Modes of Economic Production

Economy

System for the production, distribution, and consumptionof resource

Types of anthropological approaches to economy

• holistic

• comparative

• relative

Features of modern economics

• assuming that production is arranged to maximize profits according to the principles of rationality and efficiency

• using mathematical models to study human behavior

How do holistic anthropologists study economy?

seek the interrelations between an economic phenomenon and other social, historical, and natural factors

How do comparative anthropologists study economy?

they study different types of economies across time and space

Different types of economies

• foraging

• horticulture

• agriculture

• pastoralism

• industrialism

How do relative anthropologists study economy?

be cautious when applying universal economic to a specific society

Foraging

• Def: searching for wild food resources / hunting-gathering

• reliant on available natural resources

• survived in environments that posed major obstacles to food

Horticulture

• Def: plant cultivation that makes no intensive use of land, labor, capital, or machinery

• different from agriculture → horticulture: smaller, wider variety of crops, agriculture: larger scale, one primary crop

Two techniques of Horticulture

• slash-and-burn technique

• shifting cultivation: the fallowing of land

Agriculture is an intensive type of food production, requiring greater labor

• the common use of domesticated animals

• intensive and continuous use ofland through techniques such as irrigation and terracing

Effects of agriculture on the environment

• irrigation and wastes; chemicals and diseases

• deforestation

• reduction of ecological diversity

Pastoralism

• Def: the raising of livestock

• well adapted to semi-arid and mountainous areas—a strategy to support a population in a less productive land

• milk, blood, and meat as the staple ingredients of pastoral food

• confined mainly to the Old World before the Age of Discovery

Two types of pastoralism

• pastoral nomadism

• transhumance

What is pastoral nomadism?

members of pastoral society follow herd throughout the year

What is Transhumance?

part of group moves with herd; most stay in home village

Characteristics of Industiral Production

• a factory system

• a socially and geographically mobile labor force

• factory workers produce goods not for self-consumption, but for wages and for their employers’ profits

• private property

• unprecedented productivity

“Fordism”

• the Principles of “Fordism” (a term created by Antonio Gramsci )

• breaking down the production process to its smallest
  possible component (a production management theory by
  Frederick Taylor)

• efficiency, uniformity, and low price

• products available to a wider swath of society

Alienation —social prblems created by “Fordism”

• workers have impersonal relationship with their products

• workers don’t control the economic resources or production
  process; they only sell their labor for wages.

• impersonal relationship with coworkers and employers

• economic domain stands apart from ordinary social life

Changes after the 1950s in the Developed Countries

• the reform of Fordism

• production shifted from manufacturing goods to
  working in service and information sectors—the
  post-industrial economy.

Alienation in Developing Countries

• the work conditions often take a toll on workers’ mental and
  physical conditions

• female spirit possession in Malaysia (Aihwa Ong 1987 and
  2010)