Stone Age Economics

363 Pages·1972·18.18 MB·English

by  Marshall D. Sahlins

STONE
AGE
ECONOMICS
BY
MARSHALL
SAHLINS
~~
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···~···
ALDINE • ATHERTON, INC.
CHICAGO & NEW YORK
The Author
Marshall Sahlins is Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. from
Columbia University in 1954 and has taught there
and at the University of Paris at Nanterre. Professor
Sahlins was a fellow at the Center for Advanced
Study in Behavioral Sciences in 1963-64 and in
1967-68 he held a Guggenheim Fellowship. His many
contributions to the literature include Social
Stratification in Polynesia, Moala: Culture and Nature
on a Fijian Island, Tribesmen, and many articles in
professional journals.
Copyright © 1972 by Marshall Sahlins
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published 1972 by
Aldine • Atherton, Inc.
529 South Wabash Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60605
ISBN 0-202-01098-8
Library of Congress Catalog Number 75-169506
Printed in the United States of America

FOR JULIA, PETER, AND ELAINE

Acknowledgments
I thank especially two institutions, and the excellent staff associated
with them, for the aid and facilities provided during critical periods
of my research and writing. In 1963-64 I held a fellowship at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Palo Alto), in
1967-69 an office and the run of the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie
Sociale du College de France (Paris). Although I had no official
position in the Laboratoire, M. Claude Levi-Strauss, the director,
received me with a courtesy and generosity I should have difficulty
reciprocating, were he ever in turn to visit my village.
A John Simon Guggenheim fellowship during my first year in Paris
(1967-68) and a Social Science Research Council Faculty Research
Fellowship (1958-61) also contributed important support during the
gestation period of these essays.
That period has been so long and so full of beneficial intellectual
encounters that it would be impossible to list all the colleagues and
students who have, in one way or another, influenced the course of
the work. Out of long years of friendship and discussion, however, I
make three exceptions: Remo Guidieri, Elman Service, and Eric Wolf.
Their ideas and criticisms, always accompanied by encouragement,
have been of inestimable value to me and to my work.
Several of the essays have been published in whole, in part, or in
translation during the past several years. "The Original Affiuent Soci
ety" appeared in abbreviated form as "La premiere societe d'abon
dance" in Les Temps Modernes (No. 268, Oct. 1968, 641-80). The
vii
viii Stone Age Economics
the
first part of Chapter 4 was originally published as "The Spirit of
Gift" in Echanges et communications (Jean Pouillon and P. Maranda,
eds., The Hague: Mouton, 1969). The second part of Chapter 4 ap
peared as "Philosophie politique de l'Essai sur le don, "in L 'Homme
(Vol. 8[4], 1968, 5-17). "On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange"
was published first in The Relevance ofM odels for Social Anthropology
(M. Banton, ed., London: Tavistock [ASA Monographs, 1], 1965). I
thank the publishers of all of the above for permission to reproduce
these articles.
"The Diplomacy of Primitive Trade," initially published in Essays
in Economic Anthropology (June Helm, ed., Seattle: American Ethno
logical Society, 1965), has been entirely revised for the present book:
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction Xl
1 The Original Affluent Society
2 The Domestic Mode of Production: The
Structure of Underproduction 41
3 The Domestic Mode of Production:
Intensification of Production 101
4 The Spirit of the Gift 149
5 On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange 185
6 Exchange Value and the Diplomacy of
Primitive Trade 277
Bibliography 315
Index 337