345-6.
7. Karl Biicher, Industrial Evolution, English translation (New York, 1912), pp.
96-97.
8. Ibid., p. 88.
9. This challenge was delivered in Meyer's address to the third meeting of the
German historians at Frankfort in 1895. The address, "Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Mtertums," is published in "Eduard Meyer, Kleine Schriften (Halle,
1924), pp. 79 ff.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Ibid., p. 89.
Ibid., p. 88.
Ibid., p. 90.
Ibid., p. 88.
14. Cf. his review of J. Hasebroek, Zeitschriit fiir die Gesammte Staatswissen-
schaft,92(1932),334.
15. "Die sozialen Griinde des Untergangs der antiken Kultur," Gesammelte
Autsatze zur SoziaJ-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Tubingen, 1924), pp. 289-311. See
also Wirtschaft und GeseJJschaft, ch. 8 (Tubingen, 1922).
16. Max Weber, General Economic History (Glencoe, Illinois, 1950), p. 331.
17. Giiechische Wiitschatts-und Gesellschatsgeschichte (Tubingen, 1931).
18. Op. at, p. 337.
19. Ibid.,p. 335, n.l.
20. Ibid., p. 338.
VI
Anthropology as History
a book on the economy in early societies must call upon the data
of cultural and social anthropology along with those of history. In both
fields man's experience with substantive economies finds its record.
The varied arid often strange patterns of economic action described in
Part One of this book have already suggested rethinking of some con
cepts and definitions in economic theory, signaling as they do the inappropriateness of that theory outside the marketing system of the
classical Western nineteenth century.
98
Anthropology as History
cultural content.
continues to separate them among the social sciences from such emi
nently conceptualizing disciplines as economics, political science or
sociology. It means for both anthropology and history that the burden
of proof is shouldered by hima Kroeber, a Darwin, a Toynbeewho
should assert a comparison or identify a common process or claim dis-.
covery of a universally unfolding law working out many times in the
record. It has made further them kin in that both disciplines mustdeal
receivers.
in time sequences, must treat past and present, must seek recurrences,
parallels, convergences/Both deal with events and occurrences, not
with man's nature or the timeless necessities.
99
it.
.*
;*-/ ''''f-'
100
Anthropology as History
101
motive against the same general view of society that another chapter
of this book has elevated to a central tenet of modern sociology.* They
would start with society as a system in which "the units ... are not
individuals, but patterns of interaction"** of persons with one another.
Not free human nature, nor free individuals, nor even any hard and
fast psychological attributes of man, within his biological and physio
not because they are logically prior, but because they are empirically
decisive in those comparisons of present and past to which he subjects
his data.
Not many anthropologists have yet begun to take this step explicitly
in regard to economic data. Chappie and Coon in Principles of Anthro
pology, 1942, seem to be the first to attempt it. Firth seems to sense its
necessity, as it is implicit in the efforts of British social anthropology.
"Economic anthropology," to date, is not yet a reality. It is still freeing
itself from the belief that other chapters in this book demolish, that
economic theory itself already has something to offer for an easy ex
planation of other economic systems than the market system of the
recent West. The first generalizer, Herskovits, now asserts allegiance
to formal economic theory and has tried a reduction of the data in that
direction, away from the attempts of Mauss, after Durkheim, in which
the early French ethnologists discovered empirical regularities in the
reciprocities of gift-giving. But even Herskovits must continually stop
to point out how little the categories of economic theory and the con
cerns of rationalizing and economizing which it follows out to their
logical end help with ordering the ethnographers' data and how differ
ent, deviant, and quite outside the motivational categories of rational
action in the market are the behaviors and motives with which he
must deal.***
&
into culture that explains economic behaviors and motives, but he must
.also account for its presence. For him a common denominator of
economic action, such as reciprocations or redistributions, with their
attendant mechanisms of trade or forms of money use, is both an ar
rangement of human interactions and an institutional import of a new
emergence among the people where he happens to find it. He must
account for its being there, historically and geographically. He must
account for it functionally, that is, for its connection with the other
patterns of the people's culture of that time and place. He must add
to the reasons for its presence the functions it performs and the values
it embodies for those who act it out and by which it is kept alive,
sanctioned as custom, and transmitted as Kulturgut of their cultural
inheritance. He must account for its continuation then and there, as
well.
JrT
102
Anthropology as History
103
lar social arrangements are the empirical controlling elements, and their
priority is one of relevance, perhaps even of causation. The real issue
between the deductive theories deriving economic action from man's
rational or gain-seeking faculties and the findings of the newer social
science is only half stated when the sociologist limits himself to insist
ing that his science has taught him to see economic behaviors depend
ent upon the social systems in which they are "embedded." For anthro
tutional action. I have tried elsewhere to show their force in the small
group and short-term attitude and behavior of industrial relations,2
while George Homans has documented their determination of group
behavior and attitude in the wide range of studies of social behavior
already accomplished by observational and empirical methods,3 and
Hopkins* reminds us of the central place of these arrangements in cur
rent social system theory with Parsons and its other formulators. It is a
confirmatory discovery, indeed, that in the non-Western economic
data we have before us here the same priority of relevance faces us.
See below, Ch. XIV.
104
these findings only because we can, in the end, demonstrate that com
mon patterns exist behind these things our authors describe and be
cause we can check the record for the known and specified arrangement
Anthropology as History
105
group and industrial studies, where new group norms and new shared
attitudes likewise arise out of changes in interpersonal and group action.
And a culture pattern is not complete, any more than an "institution"
is fully emerged, until the summarization, symbolization, and evalua
tion which crystallizes the connection between the new action and its
resultant values is achieved in a configuration which has won the instant
recognition and the long term habit of the human actors who "carry
the culture trait."
;
. * the beginning was the Word."). The long squabble of idealism and
realism haunts us unnecessarily. Anthropological experience with cul; tare shows the same phenomena of emergence as does sociological ex; 4 perience with group process, though the data are different. What stands
{k in the way of acceptance of the common finding seems to be a tendency
4 to read the anthropologist's term "culture" as a synonym for the sociolo. gists' own word "values." Thus it is easy for sociologists, often assuming
V out of philosophic tradition that values ("common meanings" they
; sometimes call them) are prior to "social actiona tautology of long
v: % standing since "social" action is in turn the action based on "common
106
Anthropology as History
107
man's doings could not have taken place without ethnographic and
historical comparisons.
Now the main point of anthropology, and of the work which has
taught us to handle economic action and value as culture patterns,
lies in this comparison of the common-denominator social arrange
ments and this discovery of the processes leading to the evolution of
them, then, in this context to say that the prior social arrangements
behind economic motive and behavior are culture patterns is tanta
Methodological Conclusions
and in Spain before conquistadores should sack the New World for
it and should corrupt "innocent" Indians to their gold lust. The course