What is economy? Economic Organization January 30 Different ways - PDF document

What is “economy”? Economic Organization January 30 � Different ways of producing, distributing and consuming resources How you get stuff Mode of Production: (Eric Wolf) Wolf’s typology of MOP � “a set of relations through which labor is � Kin-based deployed to wrest energy from nature by the means of tools, skills, � Tributary organization and knowledge.” � Market-Capital In the beginning… (ca. 10,000 Foragers BC) 97%! � Foraging, � Take energy from nature directly hunting+gathering � Simple, human-fashioned tools � Cannot store surpluses � Few personal possessions � Highly mobile � Inhabit marginal lands 1

Cultivation and Domestication � Horticulture � Agriculture � Pastoralism Horticulture (aka gardening) Agriculture � Intensive as well as extensive � Extensive rather than Intensive � More control over nature � Use of domesticated animals (power, � Slash and Burn (swidden, shifting) fertilizer) � Harnessing of water (irrigation, terracing) � Rain-fed � Permanently situated � Storable surplus � No additional fertilizers Pastoralism � Range animals � Relatively large expanses � Seasonal mobility � Diet supplemented by foraging 2

Distribution -- Karl Polyani Industrialization (1944) � Machines make � Reciprocity tools � Complex societies � Redistribution � Variety of specialists � Labor of one person � Market-Capital (supply and demand) insufficient for survival Forms of Reciprocity WOLF – POLYANI – MODES of Modes of � Generalized PRODUCTION EXCHANGE Kin-based Reciprocity � Balanced Tributary Redistribution Market- Market- Capitalist Capitalist � Negative Redistribution � Through some centralized authority � At a centralized place � With a ritual Redistributive or Generalized Reciprocity? � Largely voluntary 3

Where have all the jobs gone? Why you resist this class (Fordism) � And what does that have to do with: – Kinship – You – Your approach to this class Quiz 3 � Name the 3 modes of production. � Name the 3 modes of exchange. � T/F Michigan’s economy has bearing on how well I should try to do in this class. � T/F: Horticulturalists make use of irrigation. � T/F: For 97% of human history, humans have lived in market societies. 4