require more detailed attention and theoretical expansion. VOJUME SIX, NIMBER THREE, OCTOBER, 1985 PAGE 38.

15481417, 1985, 3, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/awr.1985.6.3.38.1 by Charles University T.G., Wiley Online Library on [11/10/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Those who are interested in anthropology of work can use interesting, given the growth of the hidden econany in
this book as a stepping stone in order to establish a com- capitalist countries. Tnis econany can range from ten
prehensive framework on the culture of international percent to thirty percent of all economic activity. Its
business. persistence over time institutionalizes and norms it.
Moreover, despite the computerization of financial trans-
actions, it is increasingly harder to identify,control,
BOOK REVIEW and from a governmental point of view, tax. The periodic
South, Nigel and Riil Scratton Capitalist Discipline, crackdowns on it may be both political expediency and
Private Justice, and the governmental frustration.
Hidden Econany. The monograph does not address certain questions. First
it does not significantly differentiate the various types
1981. Occasional Paper of actions which canprise the hidden economy and relate
No. 2, Middlesex Poly- them to its theoretical formulation. Secondly, it does
Technic, England. not use as a contrast the hidden econany in socialist and
cannunist countries. Consequently, the Marxist perspec-
REVIEWED BY: Richard Ziraner tive they offer seems too historic and culture bound .Third
Hutchins School it suggests but does not explore the ways in which the
Sonoma State University hidden economy is promoted by the legitimate econany to
Rohnert Park, CA. control workers and operations. In one case of which I
know, a television station used to have an ordering form
This monograph is an important discussion of the ways in for parts. There was a specific box to indicate whether
which the hidden econany — stealing, padding, embezzlement; you were using the item for station or personal use. The
et a l — is inextricably linked to the larger capitalist purpose was to maintain inventories. A person was never
economy. The authors, drawing on literature about the bothered for taking items for personal use as long as they
hidden econany, on English history, and on Marxist theory, were not resold. Fourth, it focuses too much on English
suggest that the hidden econany is one of several proce- history. Researchers from other countries may find the
dures by which capitalist society controls deviant behavior historical argument not completely applicable. Lastly,
among many levels of workers. They thus strongly disagree and regrettably, the book is poorly typed, printed, and
with those writers who contend that the hidden economy is edited, which makes for difficult reading.
an illegal econany which deviates from the norms of the
larger society. As a consequence, they are concerned with
the ways in which the legitimate society goes through per-
iodic crackdowns on this econany. These crackdowns, they BOOK REVIEW ESSAY
argue, are politically expedient attempts to gain greater Wolf, Eric R. Europe and the People Without History
control over workers. 1982 Berkeley and Los Angeles:
South and Scrattonf s argument suggests that the hidden University of California Press.
economy developed over centuries as property relationships »
in capitalist economies became more privatized. The per-
iod before the Enclosure Acts, in effect, had no hidden REVIEWED BY: Jim Weil
econany because the workers—serfs and comnoners—had the University of Wisconsin,
use of cannon lands and prescribed duties. As these oppor- River Falls.
tunities and obligations disappeared, workers defied their
masters by a variety of means. Industrial sabotage and With the proliferation of books being published, many
strikes were two ways; the hidden economy was the other. bearing catchy but cryptic titles, it becomes increasingly
Workers were thus expressing political as well as economic difficult to set even browsing priorities. In the case
dissatisfaction. of Eric Wolf's magnum opus, a careful scrutiny will be re-
The development of a system of law based on a bourgeois warding. His previous writings on peasantries contain sem-
conception of universalistic norms abetted the development inal concepts foreshadowing a more comprehensive approach
of this economy. Justice was taken out of the hands of to the anthropology of work. My reading of Europe and The
business xtself and placed in different hands with differ- People Without History from this perspective seemed to high
ent guarantees of due process. The current trend of hav- light his main themes. Wolf offers an integrated survey
ing businesses police themselves via their own security of the incorporation of every world area into expanding
operations or via workers' courts is, in their eyes, networks of production, exchange, and political domination.
another procedure for maintaining capital's control over My review proceeds with an orientation to the book as a
workers. Because of the contradictions built into capi- whole, then focuses on those portions concerned most direct
talism, they are not likely to work. ly with labor forms and processes, and concludes with an
The authors suggest that the hidden econany should be evaluation of underlying assumptions relevant to further
studied structurally to see how it relates to the econany research in our sphere of interest.
at large. They contend that previous studies, which
focus on normative aspects of it, are biased and reflect Overall Objectives
the r]afvz interests of capitalists. Their argument is Wolf epitomizes the point of view guiding his enterprise
with the ironic reference to "people without history." He VOLUME SIX, NIMBER THREE, OCTOBER. 1985 PASE 39.

15481417, 1985, 3, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/awr.1985.6.3.38.1 by Charles University T.G., Wiley Online Library on [11/10/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
argues that, contrary to the essentially self-contained cul process. Wolf explores the ethnographic implications of
tures caimonly portrayed in ethnographic accounts, virtually capitalist penetration, albeit incomplete and uneven, from
every social group studied by anthropologists already had the level of colonial administration down to patterns of
been reconstituted by external relations. He concedes that livelihood at the household level. Ultimately, industrial-
this is not an entirely original insight (p. 76), and as a ization led to the displacement and to the redeployment or
polemic it is much less applicable to anthropological re- exclusion of laborers all over the world.
search of the last 10-15 years (cf. Nash 1981:395). To the In setting the stage for his analytic survey, Vblf varns
degree that Wolf's criticism is valid, however, it pertains against "endowing nations, societies, or cultures with the
to other social sciences as well. He reminds us that mem- qualities of internally homogeneous and externally dis-
bers of the working classes in long-time industrialized tinctive and bounded objects" (p. 6 ) . I shall return to
areas also are people whose history largely has been neglec- this point—Wolf's opposition to false or oversimplified
ted (p. 354). Oie implication of this global perspective models—in applying his treatment of reification to the
is to diminish the relevance of core-periphery distinctions anthropology of work. Throughout the text, commercial and
in the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. military encroachments on localized lifeways are shown to
Various readers may object to Wolf's version of a Marx- have folowed fran previous stresses and disruptions. This
ist paradigm—those who will call his conceptualizations an insight applies no less to colonized areas, often before
oversimplification no less than those who will fundamental- first direct contact, than it does within the European
ly reject such an orientation. Identifying Marx as a mat- subcontinent as its people were reaching outward.
erialist but "by no means an economic determinist" (p. 21), To call this a coherent account is not to imply equally
he rails for a return to the comprehensive approach to cul- thorough treatment of every region and historical period.
ture change that preceded the fragmentation of social Readers familiar with one or another part of the world m y
science into specialized disciplines. He acknowledges var- find a particular case study overly brief. For instance,
ious explanatory schemes—particularly those of Andre Gun- most anthropologists are aware that the late-nineteenth
der Frank, Imnanuel Waller stein, ERnest Mandel, and Samir century portrayal of the potlatch, even if accurate for
AnrLn—formulated for purposes of analyzing the political that time, represents a severe distortion of its precon-
economy of world-system development. Yet Wolf, as an an- tact form. While Wolf covers this ethnographic disparity,
thropologist, stands apart and breaks new ground. He draws he does not go on to examine the high degreee of integra-
on his ccnmand of the ethnohistorical literature to examine, tion of the indigenous Pacific Northwest population into
in turn, the initial impact and the subsequent effects of Euroamerican extractive industries during the sane period
industrialization on non-western populations. No synoptic (cf. Knight 1978, as reviewed in our newsletter: Thurman
review can convey the impression of consistency in his 1982). In this regard a perusal of Wolf's concluding Bib-
widely ranging cultural canparisons (including classic case liographic Notes is well worth the effort. His discuss-
studies), although several examples will be sumiHrized be- ion serves both as a stimulus to further reading and as a
low. What he aspires to and achieves is unprecedented as a challenge to reconsider familiar material in light of a
comprehensive and trenchant assessment of the development new or modified theoretical framework.
of capitalism at its frontiers of expansion.
The book is divided into three parts, each comprising Relevance for the Anthropology of Work
four chapters. The first part, Connections, includes pro-
The concept of "production," as formulated in the tra-
granmatic discussions of concepts and principles essential
dition of Marx, serves as a point of departure for Wolf's
for Wolf's ethnographic reinterpretations. It also pre-
historical analysis. Beyond mere "work" in the physical
sents a land of travelog describing the world in the year
1400, followed by an assessment of economic and political sense (the expenditure of energy to obtain more energy or
conditions in European societies at the threshold of their energy in a different form), the production process en-
great overseas expansion. The second part of the book, JJI tails inputs of human "labor " The centrality of pro-
Search of Wealth, documents the next four centuries of con- ductive activity as a pivot of meaningful social relation
tacts, examining mercantilism at the local-source level in ships is starkly exposed with the emergence of ccranodi-
diverse settings. The frenetic quest for profits—whether ties—goods produced for an impersonal market rather than
based on minerals, crops, furs, or slaves as caimodities— for prescribed uses. Money then becomes a standard of
had generally similiar outcomes in disrupting the lives of exchange value, transforming labor from a set of diverse
native peoples all around the globe. Expropriation pro- tasks linked by diffuse roles into a generic form of
ceeded through forms ranging from outright forced labor to quantifiable human interaction.
more subtle mechanisms of unequal trade. Nevertheless, it On this basis Wolf builds a model which contributes to
was not unusual for existing polities to be preserved, the burgeoning literature on modes of production. Noting
along with the established production system. The third that various derivative and narrowly defined modes have
part of the book, Capitalism, deals with a world-wide pro- been identified, he concludes that all social formations
cess of socioeconanic integration, subsequent to and dis- which have existed can be subsumed under three types (p.76)
tinct from mercantilism. This historical transformation In egalitarian societies—those in which no hierarchy of
resulted from intensifying competition involving small en- wealth and power has become entrenched—the kinship node of
trepreneurs, large trading companies, and national govern- production prevails. Group membership, whether by birth or
ments. Unprecedented was the investment of profits in by marriage, defines the production units. There may be a
efforts to directly control and rationalize the production loose give and take among the participants in the baseline
 hunan society of foragers. However, with the emergence of
subsistence systems involving proprietorship over such de-
veloped resources as croplands or livestock herds, the kin-
ship node serves to circumscribe the membership with access
Go crucial means of production (cf. Tuden 1979).
Eventually, the emergence of social stratification leads
to the development of the tributary mode of production, in-
cipient in the transition from a tribe to a chiefdcm and
inare fully developed in a pre-industrial state. What over-
cones the relatively equal access to resources is the poli-
cLcal division of society. Members of superordinate strata
can augment their capacity for physical coercion with other
ramifications of power—these include externally directed
!tmilitary mobilization, public administration functions, and
ritual or ceremonial stewardship—to claim goods and ser-
vices from the subordinate primary producers. Wolf's char-
i acterization of the imperial states of Europe prior to the
'industrial revolution as instances of the tributary mode of
production will be disputed. Here he follows Samir Anrin anc
Mothers who treat the irrigation-management bureaucracies of
x Asia and the manorial feudal domains of Europe as variants
sof the same mode (p. 81). Nevertheless, only in decentral-
tt,i2ed Europe did the competitive struggle for mercantile
ti l(txaoe-based) wealth press the organizational limitations
r of tribute collection.
[- Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the original Spanish
ifllconquistadores, wrote that he had voyaged to the New World
%to serve God and to grow rich. The social precipitate of
-such intentions was the harnessing of native labor With
rjonly simple technology available it took vast amounts of
Ehunan effort to produce wealth, and American Indian ccnmun-
were reconstituted to serve as workforce reservoirs,
example is the cooptation of the corvee (state-tribute)
L:!eervices institutionalized by the Inca Empire before the
; Spanish conquest. Thousands of resettled Indians died at
the Fotosi silver mine in the Bolivian Andes, as previous
restraints were lifted and living conditions deteriorated.
Even more extreme was the decimation of indigenous popula-
tions set to work on tropical lowland plantations. The
Jfquest for a replacement labor force resulted in the impor-
L European powers moved toward specialized factory product-
tation of millions of African slaves. In this way, mercan-
^tile expansion also engendered new intercontinnental conn-
sections among non-European populations.
s for cotton to be made into textiles—to mention England's
" Similarly, but perhaps less dramatically, the fur trade
displaced numerous localized populations in North America,
^restructuring their internal and external alignments. At
-first, hunting and trapping for furs only supplemented sut>-
^^Lstence activities on a part-time basis. Later, an in-
ixeasing dependence on European trade goods and gifts upset
^fche balance of traditional social organization. The Plains
tegion provides an illustration of fundamental changes in
Ian-ordered relations. The increased demand for the work
jiff women—specifically to treat hides and prepare penmican
for exchange with Europeans—had the effect of raising the
umber of horses required as a bride price. In other areas
ps well, relations within and between domestic groups
>fhanged. Larger aggregations and broader ethnic identities
developed as new redistribution brokers and war leaders
>jjrose and as families relocated to be near trading posts.
Eventually, the indigenous people became specialized labor-
p s , dependent on the Europeans for their food and clothing
$m well as the tools needed to obtain sufficient furs. Wolf
iOJUME SIX, NIMBER THREE, OCTOBER, 1985 Page 40.
15481417, 1985, 3, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/awr.1985.6.3.38.1 by Charles University T.G., Wiley Online Library on [11/10/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
draws a parallel oetween such forms of debt peonage ana
the"putting out system" of early home-industry capitalism
in Europe, whereby "the entrepreneurs advanced both pro-
duction goods and consumption goods agiainst conrnodities to
be delivered in the future" (p. 194).
Capitalist innovation became pervasive first in the
economy of England during the second half of the eighteenth
century. Fundamental preconditions there included a high
degree of individual autonomy in the political system, re-
placement of tribute with more flexible rental arrangements
between landowners and peasants, and incentives for tech-
nological development in the manufacturing process. In-
dustrialization was the response to an opportunity to com-
bine mechanization with the labor power of people displac-
ed from the agricultural sector. No less important a con-
sideration was the inefficiency of the putting-out system.
The advent of production in a factory setting brought a
series of interrelated advantages to the nascent capital-
ist. First, the coordination of different tasks in one
place lowered the costs of transportation and supervision.
Wolf cites a contemporary observer who claimed that this
also served to "subdue the refractory tempers of work-peo-
ple accustomed to irregular paroxysms of diligence" (p.
275). Furthermore, the production process became subdivid-
ed and synchronized so that continuous work could maximize
returns on investments in machinery. One outcome was the
replacement of broad categories of artisans with a hier-
archical labor force divided by task fragmentation and pay
differentials. It should not be surprising that the emer-
ging proletariat resisted this contraction of the realm of
autonomy for their pursuit of a livelihood. Before our
attention shifts to the rippling impact of capitalism be-
yond Europe, it is worth re-emphasizing the essence of the
original transformation. "What is distinctive about the
English case is not that merchants dealt in canrodities,
but that they were drawn—rapidly and irresistible— into
the realm of production" (p. 268).
The reliance on other parts of the world for crucial
raw materials and foodstuffs intensified when competing
ion. The southern U.S., the eastern Mediterranean, and
India underwent significant changes as major source areas
initial or "carrier" industry (pp.278-290). The impor-
tance of colonies also as markets for finished goods shoul
not be overlooked. In many cases, local manufactures
could not compete in price; in others, local industries
such as weaving in India were prohibited through adminis-
trative policy. The manifest goal of surplus extraction
did not necessarily include attempts to regulate every as-
pect of daily behavior in colonized areas. Nevertheless,
as in the mercantile period previously, European interven-
tion had effects far beyond the actual times and places of
contact. In this regard, using Mandel as a theoretical
source (p. 297), Wolf concludes: '^Capitalism did not al-
ways abrogate other modes of production, but it reached
and transformed peoples' lives from a distance as often
as it did so directly" (p. 311).
The strength of the book lies in its support of general-
izations with extensive sections parading relevant ethno-
historical illustrations. During the nineteenth century
 15481417, 1985, 3, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/awr.1985.6.3.38.1 by Charles University T.G., Wiley Online Library on [11/10/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
the Irregular but inexorable advance of capitalism within VOLUME S H , NUMBER THREE, OCTOBER, 1985 PAGE 40.
and beyond Europe pushed localized cultural sub-systems be- village economic, ritual, and social life was thoroughly
yond the point of no return. Market competition in caimer- disrupted with a significant proportion of the active male
cial agriculture led in two directions in rural areas all population absent, and serious depopulation resulted
over the world: sometimes a shift by small farmers to a from the new diseases introduced and fron the in-
primary emphasis on cash crops, sometimes the appearance creased violence aggravated by the guns and al-
of more highly mechanized and more closely supervised plan- cohol received frcm the labor recruiters.
tations. In either case, opportunities for cultivators to
maintain their subsistence-oriented activities diminished The last chapter of Wolf's book addresses issues of
as the scale of operations increased. The pattern holds special concern to those of us attempting to interpret in
up despite variations in particular conditions surrounding full historical context our ethnographic findings about on-
the production of different caimodities. Wolf discusses going changes in the organization of work. Working classes
wheat, rice, meat and bananas as examples of foodstuffs; emerge when capital fulfills its capacity to mobilize labor
other ccranodities covered include rubber, sugar, coffee, as a caimodity to be marketed like any other caimodity.With
tea, cocoa and opium. the expanding scale of industrialization frcm the
The cultuurstelsel (cultivation system) imposed during century onward, hunan populations have become noieflexible
the l830fs in the Dutch East Indies, especially on the and mobile in reference to the production process; but, in
densely settled island of Java, demonstrates how social broader perspective, they also have become permanently up-
change is funneled through changes in the organization of rooted. Urbanization is one aspect of the establishment of
work (p. 334). The colonial government devised a system the capitalist mode of production, but the relocations are
of taxation which involved minimal costs for initial in- more massive and fundamental as people transfer their
vestment and for overhead. Villagers usually had to pay and other resources from areas of obsolescence or redundan-
in designated crops (typically sugar) rather than money, cy to new sectors of accumulation. Wolf, reintroducing one
thereby being forced to set aside a portion of their land of his main themes, reminds us not to mistakenly "envisage
and shunt off sane of their labor at certain times of the the migrant as the bearer and protagonist of a homogeneous-
year. Alternatively, others had to contribute a given ly integrated culture" which is retained or discarded as a
nimber of days to work on Dutch plantations. (Note how whole (p. 361). In addition to class identity, attributes
colonial rule perpetuates or establishes the tributary of ethnicity and even race are outcomes of the process of
mode of production, postponing or only partially imple- labor mobilization (p. 380). In other words, culture
menting the imposition of capitalist relaitons of product- change in the modern world is seen as more decisively chan-
ion.) This system accelerated the process Geertz identi- neled by the structure of the labor market than by such
fies as "agricultural involution." The rural family turn- other determining factors as politics, religion, or ecology
ed ever more in on itself to exploit it demographic fer- (p. 362). Wolf proceeds to identify three major waves of
tility potential; it increased labor inputs by producing migration: initially, frcm the countryside to the towns of
more children, enabling marginal increases in the output Europe; next, frcm Europe overseas; and then, frcm one part
of a rice paddy which otherwise would be too small. A of the non-European world to another to work the plantations
concomitant withdrawal from village-wide activities would and mines of the tropics. The development of the coffee
threaten the survival of indigenous communal institutions, frontier in the interior of Sab Faulof Brazil, is one of
and this sort of cultural disintegration often character- several illustrations presented. I find parallels in my
izes modernization. own research on the mobilization of labor in the political
The British, if not so ingenious as the Dutch in the economy of coca cultivation along the lower eastern slopes
East Indies, also devised effective means to extract nat- of the Andes in Bolivia, and I expect that other readers
ive labor for the production of tropical export crops (p. will gain new insights about the economic history underly-
334). Wien the U.S. Civil War disrupted their cotton sup- ing their fieldwork too.
ply, they faced the problem of an insufficient workforce
on Australian and Fijian plantations to meet increased Evaluation
needs. Tens of thousands of Melanesian islanders were in-
ticed away or simply kidnapped by unscrupulous ship cap- One test of the worth of Wolf's analysis of the past is
tains in labor procurement campaigns known as "blackbird- its applicability to projections of current trends. Devel-
ing." The process was facilitated through the complicity opments since nrLd-centtury—such as "runaway shops" a
of some ambitious natives who enhanced their position by ing New England for cheaper labor markets in the southern
obtaining weapons and other goods in return for the human states or overseas (p. 358) and automated production lines
cargo they provided (p. 334). A more thorough treatment operating with a greatly reduced workforce (p. 3 8 2 ) — re-
of the fate of indigenous peoples on these "uncontrolled ceive only cursory attention. These represent no fundamen-
frontiers" of European expansion appears in the monograph tal break in one respect, however; the drive for cheaper
Victims of Progress. Its author, John Bodley (1962:37) more tractable labor, a drive that has characterized the
reaches the following conclusion, in his discussion of capitalist mode of production from its inception, continues.
"blackbirding" in the South Pacific: Simultaneously, Wolf insists, non-capitalist enclaves per-
Whatever the effects of the unrestricted recruit- sist in many regions, or they reappear wherever direct con-
ing may have been for the individual tribesmen in- trol of the production process would be more costly. In
volved, the impact on the hcme villages was devast- this light the socioeconcmic complexity of the peripheral
ing. As in the Congo and the Amazon, normal world areas of traditional anthropological concern becomes
 tically manageable. The Native Reserves of South Af-
are a stark example of a holding area maintained to
a revolving workforce receiving less remuneration
than required for subsistence (p. 368). Many of the"under-
fcnplDyed11 peasants in various parts of the world, working
on-again and off-again in the caimercial sector of the eco-
nomy, are part of the same phenomenon. And "late capital-
ism" within the national boundaries of our own society re-
presents no absolute difference in regard to pressures on
the workforce. The abrogation of labor contracts to allow
businesses to survive bankruptcy proceedings; the sub-mini-
nun wage for teenagers competing with other groups for
scarce jobs; and above all, the thoroughly institutional-
ised pattern of unpaid women's work to absorb the costs of
reproducing the labor supply—in such cases the extraction
of surplus value takes precedence over pay scales calculat-
ed to meet costs of living. As I write, negotiations are
underway here in Minnesota between hospitals and the nurses'
union to resolve a strike over the conversion of full-time
jobs to employment on an as-needed basis and over the fai-
lure to honor seniority agreements when layoffs occur
The capacity of Vfolf 's processual model of socioeconanic
integration to explain change in urban-industrial settings
cannot be addressed with reference to my own research find-
ings, but I would like to conclude with a brief considera-
tion of the Bolivian frontier caimunity where I carried
out fieldwork. What insight can we gain about current de-
velopments anong peasants and ex-peasants of the Third
World? Migrants fran the Andean highlands have become
homesteaders along projected routes of roads penetrating
the tropical forests of the Amazon lowlands. In short,
the balance of their economic activities has shifted fran
subsistence to the market (Weil 1981:16-18). The average
family earns the equivalent of over U.S. $400 a year, sev-
eral times higher than the income of highland villagers.
Roughly one-fourth of the calories and one-third of the
protein consumed in the homesteader diet is bought, as is
most of the clothing and a wide range of other items. Oie
source of income (the second highest at 9%) is the rice
crop, but by far the leading source (at 68%) is coca.
Some of the leaves of this shrub are destined for tradit-
ional uses in the highlands—as a ritual offering; as an
herbal remedy; and, mainly, as a mild stimulant when chew-
ed like tobacco. But the proportion of coca smuggled into
the illicit cocaine market after sale to merchants has in-
creased dramatically in recent years. These abbreviated
data and caiments do no more than suggest a highly complex
political economy with a significant degree of internation-
al integration. I hope they are sufficient to raise the
issue of possible ^ p s in Wolf's model of social change.
Clearly, the migrants have transcended the guiding prin-
ciples of the tributary mode of production. Capitalist
relations have begun to control the internal and external
activities of the frontier conmunity. Still, the full
image of its in-between status remains fuzzy. In this re-
gard, I am somewhat disappointed at Wolf's neglect of much
of the recent literature refining the Marxist framework
for ethnographic analysis. Specifically, he could have
considered a subsidiary mode of production to better acc-
ount for the situation of modern peasants, what Berdich-
ewsky (1979) has called the "peasant" mode and what Kahn
(1978) has called the "snall-connKxiity" mode. This would
VO1ME SIX, NUMBER THREE, OCTOBER, 1985 PAGE 41.
15481417, 1985, 3, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/awr.1985.6.3.38.1 by Charles University T.G., Wiley Online Library on [11/10/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
characterize the hundreds of millions of village farmers
like those I lived among in Bolivia. They possess the
means of production, providing for much of their own sub-
sistence but also generating a substantial flow of ocmno-
dities. At the same time, they barely survive as entre-
preneurs; they lack capital for investment and remain vul-
nerable to dispossession through political actions of sup-
erordinate members of the society, through adverse turns
of the market, or through family crises. Although Wolf
does examine the shift in status fran peasant to fanner
at an earlier historical juncture (p. 317), his analysis
was not as useful when applied to the more industrialized
and more highly integrated world economy that I found to
be impinging on the Bolivian frontier
In a final assessment, however, it would be unreason-
able to insist on more in a book already so broad in scope.
Wolf's aversion to pat categories of classification has
been noted above. He begins with a sense of historically
specific actors and generalizes cautiously, warning
afflinst the distortions of reality which result fran such
reifications as the notion of "structural causality" (p.
401). Fran other scholars we are getting plenty of finely
detailed but sterile abstractions which correspond to few
social formations, past or present. As an inspiration for
research on the organization of work, I prefer Wolf's
array of lucid ethnographic presentations with their re-
lationships explained through the construction of simpli-
fied models.
References Cited
Berdichewsky, Bernardo 1979 Anthropology and the Peasant
Mode of Production. In Anthropology and Serial Change in
Rural Areas. Bernardo Berdichewsky, ed. Pp. 5-39. The
Hague and New York: Mouton.
Bodley, John H. 1982 Victims of Progress. Second Ed.
Menlo Park, CA: Benjannn/Cunrnings.
Kahn, Joel S. 1978 Marxist Anthropology and Peasant Eco-
nomics: A Study of the Social Structures of Underdevelop-
ment. In the New Economic Anthropology. John Qarnner,
ed. Pp. 110-137 London and New York: Maonillan.
Knight, Rolf 1978 Indians at Work: An Informal History
of Native Indian Labour in British Columbia, 1858-1930.
Vancouver: New Star Books.
Nash, June 1981 Ethnographi Aspects of the World Capital-
ist System. Annual Review of Anthropology 10:393-423.
Thurman, Blake 1982 Review of Rolf Knight, Indians at
Work. Anthropology of Work Newsletter 3(3):3.
Tuden, Arthur 1979 An Exploration of a Precapitalist
Mode of Production. In New Directions in Political Eco-
nomy: An Approach fran Anthropology. Madeline Barbara
Leons and Francis Rothstein, eds. Pp. 19-32. Westport,
CM: Greenwood Press.
Weil, Jim 1981 National Sccioeconanic Integration of
Quechua Pioneer Settlers in the Tropical Chapare of
_Bolivia. Anthropology 5:3-28