7 Economics and Subsistence

When you hear the term “economics,” what comes to mind? Perhaps it is images of analysts on Wall Street as they appear on television to discuss the health of the market after the opening bell rings. In the news, we might encounter terms like “recession” or “depression” as a sign of economic downturns. On an everyday level, some might spend their energy on the management of finances through regular activities like reviewing grocery bills and paying the rent.

Anthropologists have long studied the role of economics in culture and society. For example, scholars like Karen Ho (whose work we discussed in an earlier chapter) have studied the world of “high finance” where people are embedded in networks exchanging large amounts of money. Still other anthropologists study how finance and economics play out on smaller scales that are equally meaningful in the ways it impacts people’s daily lives.

While each of these images may touch upon elements of economics, the term is far broader. Economics refers to how resources in a group are organized and includes everything from production, exchange, consumption to distribution and attribution of value. Historically, much of Western thought has tended toward a hierarchical bias when looking at different types of economic systems around the world. This is sometimes found in descriptions of countries who are lower resourced or categorized according to degrees of industrialization. On a global scale, analysis might build include macro-data such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product), but within each country there also lies a great deal of difference. For example, a country with a high GDP that is generally be regarded as a “wealthy” nation may also have high levels of income disparity across the population such that some people experience great wealth and experience extreme poverty. Furthermore, economic diversity within countries might vary across subgroups. Based on cultural norms, religion or other factors, people might define the accumulation of wealth in terms that are not based solely on monetary calculations.

While there are many reasons why these perspectives developed over time, some key theorists come to the fore who are responsible for directing Western thinking when it came to political and economic systems. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher and advisor to King Charles II during the English Civil War, disseminated his thoughts through the publication of Leviathan in 1658. Hobbes argued that human nature was inherently selfish. People were greedy. To keep this greed in check, people required authority. This authority could come in the form of a strong government that would use its resources and institutional power to maintain peace and order. According to this line of thought, any society that did not have the presence of a strong ruler or strong ruling government would become violent over time, submerged by the implications of greed. By this definition, a hunger-gatherer society without hierarchical social classes and rulers would become violent; all the people of that society would be left to unstable, short-lived existences. People who were guided by this belief and bias then justified colonialism and violence as a means of establishing structure over so-called violent peoples. The great irony and tragedy is that the violent subjugation of other peoples and nations was justified as a means of preventing supposed impending violence.

Decades later, an economist by the name of Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith’s arguments complemented those of Hobbes, in asserting that human nature was selfish, competitive, and focused on acquisition. This meant that, without mediation, people would be in constant competition with one another. Rather than focusing on authority and government, Smith’s solution was a market economy that would provide forces that counteracted the self-interested competition of human beings. A market economy is a system where prices and competition are not restricted, allowing market forces or supply and demand to shape costs. The term Homo Economicus is often shorthand for this idea. Because there are limited resources such as food, water or land in the world, people would need something to keep in check their constant hunger to acquire more of these things. Like Hobbes, Smith’s logic inferred that any society that had a subsistence system that did not involve a market economy would run the risk of chaos and unchecked competition. Around this same time, Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) which augmented Hobbes’ and Smith’s portrayals of social tensions and their varied approaches to how those tensions could be addressed. Malthus argued that population growth over time would far outweigh the availability of food so without means to control population growth, there would not be enough food for each person over time. He saw both natural and unnatural phenomena as mechanisms for keeping population growth in check and consequentially, a means of managing subsistence. Malthus’ argument lent itself to the perspective that war, famine, and disease served a useful function in managing population within the means of what food people and the environment could produce. These principles of economic systems built upon the context of their time and place; during the time of their writing, market economies relied on predominantly raw goods and specific services. However, in today’s world we see goods manufactured at massive scales that are often transnational in production and assembly as well as inclusive of a diverse range of services. Despite the increasing complexity of goods and services, today’s political and economic discourse still bears remnants and residues of theories put forth by Hobbes, Smith, and Malthus.

Anthropological perspectives that explore other modes of organizing society intervene to shed light on the assumption that a single type of economic system works for all contexts. By Hobbes and Smith’s definitions, any society that followed a subsistence system that did not have authoritative rule, government bureaucracies, nor guiding market forces would be lost to violence and chaos. But this was not the case at all. In fact, anthropologists wrote about societies who functioned through internal group agreements and cultures that integrated a different set of beliefs into everyday practices. Social cohesion existed and there was no evidence of constant chaos.

In this chapter, we will explore how human beings think about subsistence and economics as they intersect with migration and production, accumulation, time, and place. We begin by examining different modes of subsistence, a specific type of economic system focused on how food is consumed. We then transition to looking at additional economic structures. We will also explore issues of reciprocity and exchange as well as how these systems and structures influence labor, how we work, and how we value that work. We look at several contemporary examples along the way and the anthropologists who study different economic systems around the world.

Subsistence Systems

In the opening lines of “Perhaps the World Ends Here” (1994) poet Joy Harjo writes, “The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.” These words point to many resonant themes, one of which includes the universal need to eat—and the meaning made by people who gather together to eat. Perhaps it is this combination of the biological universality mixed with cultural particularity that drove anthropologists to pursue the study of subsistence systems around the world.

There are several types of subsistence systems. Hunter-gatherers were a feature of societies where people acquire food through a combination of hunting and gathering (sometimes called foraging). In terms of political leadership, there is no chief or king and no market economy. Marshall Sahlins (1968) conducted fieldwork with the Ju/’hoansi (who he referred to at the time as the !Kung), a group of hunter-gatherers who live in the Kalahari Desert which spans several countries including South Africa. Hunting and gathering often coincides with moving with the seasons which is called transhumance. With transhumance, societies travel across land and acquire food through what is plentiful in each season.

In his writing, Sahlins described the Ju/’hoansi as an affluent people because their needs were easily met. Affluence in this context was not defined as excess of status symbols or material possessions. In contrast, affluence referred to the idea that people could find the food they needed to live in an efficient manner. To put this in simple terms, you get what you need for not a ton of effort. As with many hunting and gathering systems, this society was described as egalitarian, meaning that there was relative gender equality and a lack of class hierarchy. Everybody ate so there is no large expanse dividing the haves and have nots. As a result, there was little poverty. Part of what made this level of equality and social cohesion feasible was a key cultural value around sharing and distributing food. While there were no kings or chiefs, elders held influence and respect. Women, children, and the elderly provided about 70% of the food for the group by gathering plant foods while men provided about 30% of the group’s food by hunting. Since the time of Sahlins’ study, the Ju/’hoansi have had to adapt their subsistence system and as we sill discuss throughout this chapter, societies that utilize a particular means of gathering food change and adapt for a wide variety of reasons. As with any cultural belief, norm, or behavior, all societies exist in a dynamic and ever-changing state.

Subsistence systems can emerge as adaptations to environmental factors, but they can also be a means of making statements as part of broader social movements. For example, in two very different parts of the U.S.—rural Oregon and metropolitan New York—anthropologists have documented freegan foodways. Notably associated with terms like “dumpster diving,” freegans are foragers. While we may not initially think of freegan behaviors as an example of hunting and gathering, the dependence on food in the environment for foraging is a common factor. If we think of foraging as the “gathering” part of hunting and gathering, then living off of the land can include both what is found in the wild as well as in situ from the waste of others. In choosing this way of life as a means of acquiring food, freegans are also protesting capitalism, environmental degradation, and global industrial foodways (Gross 2009, Barnard 2011).

Whether it is through the lens of food and foodways or in examining issues of gender and kinship, anthropology allows us to think beyond our own cultural models and definitions. Examining economic models allows us to better understand diverse ways of living and how humans work together to meet their daily needs and desires. The example of the Ju/’hoansi sheds light on a different frame for understanding affluence that might challenge Western beliefs about the accumulation of goods. Thinking back to our earlier chapter on kinship and the example of Annette Weiner’s account of women’s wealth being marked by the ability to give away as much as possible, we see how much affluence can be determined by factors that challenge the assumption that is solely defined as accumulation in the form of material objects. Being regarded as a wealthy person is determined by different sets of cultural beliefs and practices.

Much of how the Western world thinks of affluence, wealth and subsistence models is influenced by Hobbes and Smith, who both wondered how sharing works and peace could possibly be maintained in a society with no political leadership or market economy. Returning to the example of the Ju/’hoansi, we see that neither are needed. In fact, there are several “leveling” mechanisms that help to do the work of collective cohesion. One example is the gift exchange of arrows. By sharing arrows among hunters, the credit for a kill (and the food provided through that kill) is spread out. There is no single hero nor a sole provider to be celebrated for the group’s ability to eat that day. Additionally, the arrow becomes more important than the actual hunter or the hunter’s skill alone so that the ability to provide food via the hunt is shared among the group members. A second key practice is called “insulting the meat” where members of the group will make light of their contribution or self-efface in order to play down the contribution of the meat. If a hunter brought back something worthy of a feast, rather than showering him with praise, the group would make comments like how it might not be enough to feed the whole group and wonder aloud if it is worth carrying back a mere “bag of bones.” Insulting the meat allows everyone to be valued the same regardless of the size of the carcass. The hunter participates in this by self-effacing and making apologetic comments about his meager contribution so that everyone upholds this shared value around group solidarity. Parallel processes exist in worlds other than those related to food where insults can serve as channels for group cohesion. For example, we might observe a kind of group agreement taking place when an honoree is “roasted” by their peers through comic tributes. This kind of effacement is insulting on the surface but holds deeper meaning in that honorees and roasters alike invite this practice as part of their group dynamic and solidarity.

Up until the 1960s, many Westerners regarded hunter-gatherer ways of life as barely getting by and fighting off starvation through practices. Much of this was clouded by biases of what wealth or affluence ought to look like. Canadian anthropologist Richard B. Lee’s economic analyses of inputs to outputs of the Ju/’hoansi people of the Kalahari Desert challenged these biases (1979). Lee found that the Ju/’hoansi had good productivity in terms of finding the food they needed in exchange for relatively few hours of work each week. This suggested that hunter-gatherers were highly efficient and effective in meeting their needs. Because this society only needed 15-20 hours a week to acquire everything group members needed for subsistence, Sahlins described it as the original affluent society. Unfortunately, by the 1990s, European settlers stripped away much of the land that provided food. Present day governments also continue to shape practices away from hunting and gathering in favor of permanent settlement of land.

Another subsistence system is horticulture. Horticulture is small scale agriculture where families typically grow enough food for their own family’s use. There is no intention to produce large surpluses of food. This practice can be semi-permanent (that is, intended as a long-term system) or temporary and borne of necessity as exemplified in the practice of victory gardens which were created during World War II. Also called war gardens, victory gardens existed in a variety of countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. They served as morale boosters as well as communal sources of produce. These types of gardens surfaced once again during the financial crisis and recession of 2008. Other examples of societies that have been documented in anthropological studies as horticulturalists are the Yanomamo, an Indigenous group that lives across villages in the Amazon region bordering Venezuela and Brazil. Horticulture was also described in depth by anthropologists like Malinowski and Weiner through practices in the Trobriand Islands. Ethnographies described the ways in which Trobrianders supplemented their food grown on their land with some additional hunting and fishing. Women and men grew different items in their gardens. Women’s gardens were used to grow everyday staple foods while men’s gardens were used to grow yams which are a special food. Yams denoted masculinity and were displayed in special yam houses. They also served as a kind of currency because they symbolized wealth and power. For example, the largest yams were given to the chief out of respect and signaled his status within the group. Trobriander men gave most of their yams to their sister’s husbands in line with kinship beliefs and practices. It should be noted that by the 1970s, a great deal of Trobriand practices including subsistence systems had changed largely due to the growth of tourism and export.

Pastoralism refers to an economy based on herding. Herding animals can range from cattle to goat and sheep. Like hunter-gatherers, pastoralists also practice transhumance; this is referred to as mobile pastoralism. Today, anthropologists may also note examples of sedentary pastoralism since movement has become more limited or constrained through forces that might affect political borders and access to lands.

The final two subsistence systems begin to mark some degree of social stratification and inequality. The first is intensive agriculture which refers to growing a surplus of food that can be traded or sold. To grow this surplus, larger scale farming is required. Intensive agriculture is often marked by the development of technology such as irrigation systems to water plants, ploughs to utilize animals or heavy fuel-powered machinery. Because there is a commitment to maintaining the soil, groups will not move from place to place. This, combined with some of the systems put in place to trade and sell food, leads to the rise of cities that can simultaneously support extra food cultivation and more dense populations. Social stratification in this context produces wealthier and more powerful elites who can influence the economy. Intensive agriculture has been around for about 30,000 years with cities developing later and existing for about 10,000 years.

Finally, industrialism refers to a system where there is mass production of goods and services. A great marker for the emergence of industrialism was the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. The revolution was not a peaceful or smooth transition. While mass production led to some goods and services being more available, other problems arose as a result. Issues included: 1) long factory hours; 2) lack of workers’ rights; 3) few holidays or time away allowed; 4) the rise of “time-discipline” or demonstrating productivity by number of hours that one can clock in and out; and 5) low wages. Reactions against industrialization in Europe in the 1800s included the Luddites who famously burned down factories and were crushed by the British military. The Luddites became associated with a disdain for technology which allowed more mass production through the factories. Often labeled as anti-technology, the Luddites were actually not against machines per se. Instead, their protests and uprisings challenged the conditions and consequences of industrialization, ranging from the increased risk of injury incurred while using these machines as well as the devaluing and displacement of laborers who were paid low wages.

The Luddites were not the only group to push back against industrialism. Later in the 1800s, Frederick Engels and Karl Marx articulated critiques of capitalism in The Communist Manifesto (1848). Some of the key topics covered in their book included “surplus value” or the idea that profits would go to employers (capitalists or bourgeoisie) who also took advantage of the ability to pay workers (proletariat) less. Commodities such as clothing gain “surplus value” or more value than the sum of its parts. For example, the cost of all of the materials and the hours of labor to produce it might sum to a number, but the product is sold for 10 times that amount and that difference goes into the pocket of the employer or whoever owns the means of production. Factory life also led to social isolation because people were treated as dispensable machines for production rather than as individual human beings. Marx and Engels argue that this kind of subsistence system leads to the breakdown of social relations between workers. One antidote to this breakdown of relationships is organizing and calling for unity as is indicated in the phrase, “Workers of the world, unite.” Labor unions also began to form in the 1800s to address some of the factory conditions and eventually laws were put into place to ensure rights for workers and more equitable pay for their labor.

In the latter half of the century and into the early 1900s, a counterculture to industrialism in Europe arose called the Bohemian Revolution. This was a choice to protest industrialization by focusing the arts. An emphasis on the arts and alternative lifestyles stood in stark contrast to the grinding labor required of factory life, mass production and consumption. Elsewhere, critiques of industrialization continued to play out in cultural productions including film. One example is the classic Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times. In the film, Chaplin depicts some of the problems of industrialization by showing how work in the factory might seem simple and harmless at first but by the end of this experience, Charlie Chaplin suffers from the repetitive and unrelenting demands of work on the assembly line. The experience of the worker in industrialism is one that takes a psychological toll and leads to the breakdown of social and interpersonal relations. These themes remain relevant in contemporary pop culture, with updates to context as a global assembly line. In the documentary film American Factory (2019), filmmakers show what happens when Chinese and American workers share in the ups and downs of working in an US-based factory owned by a Chinese company. A group of workers advocate for their rights while others argue against the formation of a union.

Studying subsistence systems draws attention to the direct ways people acquire food as well the indirect ways in which people amass enough money, favor, or power to access food by other means. Instead of gathering food from the land nearby, food might be processed and distributed to end up on the shelves of a grocery store, ready to be scanned and checked out after exchanging money for the value of said products. This might be seen as convenient because a wide variety of items is made available at a single location. But the presence of food in a single locale belies the fact that those items depend on global production and distribution lines. A bag of coffee may begin with beans in Ethiopia or Costa Rica, roasted in California, and distributed to a store in Virginia. Economic systems and food production lines become part of worldwide networks that are less bound to local group boundaries. Following an object like a bag of coffee beans or produce such as tomatoes then means that an anthropologist is thrown into foodways and commodity chains that go beyond local contexts. The Mushroom at the End of the World is one example of an ethnography that follows an object as a means of exploring topics across subsistence and economic systems (Tsing 2016). In it, Anna Tsing traces multiple stories about commodity chains, capitalism, and sustainability through the journey of the world’s most valuable mushroom, the matsutake.

The massive responsibility of food distribution to sites of convenience was made more urgent during times of crisis or limited transportation channels. During the COVID-19 breakout in the US, Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in the Bronx faced major challenges. The center worked with 200 companies to distribute food throughout the city, including the majority of meat, fish and produce. With the closure of restaurants, the main arm for distribution and consumption became focused on retail, ranging from supermarkets to small “mom and pop” corner stores (Riederer 2020). For supply chains to work seamlessly, each step of the chain depends on predictable daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal trends. The closure of restaurants also led to a surge of need and desire for items, including niche products that people typically relied on through visiting restaurants as well as staples like paper towels, canned goods, and flour. Reduced availability of workforce due to exposure, illness and hospitalization meant that staffing was limited at both the distribution center and for transportation channels necessary to move food out to store shelves.

Capitalism

Eric Wolf, an Austrian born anthropologist, expanded on Marx and Engel’s social theories regarding capitalism. Wolf explored the social relationships that tie labor to the production of goods and services by identifying three types of production in human history: domestic, tributary, and capitalist (1982). Domestic production refers to the idea that work is based on kin relations and does not need formal modes of asserting power or control over others and their labor. There may, however, be differences in power based on kin structures as described in our earlier chapter on kinship. Tributary production is defined as having a primary producer pay “tribute” to another person or group of people through goods or labor. If a person or groups control the land on which another group of people is forced to work, those with less power are forced to provide labor or a percentage of their crops. In tributary systems, a farmer and their family may live off the land (similar to horticulturalists or pastoralists) but they are also subject to give a portion of their food to a ruling class rather than use any portion of their harvest for direct barter or exchange with other families for other goods and services. These are sometimes referred to as “precapitalist” societies because of the power imbalance enacted through land and goods as well as the inherently conflicted relationships between the ruling class and the working class. The final mode of production is known as capitalism. Capitalism is defined by three key characteristics. Property is owned by members of the capitalist class who own the means of production. The remaining classes who do not have direct access to these means must then find a different way of making ends meet which results in selling their labor and time in order to survive. Through this ordered relationship, the capitalist class can make a profit or create surplus wealth; the cost of owning machines or resources with a minimal cost of paying for labor and the sale of the produced item for much more than those costs combined generates profit. People who are separated from access to their own means of production are left to sell their labor to survive, simultaneously contributing to more profit for the owners of the means of production.

This might beg the question, “How does one group gain the means of production?” The term primitive accumulation refers to the act of acquiring capital through violence. Examples of violence include war, taking land forcibly, dispossession, and neocolonialism. It is through primitive accumulation that we see how racial capitalism comes about such that a historical context shines a light on the root causes of infrastructures that continue to build off of a legacy of primitive accumulation.

A classic example of this might be a person or company who owns a factory (and all the materials in it) and pays for the costs of those materials as well as the hourly wage of workers who sew clothes in said factory. Clothes are sold at a greater price and the remaining surplus wealth goes to the company. Laborers might be paid a lower wage and additional benefits may be excluded because of incentives to maximize surplus wealth. This same ordering of relationships takes new shape but with similar dynamics in modern day gig economies. One example of a study that explores these types of experiences is in the book Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle (2019). Gig economies like driving for ride-share companies are complex in that drivers might be able to sell their labor for profit on a flexible schedule, but a large portion of that profit goes to the company that owns the mobile app as a means of enabling the enterprise. The driver may have flexibility and increased income at first glance but there are often costs incurred such as car insurance and the wear and tear on their vehicle (in addition to time and labor) without employment benefits such as health insurance. Surpluses of wealth or profit can be reinvested (to continue to generate more surplus) either for the individual or the company such that the system works to increase the wealth of those who already have relative wealth.

The foundations of a political economy manifest in other subfields such as medical anthropology. Scholars have shown how health inequities result of inequities in material conditions. For example, scholars and activists have been tracing the multitude of ways in which racial inequities have impacted the lives of Black Americans. From increased exposure to environmental toxins and disproportionate access to resources related to social determinants of health (such as employment, housing, and fair wage) as well as a multitude of converging factors that increase rates of chronic disease that are then exacerbated with breakouts of novel viruses such as COVID-19, race, class, and health play out in multi-layered ways (Hardeman, Medina and Boyd 2020, Gravlee 2020). The health of communities is thus inextricably tied to economic, educational, political, and legal systems.

Studies centering on political economy recognize how the distribution of power, including but not limited to economic and financial power, impacts every aspect of life from daily tasks to macro structures and processes. While individuals have agency in the day-to-day choices they make, they live within broader social, political, and economic structures. For example, if a shopper is making their way down the aisle of a nearby grocery store, one might assume that they are making choices such as the items they pick to make dinner that day. Perhaps they are deliberating over one type of canned tomato over another—or which brand of canned tomato to purchase. But even in these minute decisions, we can also ask what choices the store manager or chain made to make available those precise cans on those shelves. We can ask how much the shopper makes a day or week or their household income and whether those numbers influence which cans are truly options. We can ask whether the canned good is by choice and preference or because shelf stable goods might be a practical strategy for unpredictable income, providing security in contrast to fresh produce that may go bad at a time when money does not come into the household. We can also ask how certain dishes became go-to staples (of necessity or of desire and preference) in their family and community. In this simple activity of going grocery shopping and making a single choice for which item to place in one’s basket, we see how individual choices and agency are deeply influenced by structures and political economies.

At the intersection of food and economy, we see how systems are not static or simply described. Hanna Garth’s ethnography Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal (2020) shows how today’s consumption practices contribute to increasing stress on individuals and families. Despite transitions from communism to a somewhat open market in the country, families still struggle to find food to make a “decent meal.” Garth’s work highlights themes such as food quality and cultural appropriateness when it comes to food and what constitutes a decent meal from the perspective of each person and family. Through a framework described as “the politics of adequacy,” Garth draws attention to the ways in which people’s complex and dynamic relationships with food. In doing so, she reminds us that subsistence and economic systems resist simple categorizations of easier or harder living.

Political economic analysis and critiques of colonialism often converge with studies that focus on structural violence. Structural violence is a term that comes from sociologist Johan Galtung (1993) who explored how institutions harm people by creating barriers to their ability to meet their essential needs. Examples of structural violence can be found in medical anthropology where quantitative and qualitative methods have shown how racial inequities across education, justice, and built environment converge to impact health outcomes such as shorter lifespans. Capitalism plays out in a transnational and global context. In a globalized world, anthropologists like Aiwa Ong have written about the phenomenon of Free Trade Zones in countries like Malaysia (Ong 1987, Ong 1988). These FTZs were constructed by offering deregulation (less tax and regulation) in order to encourage foreign countries to build factories and hire locally.

Angela Stuesse is another example of an anthropologist who studies labor. Stuesse’s research focuses on the experiences of Latino immigrants who work at a chicken processing plant in Mississippi and how their labor takes place in broader contexts of workforce recruitment and food consumption habits. In Scratching Out a Living: Latino, Race, and Work in the Deep South (2016), Stuesse explores issues of race and class on Black and Latino communities in the American South through the impact of neoliberal globalization on labor.

Anthropological Study of Money and Finance

As we have discussed, money is not the only way of thinking about economics and subsistence in anthropology. But if an anthropologist were to embark on fieldwork specifically to study money and finance, how might they describe their field sites in their research proposal? Perhaps, they might picture themselves writing notes from participant observation standing on a trading floor or in the lobby of a bank. Still others might situate themselves on a street corner where vendors make regular sales and transactions or where neighbors gather regularly to sort out their group’s own informal banking system. But if we revisit the notion of following objects in multi-sited ethnography, we recognize that the site where a transaction happens—where money as cash or money in its more symbolic form—changes hands is not always a singular, bounded site. Following the money means that individuals and organizations are implicated even in a single transaction. Hart and Ortiz describe how monetary transactions link people and networks as well as the written and unwritten rules that govern and guide them. In “The Anthropology of Money and Finance: Between Ethnography and World History,” Hart and Ortiz write, “When a mother buys a toy for her child, using her banked salary, they are linked to global finance and to the global circuit of goods and services in which the toy producer and the mother’s employer also take part. Even street transactions outside the banking system connect people to commercial networks, state-made money, and global finance in ways that extend far beyond their neighborhoods” (2014, 476). Not only are people, organizations and nation-states implicated in every formal and informal exchange of money, other critical intersections ranging from gender to kin-based expectations emerge when we study finance and money from an anthropological lens.

Let us look at three case studies where anthropologists have studied money, asking questions about what insights might be gleaned through observing the culture of financial systems. In Mutual Life, Limited, Bill Maurer (2005) explores two places where people are making and remaking meaning out of money. The first example centers around Islamic bankers in the U.S. and Indonesia, and how they reconcile banking practices with the need to avoid interest; the Qur’an prohibits riba, which translates to increase such as the increase of assets other than for the value at which they were originally exchanged (commonly understood as “interest” in many US-based banking practices). He lays alongside this example a complementary exploration of HOURS, an alternative local currency based out of Ithaca, New York.

An HOUR is the equivalent of $10 USD; a half HOUR is $5 and so forth. Established in 1991, Ithaca HOURS is a locally based currency printed on paper with the aim of people bringing money based on what they enjoy or need. For example, someone can exchange services such as gardening for HOURS. Additionally, because HOURS cannot operate outside of this community or be invested for circulation elsewhere, the currency stays local. Another anthropologist who studied Ithaca HOURS, Faidra Papavasiliou, also showed how this form of currency fortified connections between community residents and business owners (2010). HOURS also garnered more attention during times of national economic crisis precisely because the systems offered opportunities to keep investments local, and for business owners to access zero interest loans which created stability in an otherwise unstable national and global context.

Alternative economies can also intersect with alternative political ecologies, as described in the work of Brian J. Burke and Beatriz Arjona in their research in two ecovillages in Colombia. One village is comprised of disaffected middle-class people from urban areas and another of low-income single mothers, many of whom had experienced domestic violence or displacement. “Experiences from Colombia show that ecovillages partially deviate from the reproduction of capitalist development by permitting alternative systems of production, consumption, and distribution based on different economic and social logics,” write Burke and Arjona. Though the context of these two groups is vastly different, ecovillages provide an alternative ecology that includes subsistence through structures that support meaningful connections with others and with nature.

Another example of how cultural beliefs and practices intersect with money and finance is Maneki-Neko which translates to “lucky cats” or “beckoning cats.” Figurines of cats waving are sometimes found at the entrance to Japanese or Chinese restaurants and stores around the world to bring good luck and fortune to the business owner. In “A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Zhaocaimao (Lucky Cat) Constructed by the Chinese Communities in South Africa” (2020), Binjun Hu examines how Maneki-Neko is used by business owners in China as a sign of luck and then follows Chinese migration to South Africa post-apartheid. As people moved from China to South Africa, cultural symbols like Maneki-Neko were adapted and contextualized to not only signal good fortune but also maintain cultural identity in a new place and social context. Zhaocaimao in South Africa morph into symbols of micro-identity in the context of global economies and transnational flows of people and cultures.

Gifts and Reciprocity

It may seem odd to include a discussion of gifts in a chapter on economics and subsistence. After all, doesn’t the very notion of a “gift” live outside of money and value calculations? By definition, gifts are free and given without expectation of currency or bartered item in return. Yet, the gift is a crucial part of exchange, bringing with it many layers of interpretation, expectation, and value.

Marcel Mauss, a French anthropologist, focused his ethnographic research on gifts and reciprocity in culture. Mauss argued that the giving of gifts was instrumental in forging links between people, influencing relationships on the interpersonal and intergroup level. Perhaps even more important than the objects themselves are the social relations built and maintained through the act of gift giving. In The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (1923), Mauss describes several critical components to a gift: 1) a gift must enhance solidarity; 2) gifts are part of a broader system of reciprocity where the honor and reputation of the giver and recipient of the gift are implicated; and 3) gift giving is part of a cycle that operates throughout a social system. Mauss focused on group solidarity and explored the idea that gift giving creates a sense of obligation to reciprocate.

We can think about some common experiences of gift giving and receiving today. If a friend gives you a gift for your birthday, and it is particularly thoughtful or luxurious, you might feel a sense to “match” the value of that gift when that friend’s birthday comes around. A match might be “calculated” in terms of thoughtfulness such as item that takes a long time to make such as a painting or quilt, or is difficult to acquire such as a collector’s item. Even if the “value” is the same, if the overwhelming feeling in receiving the gift was thoughtfulness, equivalent value via a gift card of that same amount might fall short of any sense of obligation or reciprocity. On the other hand, if the item is clearly expensive—for example, a piece of jewelry from noteworthy luxury brand—one might feel the need to match the value of that gift for the friend the next time around. This example allows some time for thinking and interpreting because there is a delay between the two exchanges, sometimes referred to as delayed reciprocity.

The relationship and all that is inferred in the gift exchange might become more murky or complicated if the exchange has no delay and takes place in the same instance. For example, if two coworkers or colleagues exchange gifts at a holiday office party, they might not know what the other will be giving and must make a guess beforehand. In this case, one might take into consideration hierarchy (in titles, roles, and pay) within the workplace or the culture of both the work environment and the nature of their collegial relationship to deem what is appropriately meaningful and of value. Underestimating the other person’s gift might be interpreted as disrespectful whereas overestimating the gift by too much might be seen as inappropriate or burdensome.

In many Western contexts, gift giving is separated from economic study because it does not seem to have outright requirements for value exchanges at first glance. But closer examination often elucidates how gifts, even when stipulated as free and without condition, beckons for reciprocity and in turn, influences the relationship between two people or the group at large. When anthropologists study reciprocity, it allows them to examine the moral economy and the ways in which beliefs and shared values influence behaviors. A moral economy may not have outright rules for exchange (i.e., if you do not have $5.99 to pay the cashier, you cannot walk out of this store with said item with price tag denoting that amount) but it does come with a sense of right and wrong in the cultural scheme of things.

A classic example of gift giving in anthropology is the kula, highlighted in ethnographic studies by Bronislaw Malinowski who readers may recall was the founder of the functionalist approach to anthropology and largely associated with participant-observation methods that deepened by coming off the verandah. The kula is a system of exchange that operates in a circle or ring and is found in the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific. This is an example of balanced reciprocity, or the idea that there is a direct exchange where something is given with the expectation that something of equal value will be returned within a specific time period. The time period may not be immediate, but it is also not open or infinite and the equal value expectation creates a balance in the relationship through reciprocal giving. For this to happen, a gift must be given and accepted, and a balanced value gift must then follow to also be given and accepted. This type of reciprocity exists within a known relationship (versus complete strangers) but the type of relationship may vary from friend to acquaintance to relative.

The kula is a ceremonial exchange of armbands (mwali) and necklaces (soulaya) made of shells and is given as high-ranking men circulate between the islands. Across the islands, there are lifelong trading partners so that the person you give an armband to during one visit is the same person who will be your partner upon return and so forth. During these trips, utilitarian items might also be exchanged including food or canoes or other functional tools that might be harder to acquire on that specific island. The exchange of utilitarian items is differentiated from the gift giving function of the kula as the arm bands and necklaces themselves have symbolic value in brining prestige or meaning but cannot be bought or sold. Malinowski found that while the exchange of armbands and necklaces did not translate into economic value, they served an important role in forging strong relationships through gift exchange. Ownership of armbands and necklaces remained temporary since people would be expected to gift the items to others in the ring. Prestige is based more on the ability to give gifts rather than acquire them and relationships continue throughout the islands and across groups through balance reciprocity.

Gift giving can also serve an important function in reducing tensions that develop from wealth disparities. In one example of gift giving in the form of potlatch exists in the Pacific Northwest among the Kwakwaka’wakw (sometimes referred to as the Kwakiutl). Potlatches are held for special occasions when the community will gather for feasts and gift giving. Through his fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest, Franz Boas argued that the ceremony was instrumental to social cohesion and because houses would gift as a means of maintaining social standing, there was also a mechanism for distributing goods and wealth to poorer members of the community (1921). Some researchers have also argued that gift giving created a way to address and mitigate increasing disparities in social status and wealth that had been brought on by food surplus such as availability of salmon and movement toward other occupations that could lead to higher status.

While there are times when gift giving fall under a kind of measured relationship building and maintenance through balance, there are also examples where giving and reciprocity are more broad and less specific. In generalized reciprocity, someone gifts without expecting anything specific in return. In contrast to the example of the kula which cements relationships through balanced reciprocity in limited time frames with relations who are typically more distant than family, generalized reciprocity can be found more often in closer relationships such as within families. For example, if a sibling picks up a few items while grocery shopping because they think their family member might appreciate and drops it off as a gift in the moment, there may not be a real expectation for an equivalent gift to be given within a particular time frame. This behavior is not limited to objects as gifts can also be thought of in terms of service and time. For example, a friend will offer to babysit so that their friends can enjoy an evening out. This is done without expectation of payment nor any expectation that the favor will be returned. In fact, the friend who is offering to babysit may not have any children to expect an equivalent return for the favor. And even if this friend did have children who might be babysat in the future, the initial offer is not given with the expectation of equivalent hours in mind nor of an expected timeline to return such a favor. In these closely tied relationships, the gift of time, material objects, or care is given freely and occurs in part because the relationships extend for long periods of time (if not entire lifetimes) with so many instances of interaction that estimating or tallying “balances” would not be necessary nor practical. In fact, in these cases, being too explicit about expectations and balances might damage the relationship and create a sense of distance rather than closeness.

Generalized reciprocity can be observed as a cultural norm in some societies and might be found throughout a group rather than being limited to immediate family. Whether shared with a neighborhood, entire society, or within a small, close-knit kinship context, generalized reciprocity supports group solidarity and social cohesion. Both balanced and generalized reciprocity allow relationships to flourish without the kinds of governmental structures or market forces that Smith or Hobbes argued were necessary for society to function.

The opposite side of the coin to generalized or balanced reciprocity is negative reciprocity. In cases of negative reciprocity, someone will attempt to gain something for nothing—receiving gifts or favors but evade opportunities to give themselves. Because this might harm relationships and group cohesion, this will most likely occur among strangers or individuals who are not likely to run into each other or be held accountable for their actions. An email or telemarketing message asking for a donation or loan without any intention of paying back or providing services in return is an example of negative reciprocity.

While reciprocity might be observed over time as momentary interactions between individuals and groups, a more macro form of spreading value across a group is called redistribution. Redistribution in some form can be found in every society and involves the collection of goods or services with the intention of sharing them later. One example of this is through taxation. Individuals in the U.S. pay federal and state income taxes yearly to the government (via the Internal Revenue Services). This payment may have occurred automatically from paycheck to paycheck throughout the year or be required to pay at the end of the year. Through this process, individuals may receive a tax return or cash refund if they overpaid. This is one example of redistribution but even if a person receives zero cash as part of the tax refund, they have already contributed amounts throughout the year. Those who have not contributed may be required to pay at the end of the year. Redistribution then occurs in the form of individuals regularly accessing roads, parks, and public infrastructures, public benefits, or public schools—resources made available in part through the collective total of those taxes.

While this chapter has served as an introduction to foundational concepts in understanding subsistence and economics from an anthropological lens, there are many examples that complicate definitions of value. For example, Ciara Kierans is an anthropologist who studies organ transplants and its biopolitical implications. Her ethnographic research spans fieldwork sites in Ireland and Mexico. In “Anthropology, organ transplantation and the immune systems: Resituating commodity and gift exchange” (2011), Kierans reflects on practices of renal transplants and organ donation. She critiques past simplifications of organ donation in anthropology as being too dichotomous with the donor being attributed as more valuable in society (in some ways, altruistic) in comparison to the receiver. Closer examination of contexts and transplant technologies demonstrates the preexisting inequalities that make some groups more likely to need or require organ transplants and the complex reasons for organ donation and to whom transplants are accessible and available as procedures. In the case of organ donation in the U.S., there may be matches through kin relations as well as strangers. What would motivate strangers to share organs with someone they may never meet? Some might argue that the cultural norms or behaviors are based in a kind of generalized reciprocity but because these are not constant and continuous relationships with regular interactions, there may be other beliefs driving the desire to donate organs. One source of cultural norms specific to a subgroup within societies is a religious commitment to giving. For example, in the US, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) acknowledges different beliefs related to organ donation as evidenced by dedicated subpages that describe religious perspectives. The site begins with the statement, “The gift of organ donation enjoys broad support among many religions in the US” and follows with perspectives across a variety of religions and denominations including Catholicism, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Evangelical Covenant Church, Islam, Judaism, Lutheran Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, and United Methodist. Though the specific scriptural references and tenets differ, there is some agreement that organ donation is an act of love for others grounded in one’s faith.

Conclusion

Understandings of subsistence and economic systems have evolved over time in anthropological thinking and study. No one culture is bound for all time to a strict definition of subsistence. Even in places well known for abundant fertile lands that provide produce to the rest of the country, rural residents are finding increased reliance on global foodways and consequently facing the burden of additional costs incurred from importing food from far away even when they are living on farmland. In the American Midwest, people find themselves paying more for imported food than the amount they receive for growing and exporting foods (Meter and Rosales 2001). Anthropologists and students of anthropology must thus build upon these foundational principles and lay them alongside critiques of contexts where globalization and political economy challenge simplistic definitions of what is available and what is plentiful to people.