1 The Economy An economy is a system of production, distribution and consumption of resources. It includes subsistence practices, labor practices, notions of property, and systems of exchange. Economics is the study of such systems. Modern economists tend to focus on modern nations and capitalist systems, while anthropologists has broadened understanding of economic systems by gathering data on nonindustrial systems. Economic anthropology studies economic systems in a comparative perspective and it questions many of the notions that academic economists take for granted, such as the universality of the profit motive and the universality of private property. Societies within each of the adaptive strategies that we discussed last time tend to have similar modes of production, so some anthropologists talk about a foraging mode of production, a horticultural mode of production, etc. The modes of subsistence that we discussed in the last lecture are the ways in which people adapt to their environments in a very direct way. Feeding yourself and your family is a big concern. Subsistence production, however, is only part of the overall system by which people obtain the things they need. Economizing and Maximization Economic anthropologists have been concerned with two main principles: 1. How are production, distribution and consumption organized in different societies? This question focuses on systems of human behavior and their organization. 2 2. What motivates people in different cultures to produce, distribute or exchange, and consume? Here the focus is not on systems of behavior but on the motives of the individuals who participate in those systems. Let’s consider question number one first. Production, distribution, and consumption. Modes of Production The societies representing each of the adaptive strategies we discussed tend to have similar ways of producing the things they need. A mode of production is a way of organizing production – “a set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, organization, and knowledge (Eric Wolf) In the capitalist mode of production money buys labor and there is a social gap between those who buy labor and those who sell it. By contrast in nonindustrial societies labor is not usually bought, but is given as a social obligation. In such societies, economics and social relationships are the same. As Karl Polanyi said, in nonindustrial societies, the economy is “embedded” in social relationships. Means of Production In nonindustrial society there is a more intimate relationship between the worker and the means of production that there is in industrial nations. Means of production include land, labor, and technology. 3 Land Among foragers, ties between people and the land are less permanent than they are among food producers. Although many bands have territories, the boundaries are not usually marked.

1. 1
The Economy
An economy is a system of production, distribution and
consumption of resources. It
includes subsistence practices, labor practices, notions of
property, and systems of exchange.
Economics is the study of such systems. Modern economists
tend to focus on modern
nations and capitalist systems, while anthropologists has
broadened understanding of economic
systems by gathering data on nonindustrial systems. Economic
anthropology studies economic
systems in a comparative perspective and it questions many of
the notions that academic
economists take for granted, such as the universality of the
profit motive and the universality of
private property.
Societies within each of the adaptive strategies that we
discussed last time tend to have
similar modes of production, so some anthropologists talk about
a foraging mode of production,

2. a horticultural mode of production, etc. The modes of
subsistence that we discussed in the last
lecture are the ways in which people adapt to their
environments in a very direct way. Feeding
yourself and your family is a big concern. Subsistence
production, however, is only part of the
overall system by which people obtain the things they need.
Economizing and Maximization
Economic anthropologists have been concerned with two main
principles:
1. How are production, distribution and consumption organized
in different societies? This
question focuses on systems of human behavior and their
organization.
2
2. What motivates people in different cultures to produce,
distribute or exchange, and consume?
Here the focus is not on systems of behavior but on the motives
of the individuals who
participate in those systems.
Let’s consider question number one first. Production,

3. distribution, and consumption.
Modes of Production
The societies representing each of the adaptive strategies we
discussed tend to have
similar ways of producing the things they need.
A mode of production is a way of organizing production – “a set
of social relations
through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by
means of tools, skills,
organization, and knowledge (Eric Wolf)
In the capitalist mode of production money buys labor and there
is a social gap between
those who buy labor and those who sell it. By contrast in
nonindustrial societies labor is not
usually bought, but is given as a social obligation. In such
societies, economics and social
relationships are the same. As Karl Polanyi said, in
nonindustrial societies, the economy is
“embedded” in social relationships.
Means of Production
In nonindustrial society there is a more intimate relationship
between the worker and the

4. means of production that there is in industrial nations. Means
of production include land, labor,
and technology.
3
Land
Among foragers, ties between people and the land are less
permanent than they are among
food producers. Although many bands have territories, the
boundaries are not usually marked,
and there is no way they can be enforced. Foragers may or may
not recognize the right of certain
individuals or kinship groups to control certain resources.
For instance, among the Pomo of Northern California, women
held rights to harvest
acorns from certain groves. Those rights passed from mother to
daughter. The women didn’t
own the land, they didn’t even own the trees. But they had
rights to the acorns from certain trees.
In practice what that meant was that if you wanted to harvest
acorns from a tree that wasn’t yours
Among horticulturalists, land ownership is generally
recognized, but it is the kinship

5. group that owns the land, not the individual. An example is the
calpulli, which was a kin-based
unit of land ownership among the Aztec. Similar units exist as
lineages and clans, kinship
groups among whose functions are to maintain property rights
and transmit them to the next
generation.
The calpulli was the principal land-holding organization for
Aztec commoners. It was the
calpulli, rather than individuals or nuclear families, that owned
agricultural land. An individual
might be given rights to work a piece of land, but the individual
only had rights of usufruct, not
ownership. When an Aztec male (the calpulli traced
relationships through the male line) reached
adulthood he would petition his calpulli in order to receive land
to work. As his family grew he
would receive more land, but when his children left his
household the size of his plot would be
4
reduced. Upon his death the land would revert back to the
calpulli and then given to another

6. person to work.
This form of communal ownership of the means of production is
extremely common in
horticultural societies. Private (individual) ownership is rare. It
is really only with intensive
agriculture and industrialism that you see the emergence of
individual ownership of the means of
production.
Labor, tools, and specialization
Like land, labor is a means of production. In non-industrial
societies access to both land
and labor comes through social links such as kinship, marriage,
and descent. Mutual aid is
merely one aspect of ongoing social relations that are expressed
in many other occasions.
Nonindustrial societies contrast with industrial ones in regard
to another means of
production: technology. In foraging societies manufacturing is
often linked to age and gender.
Women may weave and men may make pottery, or vice versa.
Most people of a particular age
and gender share the technical knowledge associated with that
age and gender. If married women

7. customarily make baskets, then all married women know how to
make baskets. Neither
technology nor technical knowledge is as specialized as it is in
more complex social formations,
such as states.
With the emergence of horticulture and agriculture you also see
the emergence of various
types of specialization. One reason for this is something that
we’ve talked about at various
points: the production of surplus. Surplus is simply that which
is more than needed to keep
people alive.
5
With the intensification of production which is characteristic of
horticulture and
agriculture, you have individuals producing more than they need
to support themselves. That is,
one person laboring in the fields full time can produce enough
food to support several people.
Exactly how many depends upon the crops, the technology,
environmental circumstances, etc.

8. What gets done with that surplus? Who controls it? Part of that
answer goes back to land
ownership, but it also depends upon the social system,
particularly the organization of kinship
relations and political organization. Those are topics we’ll take
up over the next few days. For
present purposes, however, just accept that surplus is often
controlled ultimately by the head of
the kinship group.
One of the ways that the group head often uses surplus is to
support specialists. These
specialists have knowledge that other people don’t have. For
instance, how to weave special
clothes, how to produce special jewelry.
This type of specialization is called attached specialization,
meaning that the individual
doing the specialized production is a member of the household
of the kin group head.
Later, in intensive agriculture societies and industrial societies
you have what is called
detached specialization, where an individual works as free labor
and sells the specialized
products on an open market.

9. Distribution and consumption
Distribution is the means by which goods and services are
spread among individuals and
groups within a society. The three most common forms of
distribution are called reciprocity,
redistribution, and markets.
6
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is usually associated with the foraging mode of
subsistence production. It is
very simple in its nature, and consists mostly of giving and
receiving. That is, it is a form in
which most goods and services are transferred from one person
to another in the form of social
obligations. For example, in the Trobriand Islands person who
wants to build a house will call
upon his/her kinspeople to help. Those kinspeople will help
build the house because in the
Trobriand Islands you cannot refuse such a request from a
kinsperson. The expectation,
however, is that the person whom you help must reciprocate at
some point in the future. That’s

10. why the system is called reciprocation.
Redistribution - Goods flow to a center, and then back out.
Redistribution is usually
associated with horticulturalist subsistence, especially ones in
which kinship is the principal
means of social organization. The pattern is that goods and
services flow to a central location,
where they are pool, and then given back to the contributors.
The mechanisms for pooling and
distribution may be complex. One common form is that all
members of a kinship group (such as
a lineage or a clan) are obliged to make contributions to the
lineage or clan head. That person
may then sponsor feasts or festivals at which the goods are
given out (redistributed) to all those
who contributed (and sometimes to those who did not).
These sorts of rituals are often found in Big Man societies and
in chiefdoms. Big Man
societies are well documented in places such as Polynesia and
the Trobriand Islands, but
analogous social forms are known all over the world. In those
societies individuals competing
for prestige may accumulate large amounts of foods and

11. prestige goods (cloth, tools, jewelry) by
7
calling upon kinspeople. The individual will then sponsor a
feast and give away all of the food
and goods. The sponsor gains nothing materially, but hopes to
attain greater prestige and
influence.
In chiefdoms, the lineage head or clan head may be powerful
enough that she or he
doesn’t have to give away everything that is accumulated. The
individual may skim off a
substantial part of the production and thereby accumulate
person wealth and power.
Markets
With market exchange, items are bought and sold, using money
with an eye toward
maximizing profit. Value is determined by supply and demand,
although often the central
institutions of government may set prices.
Examples: capitalism
Non-capitalist societies may also have markets. For example,

12. the Aztecs had markets
with cacao beans as a medium of exchange. Like redistribution,
markets require a central
administrative institution. The difference is that in a market
economy the central institution acts
as an aegis for exchange, rather than controlling it directly.
That is, the central institution
provides laws, regulation, and protection under which
exchanges take place.
Market economies may be found in societies with intensive
agriculture and those with
industrialism. Large surpluses are a pre-requisite for the
existence of markets, and a high degree
of specialization is also presumed.
8
II. The Motivation for Production, Distribution, and
Consumption
In capitalism we often assume that everyone works to maximize
profit. But with an
embedded economy, the exchange of goods and services is done
without the exchange of money
or other products. In those societies, the motive of economic

13. activity may be prestige or the
fulfillment of social contracts (the cultural expectations of
certain social roles, such as those that
exist within a kinship system).
Making a Living: Cultural Ecology
As we have emphasized in the first part of the course, culture
has always been a means of
adaptation for the genus Homo. Culture has enabled humans to
survive, reproduce, and expand
their populations. Part of the cultural knowledge possessed by
all societies is the knowledge of
how to feed themselves and how to ensure the survival of their
group.
Beyond those survival aspects, the way in which people in a
society extract a living from
the environment is broadly correlated with other social features,
such as broader economic
systems, forms of social organization, political systems,
religion, and philosophy. Correlation
doesn’t necessarily indicate causality, but there are many
theoretical positions which maintain

14. that material conditions are, as Maurice Godelier said,
determinative in the last instance.
We have already considered one example of such relationships.
Changes in subsistence
associated with the neolithic revolution lead to very dramatic
changes in the way people lived.
Sedentism, social inequality, centralized government,
monumental art and public religious rituals
all came about very rapidly after the beginning of the Holocene,
as people intensified their
productive strategies, most significantly by shifting from
foraging to food production. As
mentioned when we covered the Neolithic revolution several
weeks ago, it’s difficult to identify
cause and effect, but the correlation between changing
subsistence strategies, social organization
and other cultural variables is very strong.
Cultural Ecology
Cultural ecology is the study of human cultural systems interact
with the environment.
The concept of cultural ecology was first proposed by Julian
Steward, who defined this

15. knowledge and those techniques as the cultural core:
Cultural core – the constellation of features which are most
closely related to
subsistence activites and economic arrangements. The core
includes such social, political, and
religious patterns as are empirically determined to be closely
connected with these
arrangements. Innumerable other features may have greater
potential variability because they
are strongly tied to the core. These latter, or secondary
features, are determined to a greater
extent by purely cultural-historical factors – by random
innovations or by diffusion – and they
give the appearance of outward distinctiveness to cultures with
similar cores. (Steward
1955:37).
So, cultural ecology is not concerned solely with how a society
feeds itself, but also
concerned with the types of social organization, economic
systems, ideologies and other social
factors associated with the cultural core.
Cultural ecology is one of a number of approaches that we can
call materialist.

16. Materialist approaches share the theoretical perspective that
material factors, such as economic,
demographic, technological conditions, determine or outweigh
other factors, especially
ideological factors such as religion, ideology, and politics.
The most prominent of these materialist approaches is Marxism.
Marxism divides
cultural and social systems into base and superstructure. The
base includes things like the
means of production, which includes technology, it also
includes the relations of production, i.e,
the division of society into lords/peasants in feudal systems or
capitalists/laborers in capitalism.
The superstructure includes things like religion, politcal
systems, art, philosophy. Marxism holds
that the infrastructure is literally the foundation upon which
other social and cultural elements are
constructed: the nature of the base determines the form of the
superstructure. That is, religion is
a product of the economic system and serves to legitimate social
inequality, and political systems
are created in order to perpetuate property systems that divide
society into classes.

17. Steward did not view the non-core elements of culture as being
“caused’ by the core
elements. Rather, he considered them to be essentially random.
Modes of Production
Marx defined several modes of production, each with a different
technological base and
set of social relationships. Examples are the feudal mode of
production, based primarily upon
agriculture and an economy organized around the manor and the
capitalist mode of production,
based around industrial production, with capitalist factory
owners and a working class that sells
its labor for wages.
Adaptive Strategies
In a manner derived from Marx, some people speak of modes of
subsistence. Others use
similar concepts, but with a different nomenclature. One such
useful concept is that of Adaptive
Strategy, which was proposed by Yehudi Cohen to describe a
group’s system of economic
production. Cohen’s discussion closely parallels that of modes
of subsistence. Cohen argued that

18. the most important reasons for similarities between two or more
unrelated cultures is their
possession of a similar adaptive strategy for example, there are
similarities among cultures that
have a foraging (hunting and gathering) strategy. Cohen
developed a typology of cultures based
on correlations between their economies and their social
features. It is important to remember
that there are correlations. Again, always remember that
culture is integrated. Cohen’s typology
includes five adaptive strategies:
Foraging – hunting, fishing, collecting
Horticulture– early agriculture, without plows or irrigation
Agriculture - a continuum of extensive to intensive
Pastoralism – primarily based on animal husbandry
Industrialism – large scale commercial agriculture and animal
husbandry
It’s important to realize that these types are idealized. Societies
may combine some
elements of two or more strategies. For instance, in the
Neolithic period many people who had

19. agriculture continued to hunt and to collect wild plant
resources. Cohen’s typology refers to the
predominant mode of subsistence.
Let’s go through them:
Foraging: Foraging is another word for what I have called
hunting and gathering.
Foraging is a more general word that recognizes that some
people fish for protein instead of
hunting. Still, the main point is that this type of adaptation
relies on wild resources, as opposed to
domesticated ones As we have discussed, hunting and gathering
or foraging was the primary
adaptation of humans from the time of homo Erectus until the
beginning of the holocene period.
It worked for 1.8 million years, or 99% of human history.
It is important to recognize that foraging economies were not
static and they weren’t
uniform. In the discussion of hominine evolution we saw that
strategies of foraging changed
through time, in response to environmental change and the type
of resources available. For
instance, when man species of megafauna became extinct at the

20. end of the Pleistocene, people
adapted by broadening their subsistence base to include more
species of smaller game. The
broad spectrum revolution. As and human expanded into new
environments they adapted to
them by developing new strategies and techniques to match the
resources that they found in their
new zones. So foraging was a very stable and long-lasting
adaptation, but it was never static.
When we discussed the origins of food production, I mentioned
how important it is to
recognize that not all adopted agriculture when it was invented.
They had no need. So foraging
continued to be important. Until the beginning of this century
foragers were still widespread in
Africa, South America, and to some extent in Alaska and
Canada. In the last century they
occupied most of what is now the United States and were
numerous in northern Mexico. Slowly,
however, the number of foraging groups has reduced over time,
so that few remain today. Those
who do remain have at least some dependence on food
producers.
All modern foragers live in nation-states, and depend to some

21. extent on government
assistance and have contacts with food producing neighbors, as
well as with other outsiders.
Modern foragers are not survivors of the Stone Age. They cling
somewhat tenuous to their way
of life because they prefer it, but they are being pressed by
political and economic forces to
abandon their mode of life.
In the Western Hemisphere, Foragers today live in South
America, principally in the
Amazon rain forest. But they are also found in Patagonia,
Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
To the north of us, The Inuit, or Eskimoes of Alaska and
Canada live principally by hunting
caribou, seals, and whales, as well as by fishing. They use
modern technology such as rfles and
snowmobiles, however, and generally are tied to a capitalist
system of exchange.
Foragers are also found in southern Africa. The San (bushmen)
are one of the largest
groups. Another is the Mbuti (pygmies) of the African
equatorial rainforest. People still do

22. subsistence foraging in some parts of Madagascar, Southeast
Asia, including Malayasia and the
Phillipines. Some of the best-known recent foragers are the
aborigines of Australia.
Foragers live today in areas that are marginal for food
production or in areas so remote
that they are not yet accessible. Native groups of Amazonia, for
instance, maintain their
existence only because roads and development have not yet
reached them. As development
continues to destroy the Amazon rain forest where they live,
they find it more and more difficult
to survive.
Because modern foragers are principally in marginal habitats,
they don’t represent the full
diversity of h/g adapations that have existed. In the distant
past, and even in the recent past, we
know that foraging societies have reached large size and have
possessed many attributes of social
complexity, including large populations, surplus production,
and social inequality. Complex
hunter-gatherers include the Natufians, Native Americans of the
US NW Coast and British
Columbia, and foragers of Mesolithic Northern Europe.

23. Horticulture– In Cohen’s typology the three adaptive strategies
based on food
production in nonindustrial societies are horticulture,
agriculture, and pastoralism.
Horticulture and agriculture are two types of cultivation found
in nonindustrial societies.
Both differ from the farming systems of industrial nations like
the US, Canada and Europe,
which use large land masses, machinery, and petrochemicals.
According to Cohen, horticulture is cultivation that makes
intensive use of none of the
factors of production: land, labor, capital, and machinery.
Horticulturalists us simple tools such
as hoes and digging sticks to grow their crops. Their fields are
not permanently cultivated and lie
fallow for varying lengths of time.
Horticulture often involves slash and burn techniques, or
swidden agriculture. That
technique involves cutting all of the vegetation within a field
and burning it. In areas with thin
soils or soils low in nutrients burning serves to fertilize the
ground, in addition to removing the

24. vegetation. Commonly a field will be planted for a few years,
until the secondary growth is too
difficult to clear or yields decline due to nutrient depletion.
Subsequentlythe planters will move
on to a fresh patch of forest.
Slash and burn systems such as that described are often called
“extensive” horticulture,
because they require large expanses in order to work. A great
deal of the territory used over a
long period of time is in fallow at any given point in time. It
may be 20-30 years before a given
field is planted again after it is abandoned following the first
cycle.
These extensive systems are a good adaptation in many
environments. They were
criticized by European colonizers as being “inefficient”, but
they are quite effective and
sustainable. They are the technique of choice in areas with poor
soils, where nutrients in the soil
can be exhausted after 2-3 years of planting.
Agriculture
Agriculture is cultivation that requires more labor than
horticulture, because it uses land

25. intensively and continuously. It uses more sophisticated
technology as a means of production,
such as plows, animal labor, irrigation, and terracing.
Agriculture requires human labor to build and maintain
irrigation systems, terraces, and
other works. People must feed, water, and care for their
animals when plowing is used. Given
sufficient labor input and management, agricultural land can
yield one or two crops annually for
years or even generations. An agricultural field does not
necessarily produce a higher single-year
yield than does a horticultural plot. The first crop grown by
horticulturalists in fallowed land may
be larger than that from an agricultural plot of the same size.
Furthermore, because
agriculturalists work harder than horticulturalists do,
agriculture’s yield relative to labor is also
lower. Agriculture’s main advantage is that the long-term yield
per area is far greater and more
dependable. Because a single field sustains its owners year
after year, there is no need to
maintain a reserve of uncultivated land as horticulturalists do.

26. This is why agricultural societies
tend to be more densely populated than are horticultural ones.
The Cultivation Continuum and the Intensification of
Production
The Danish economist Ester Boserup studied the concept of
intensification, which means
simply increasing productivity. Intensification can be obtained
by many means: shortened fallow
periods, infrastructure improvements (terracing, irrigation),
manuring, or by genetic selection for
more productive plants and animals. In the subsistence schemes
just discussed, agriculture is
more intensive than horticulture, for example.
What Boserup demonstrated is that as intensification takes
place, the absolute yields
increase, but the marginal yields (the difference between labor
invested and the caloric yield
obtained) decreases. In essence, intensification is achieved by
working harder, but the harder you
work, the less increase you see in the return. That concept of
decreasing marginal yield is
important when we consider why people work harder.
But perhaps most importantly, it needs to be recognized that

27. subsistence strategies
involving cultivation (both horticulture and agriculture) can be
intensified in ways that foraging
cannot. In that sense, food production is much more open-ended
than is foraging.
Pastoralists: Pastoralists live in North Africa, South America,
the Middle East, Europe, asia,
sub-saharan Africa. These herders are people whose activities
focus primarily on such
domesticated animals as sheep, goasts, cattle, camels, yaks, and
llamas.
Two patterns of movement occur with pastoralism: nomadism
and transhumance. Both
are based on the fact that herds must move to use pasture
available in different places in different
seasons. In pastoral nomadism, the entire group women, men,
and children, moves with the
animals throughout the year. The Middle East and North Africa
provide numerous examples of
pastoral nomads. In Iran, for example, the Basseri and the
Qashqai ethnic groups traditionally
followed a nomadic route more than 300 miles long. Starting
each year near the coast they took

28. their animals to grazing land 17000 feet above sea level.
In transhumance, part of the living group moves with the herds,
but most people stay in
the home village. There are examples from Europe and Africa.
In Europe’s Alps it is just the
sheperds and the goatherds – not the whole village – who
accompany the flocks to the highland
meadows in summer. Among the Turkana of Uganda, men and
boys accompany the herds to
distant pastures, while much of the village stays put and does
some horticultural farming.
Villages tend to be located in the best-watered areas, which
have the longest pasture season.
This permits the village population to stay together during a
large chunk of the year.
During their annual trek, pastoral nomads trade for crops and
other goods with more
sedentary people. Transhumants don’t have to trade for crops.
Because only part of the
population accompnies the herds, transhumants can maintain
year-round villages and grown their
own crops.

29. Subsistence Strategies and Carrying Capacity
The subsistence strategies just discussed vary in several
aspects. First, obviously, is the
technology involved. But most important for our purposes may
be the carrying capacity of each
system. Carrying capacity refers to the number of people that
can be supported by a given
technology in a given area; it is most commonly expressed as
the number of people that can be
supported per square kilometer (person/km .2)
According to historical and ethnographic studies, the density of
hunter-gatherer
populations has ranged from an estimated 1.15 inhabitants per
square kilometer for the Native
Americans of pre-conquest western North America, to 0.15
inhabitants per square kilometer
registered in the 1960s among the Kung Bushmen of the
Kalahari Desert of Botswana in
southern Africa.
Horticulturalist population densities are higher than those of
most foragers and
pastoralists. Usually, there are at least 1-10 people per square
mile with community sizes

30. ranging from around 30 to several hundred. Prehistorically
intenstive agriculture could support
populations of 5,000 per sq km (Teotihuacan) to perhaps 10,000
(Ancient Rome, although it
imported much of its grain.)
Obviously, there is a huge difference in the scale of a society
with intensive agriculture
compared to one based on foraging. Group size is fundamental
to shaping the types of social
relationships and the political systems of any society.
Surplus Production
The many different subsistence strategies also vary in their
capacity to produce more food
than is needed to support members of the group or the society.
Anything produced in excess of
the basic requirements for life is termed a “surplus.” All
economies have latent surpluses, and
even foraging economies can produce food beyond the basic
requirements. The more relevant
question is one of plasticity: if everyone in the group worked up
to a theoretical maximum, how

31. much would be produced?
The question of surplus is closely related to that of
intensification, which has already been
discussed. Intensification is the usual means by which
surpluses are produced, although
intensification can be undertaken for many reasons other than
the goal of producing a surplus.
One common goal of intensification, for example, is to produce
a larger food supply for a
growing population. Beyond supporting larger populations,
however, intensification can be used
to produce surpluses that can be stored as a hedge against future
food shortages, or surpluses that
can be exchanged with others for labor or goods.
The way that surpluses are amassed and the ends to which they
are put depends very
much upon culturally constructed concepts of ownership and
private property. That topic will be
addressed in the next lecture. For the moment, however, let’s
just stipulate that for the most part,
whenever surpluses are produced, they are not shared equally
among all members of a society.
Some one, or some group controls surpluses and makes
decisions about how they are distributed.

32. As a gross generalization, however, we can say that as surpluses
grow so too social inequality is
increased. Social inequality is based on the control of surplus
and the control of the means of
production.
Working for a Living
Typically foragers (hunter-gathers) spend between 12-19 hours
per week "working"
(searching for food). 12-19 hours work has been reported for
one group of Bushmen, 14 hours for
the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. Compare that to the work-load
of the average industrial worker
(40-50 hours) or a farmer on a small holding (60+ hours). You
can see why Marshall Sahlins
has called hunters-gatherers “the original affluent society.”
So, foragers work less, and also seem to enjoy better nutrition
than food producers.
Foraging would seemd to be a more stable adaptation as well. It
worked very well for almost 2
million years. Why would anyone not want to be a
hunter/gatherer if given the choice? That

33. question has plagued anthropologists for years, and remains one
of the central issues in
understanding the Neolithic Revolution.