Economies and Their Modes of Production

1. Economies and Their Modes of Production

2. Modes of Production Cross-Culturally • Examines society’s way of producing goods, food, and services. • Also examines the rules about ownership and control of resources. • 2 major elements to examining production: • Ownership/control rules. • Type of technology used.

3. Foraging: aka hunting and gathering Modes of Production Horticulture, aka swidden farming Pastoralism Agriculture: Intensive Industrialism

4. Summary Foraging Horticulture Pastoralism Agriculture Industrialism Reasons for Production Production for use Production for profit Division of Labour Family based Class based Property Relations Egalitarian/collective Stratified/private Resource Use Extensive/temporary Intensive/expanding Sustainability High degree Low degree

5. Foraging, or hunting &gathering • Based on using food provided by nature • gathering, fishing, hunting • emerged at least 300 000 years ago • Major mode of production for 95% of human history. • Maintains balance between resources and lifestyle • Often nomadic, as people move to follow food resources. • Relies upon large areas of land and spatial mobility. • Usually egalitarian, since property cannot be accumulated and stored.

6. Overturning old biases:the myth of hunting scarcity • Until the 1960s, many anthropologists assumed that foragers lived insecure lives, since they had been pushed onto marginal environments. • Lee: overturned 3 major assumptions: • i. that hunting provided the major source of food. • Ii. that ‘hunters’ had to spend the majority of their time securing food. • Iii. That women were not involved in subsistence activities.

7. The Dobe !Kung in the 1960s-1970s • Inhabit the semi-arid northwest region of the Kalahari desert in nw Botswana. • 14 camps, each linked to a waterhole, consisting of 466 people. • Even during a drought year, subsistence was secure. • Vegetable foods, esp. mongongo nuts, provide 60-80% of their diet. • Women mainly gathered, hence provided the major food inputs for the group. • Hunted game animals were less secure, but more highly valued. • Average work week was 2.5 days. • Children, adolescents and the elderly did not work. 10% of the population were elderly. • Caloric and protein intakes were comparable to diets in richer, industrialized countries. • Average distance for gathering and/or hunting was 6 miles. • Regular rhythms of work and leisure. • Men often did not hunt for weeks, but spent their time as ritual specialists, esp. organizing trance dances, a major form of healing.

8. “Man the Hunter” versus “Woman the Gatherer” • Many early anthropologists emphasized the role of males as the dominant provider in foraging groups. • However most everyday food is gathered by women (Slocum 1975), i.e. women provide the staple food. • Women are also involved in important band decisions. • Both women and men are involved in child-rearing. • However, in situations where the !Kung have taken up farming, women become much more confined to the home and to domestic activities.

9. Horticulture, also called swidden or slash and burn agriculture • Emerged about 14,000 bp • Defined as the cultivation of domesticated crops in gardens using hand tools • May also involve domesticated animals. • Domestication: the process by which the reproduction of plants or animals becomes dependent on human intervention. • Crop yields can support denser populations than foraging, typically associated with villages of between 500-2,000 people. • Constrained by time required for fallowing, swidden cultivation is ecologically sound only when forests are left fallow to regenerate their nutrients. • Found in many highland, tropical jungles, e.g. mesoamerica, south america, india and southeast asia, parts of africa.

10. horticulture and social organization • An extended family forms the core work group. • Property in land is held usually by a kinship group, e.g. a lineage or clan. • Kinship relations become dominant, unilineal descent groups are common. • Technology involves gardening tools, plus domestication, but not draught animals. • Work input increases in comparison with foraging; and children work more in horticultural groups than in foraging.

11. 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 • Usually patrilineal.

12. Intensive Agriculture Intensive strategy of production: defined by the use of draught animals for ploughing, and irrigation. • more labour, use of fertilizers, control of water supply, use of animals • Permanent settlements and wealth accumulation. • Produce large surpluses, e.g. rice cultivation can produce 5X the amount needed by a family. • Heavy work input during peak periods of ploughing and harvesting. • Associated with the emergence of individual property in land. • Also linked to the rise of a complex division of labour, with artisans, craftspeople, emerging to service the agricultural economy, paid in kind or in cash by landowners. • Differentiated from industrial farming, in that intensive agriculture does not use mechanized inputs, e.g. tractors.

13. Main Types of Agriculture • Peasant Farming • 1billion people are involved in family farming • Family based • Clear gender roles • Large families • More rigid class distinctions • Land rights can be bought or sold • Plantations • Used to grow tea, coffee, rubber • Concentrated ownership of land • Hired labour • Severe inequality • Dominant in former colonies • Poor social welfare for workers • Industrial • Capital-intensive • Uses machines instead of human labour • Used in industrialized countries • Uses more energy • Decline of the family farm

14. Intensive Agriculture - a good move? “Progressive” - Most Euro-Americans think that agriculture is a major advance in cultural evolution. “Revisionist” - agriculture may be “the worst mistake in the history of the human race”

15. Industrialism • The production of goods through mass employment in business and commercial operations • Capital-intensive; can be either privately or state-owned. • Complex division of labour, goods are produced for sale. • Employment increases in manufacturing and service sectors • Formal and informal sections