Economies and Their Modes of Production, Miller ch.3
 An economy is a system of production, distribution, and consumption of
resources.
 Economics is the study of such systems.
The KEY Questions
 What is the scope of economic anthropology?
 What are the characteristics of the five major modes of production?
 What are some directions
of change in the five
modes of production?
Economic system
 is the production and allocation of material goods and services.
Economic anthropologists
 study economics in a comparative perspective.
Economic anthropologists examine
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systems of production,
distribution (exchange), and
consumption,
( in non industrial and industrial societies.)
Economic (Cultural) Anthropologists
 Look cross-culturally at a society’s way of producing food and goods
 Gather data and categorize societies according to their mode of production
• These categories blend and overlap
 Examine how a society’s economic system affects that society’s perceptions of
“culture” and “nature”.
Mode of production
 is defined as a way of organizing production.
 Or
 is a set of social relations through which labour is deployed to wrest energy
from nature using tools, skills, organization, and knowledge (Wolf 1982, p.75).
Mode of production
 is “dominant way of providing for people's material needs” (Miller, p?).
A society’s mode of production=
 The raw materials, tools, and workers that actually produce goods.
 +
 The ways in which the production process is organized.
Subsistence and associated institutions
Subsistence patterns:
 are the means by which environmental resources are converted for human
use.
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 Distribution systems:
 are the means by which goods and services are made available to members of
a particular group.
Classification of societies/food
 Food matters!
 Production and processing for storage and consumption take long time.
 Preparing and exchanging are important activities.
 What people do with the excess food.
Mode of production/adaptive strategies
 Similarity of adaptive strategies
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between societies tends to correspond with
similarity of mode of production:
variations occur according to environmental particularities.
Sustainability
 Sustainable development is defined in the Brutland Report, Our Common
Future (1987) as
 "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs"
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True sustainability isn't just about environmental sustainability it is also
about social and economic sustainability.
Modes of Production
Summary
Foraging
 Based on using food provided by nature
– gathering, fishing, hunting
– emerged at least 300 000 years ago
 Maintains balance between resources and lifestyle
 Relies upon large areas of land and spatial mobility
“Man the Hunter” versus
“Woman the Gatherer”
 Many anthropologists emphasize the role of males as the dominant provider in
foraging groups (e.g. Lee 1979)
 However most everyday food is gathered by women (Slocum 1975)
– 75-80% among the Ju/wasi
 “Man the Hunter” is an example of male bias in interpretation
Horticulture
 Emerged in the last several thousand years
 The cultivation of domesticated crops in gardens using hand tools
 Crop yields can be great and support denser populations than foraging
 Constrained by time required for fallowing
Horticulture and People
 A family forms the core work group
 Gender roles clearly defined
 Children work more in horticultural groups than any other type of economy
– caring for siblings
– fetching water
– hauling fuel
Pastoralism
 Based on the domestication of animal herds and the use of their products
 Existed in Europe, Africa and Asia
 Provides over 50% of group’s diet
– Pastoralists trade with other groups to secure food and goods they can’t
produce
 Groups move to where there is pasture
 Can be highly successful
Pastoralism and People
 Families are the basic unit of production
 Little overlap between male and female tasks
 Generally men herd; women process the herd’s products; children help in
herding
 Strong value on mobility
 Social equality
Agriculture
 Intensive strategy of production
– more labour, use of fertilizers, control of water supply, use of animals
 Permanent settlements
 3 main types
• family farming
• plantation agriculture
• industrial agriculture
Main Types of Agriculture
Industrialism
 The production of goods through mass employment in business and
commercial operations
 Goods produced satisfy consumer demand
 Employment increases in manufacturing and service sectors
 Formal and informal sections
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