Economic Activity?

1. yes no Economic Activity? Shopping Online

2. yes no Economic Activity? • Gift-giving during a South Indian wedding

3. yes no Economic Activity? • Soccer mom brings snacks for the team

4. yes no Economic Activity? • Strangers help motorist stuck in snow

5. yes no Economic Activity? • Corporation provides college scholarship

6. yes no Economic Activity? • Inuit hunting caribou

7. yes no Economic Activity? • Elderly couple move in with daughter’s family

8. When we think of economics, we think of things and activities involving money. We think of the costs of goods and services, such as food, rent, haircuts, and movie tickets. We may also think of factories, farms, and other enterprises that produce the goods and services we need or think we need. In industrial societies, workers may stand before a moving belt for eight hours, tightening identical bolts that glide by. For this task they are given bits of paper that may be exchanged for food, shelter, and other goods and services.

9. But many societies – indeed, most that are known to anthropology – did not have money or the equivalent of the factory worker. Still, all societies have economic systems, whether or not they involve money. All societies have customs specifying how people gain access to natural resources; customary ways of transforming or converting those resources, through labor, into necessities and other desired goods and services; and customs for distributing and perhaps exchanging goods and services.