Malinowski made an intensive study of Trobriand islanders, Argonauts, and published it is Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922). The Argonauts are a matrilineal society. They practise horticulture. Malinowski studied the kula trade, which was a large-scale trade in shell bracelets and necklaces, constituting the main economy of the Argonauts.
Malinowski argues that the trade does not have an independent economic system. It is a part of tribal life itself. He concluded that in a primitive society economics does not occupy a distinct institutional status.
It is a part of the tribal social totality. Thomas Hylland Eriksen has discussed the role of money in tribal society with reference to Malinowski.
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His basic premise is that in present-day society money is everything: money makes the mare go. But, in the primitive society, it is kinship which matters, and not money. Eriksen’s comments run as below:
Anthropologists have always-at least since Malinowski-wished to call attention to the ways in which the economy is an integrated part of a social and cultural totality, and to reveal that economic systems and actions can only be fully understood if we look into their interrelationships with other aspects of culture and society.
Thus, it should be mentioned that the traditional tribal societies did not have any word of the kind of economy which might show an independent economic institution.
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How do social anthropologists look at a tribal economy? The classical economists discuss economy in terms of rationality, market principles, global market and so no. Actually, the primitive economy is far away from capitalistic economy. In today’s world there is hegemony of global capitalist economy.
But this kind of rational market economy is not present among the tribals. Marshall Sahlins has not only followed the prescriptions of Malinowski, but he goes a step further. His argument is that among the tribals economy is determined by tribal culture. A man wants to fulfil his material needs. There is a
Marshall D. Sahlins (b.1930) is among the current anthropologists known for reinterpreting social anthropology. His teacher, Leslie White, was well known for his specialization in cultural ecology. Sahlins, therefore, had an abiding interest in culture. Methodologically, he was interested in evolutionary practices.
He studied the Polynesian tribes. He argued that the formation of state among these tribals was through kinship. In his later works he had a strong belief in cultural relativism. He was very strongly influenced by Marxist structuralism.
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He looked at economics from cultural point of view and believed that it is culture which determines economy. Quite unlike Malinowski he advocated that economy pervades the total society but says that it is the culture of society which determines economy. His works include Culture and Practical Reason (1976) and Islands of History (1985).
Process of production. There is also consumption. And in between there is exchange. But Sahlins asserts that all these economic processes are conditioned and determined by culture. For an Indian illustration we refer to a Bhil Bhagat. A Bhagat is one who has taken to the vegetarian way of life. He is a teetotaler.
The Bhil has his consumption pattern. He can easily get a hen for his meals with minimum expenditure. But he will not accept. Instead he would go for the purchase of cereals, which is perhaps costlier for him.
The choice of cereal is decided by his cultural commitment to vegetarianism. Thus, Sahlins’ argument is very clear. Quite like the capitalist economy the Bhil economy is not guided by cost-benefit analysis. It is not value maximization.
Both Malinowski and Sahlins reject the role of rationality in the tribal economy. Malinowski maintains that economy is diffused in the totality of society and Sahlins stands for relativism.
Each group has ethnocentric culture. The economy of the group is conditioned by group ethnocentrism. The role of rational factor in a primitive economy is, therefore, rejected. Quite like culture, economy is symbolic of a group; it is a culture.