Adaptive Strategies and

Economic Systems

ANTH 11 (1st Sem SY 2010-2011)

MATW Tabada
 Outline
Environment and Ecology
Adaptive Strategies
Foraging
Cultivation: Horticulture, Agriculture
Pastoralism
Economizing and Maximization
Distribution, Exchange
Potlatching
 Influence of the Environment
& Ecology (Harris & Johnson 2000)
Human population integral part of ecosystem and
focuses on human adaptation, including
physiological, cultural, and behavioral relationships
Carrying capacity is the upper limit on production and
population in a given environment under a given
technology, without degrading the resource base
Point of diminishing returns: point at which the
amount of food produced per unit of effort beings to
fall
gap between carrying capacity and actual level of food
production and population occurs
Intensification refers to an increase in labor output to
produce greater yields without expanding the
amount of land used
it is inevitable that intensification will lead to the
depletion of nonrenewable resources
Maximum sustainable yield as the level of production
immediately prior to the point of diminishing return
 Food Production

Formation of regional social systems then nation
states

Consists of plant cultivation and animal
domestication

Led to major changes in human life and
transformation of culture
 Adaptive strategies

Group's system of economic production (Cohen
1974)

Important reason for similarities between unrelated
culture is their possession of a similar adaptive
strategy

Typology of culture based on correlations between
economy and social life (as shown in ethnographies)

Each adaptive strategy =particular cultural features

All human societies have some kind of division of
economic labor by age and gender: cultural universal
 ECONOMY SOCIAL
FEATURES
FORAGING: hunting, People relied on nature BAND < 100 related by
gathering & fishing for food & other kinship or marriage
necessities Mobility of bands
Survived in very Gender division of labor
marginal areas Social distinction based on
age
Mostly egalitarian

CULTIVATION: Intensive use of the Non-industrial societies

Horticulture factors of production
Slash-and-burn
cultivation;
shifting cultivation
Use fallow period
 ECONOMY SOCIAL
FEATURES
CULTIVATION Agriculture Permanent fields =
Requires more labor sedentary cultivators
Intensive & Larger & more
continuous use of permanent communities
land Growth in population
Use of domesticated size & density
animals, irrigation or More need to regulate
terracing interpersonal
Higher productivity relationships
More coordination in
use of resources
Substantial contrasts in
occupation, wealth,
prestige & power
Complex regulatory
 ECONOMY SOCIAL
FEATURES
PASTORALISM Domestication of (2) Patterns of
animals movement:
Direct use of herds pastoral nomadism:
for food entire group move
with animas thru year
Transhumance: only
part of group follow
animals; rest in
villages; grow own
crops

INDUSTRIALISM (2) classes: capitalist ownership of means of

(owner) proletariat production
(worker) Exploitation &
inequality
 Economic system
Economy: system of production, distribution, and
consumption of resources
Economic anthropology: study economies in
comparative perspective
Mode of production: way of organizing production
set of relations through which labor is deployed to
wrest from nature by means of tools, skills,
organization & knowledge (Wolf 1982, p. 75)
Nonindustrial societies
Kin-based mode of production
Production is personal
Labor given as social obligation
Mutual aid in production
reflects larger social relations
Industrial societies
Capitalist mode of production
Money buys labor power
Social gap between owners &
workers

Differences in the mode of production within a

given strategy may reflect differences in
environment, target resources, or cultural traditions
 Means of Production
Land/labor/ Non-industrial societies Industrial societies
technology
Land less permanent relationship Largely dependent on land
Rights to means of Born in the band Kinship & marriage
production Joining band through kinship,
marriage or fictive kinship
Labor, technology, technical Labor: social links Alienation
knowledge & specialization Technology: shared by those in Highly specialized division of
particular age or gender labor
Specialization: usually none
Sense of accomplishment in
products; start to finish
Economic relationship One aspect of more general social Impersonal relationships;
between workers relations alienation
Relations of production, Sell labor for cash
distribution & consumption are Economy stands apart form
social relations with economic ordinary social life
aspects; embedded in society
 Economizing and Maximization
1. How are production, distribution, and consumption
organized in different societies= system
2. What motivates people in different cultures to
produce, distribute, exchange and consume? =
individuals
Profit motive not universal but assumption is
individuals try to maximize profits
Economizing or rational allocation of scarce means
(resources) to alternative ends (uses)
Classical economic theory assumes are wants are
infinite and resources are limited, therefore, people
will always have to make choices
Scarce resource; time, labor, money, capital
Western economists: when given alternatives, people
tend to choose one that maximizes profit
Realization that other societies may want to maximize
prestige, pleasure, comfort, social harmony
People often lack free choice in allocating resources
 Alternative Ends
Non-industrials societies, people invest in their scarce
resources
Subsistence fund: work to eat
Replacement fund: maintain technology & other items
essential to production
Social fund: help to friends, kin, unrelated neighbors
Ceremonial fund: expenses during rituals/ceremonies
Rent fund: resources people must render to an individual
that is superior politically or economically, i.e. peasants
 Principles of Exchange
Polanyi’s (1968) principles orienting exchanges:
Market principle
Redistribution
Reciprocity
Can all be present in same society but govern
different kinds of transactions
Principle of exchange that dominates in a given society
is the one that allocates the means of production
 Market Principle
Organizational process of purchase and sale at market
price (Dalton 1967);
value determined by law of supply and demand
Bargaining characteristic strive to maximize “get
money’s worth”
Modern world; governs most exchanges such as
consumer goods
 Redistribution
Operates when goods, services, or equivalent move
from local level to a center
Products move through a hierarchy of officials for
storage at the center
Along the way, officials consume some but eventually
flow reverses direction – center down the hierarchy
and back to the common people
Modern world: payment of taxes
 Reciprocity
Exchange between social equals, who are normally
related by kinship, marriage, or another close
personal tie
Dominant in more egalitarian societies
Three degrees: generalized, balanced and negative
(Sahlins 1968, 1972; Service 1966)
• How closely related are the parties to the exchange?
• How quickly are the gifts reciprocated?
Generalized: closely related people; no immediate return
expected
expressions of personal relationships; parent-child
Balanced: social distance increases, as does need to
reciprocate
establish friendly relationship with outsiders
Negative: social distance is greatest and reciprocation is
most urgent
 Potlatching
Potlach practiced by tribes in the North Pacific Coast
of North America
Patterns of feasting and exchanges of wealth between
villages in region of nonindustrial food producers
Adaptive value: help even out availability of resources
over time
Destruction of wealth impedes emergence of
socioeconocmic stratification
 References
Harris, Marvin and Orna Johnson. 2000. Cultural
Anthropology (5th ed). Needhan Heights, MA: Allyn &
Bacon
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2000. Mirror for Humanity: A
Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (2nd
ed). Boston: The McGraw Hill Companies