Date: Mon, 1 Aug 94 12:07:14 CST
From: "oman0005" <oman0005-AT-gold.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Marxism & anthropology


On Sun, 31 Jul 1994 23:21:36 -0400 (ED, Alex Trotter wrote:

>
>This question is addressed primarily to Jim Herron, though anyone else 
>can of course jump in. What exactly is Marxist anthropology? Can there be 
>such a thing? I recently read a book by Pierre Clastres entitled _The 
>Archeology of Violence_, in which he expressed his scorn for the school 
>of French Marxist anthropologists (Meillassoux and Godelier are names 
>taken to task). His basic objection to it is that the various categories 
>of Marxism such as relations of production, development of productive 
>forces, exploitation, ideology, and so on do not apply to primitive 
>societies. Clastres is an admirer and co-thinker of Marshall Sahlins, 
>whom Herron criticized in a recent post. The position that Sahlins took 
>in _Stone Age Economics_ was that there are no production relations in 
>primitive society because it is essentially a machine of anti-production, 
>the original 'leisure society.' Sahlins and Clastres are well regarded in 
>some anarchist circles.
>--Alex Trotter

Sahlins pointed out that the Formalist approach to "primitive" 
societies, vis a vis "homo economicus," wasn't a valid one in that peoples 
surveyed in his work, Stone Age Economics, were not the maximizers that 
proponents of the neo-classical paradigm attempted to make them out to be.  
Rather than trying to exploit their environments by maximizing their time 
and labor, they sought adequacy, sufficiency.

"For the domestic groups of primive society have not yet suffered 
demotion to a mere consumption status, their labor power detached from 
the familial circle and, employed in an external realm, made subject to an 
alien organization and purpose.  The household is as such charged with 
production, with the deployment and use of labor power, with the 
determination of the economic objective.  Its own inner relations, as 
between husband and wife, parent and child, are the principle relations 
of production in society.  The built-in etiquette of kinship statuses, 
the dominance and subordination of domestic life, the reciprocity and 
cooperation, here make the "economic" a modality of the intimate.  How 
labor is to be expended, the terms and products of its activity, are in 
the main domestic decisions.  And these decsions are taken primarily with 
a view toward domestic contentment.  Production is geared to the families 
customary requirments.  Production is for the benefit of the producers."
(Sahlins, Marshall. Stone Age Economics. 1972: 76-77) 

Its fairly clear that Sahlins reconized production relations but sought to 
emphasize that they were *different* from those proposed by the 
Formalist's.  Also, it is possible to use Marxist catagories but one has 
to be careful about how they are employed.  They have to be re-situated 
within the context of the society being studied.  It may be more apt to 
begin with observeing how different economies are modeled, rather than 
importing an exsisting theoretical template and employing it a priori.
(For an example of this see Stephen Gudeman's _Converstaions in Columbia_)

I've been lurking on the list and have enjoyed the discussions thus far 
very much.  I am a undergrad in the Political Science Honors Dept at the 
University of Minnesota majoring in poly sci and minoring in anth.  This 
list is great in that I get to attend lecture, even during the summer 
break.  Keep up the good work!


                             Jeff Oman
                       Oman0005-AT-gold.tc.umn.edu
                          Ecrasez L'infame