Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 16:30:14 -0700
Subject:  anthropology, historical process, RCT ...


Rahul,
I love all your ideas about anthropology threads.  

I am barely familiar with Levi-Strauss, a little with Harris, tho
more with his opposition, and a little with Polanyi.  I have some
Polanyi which I'd like to read some time, so that could be a good
common reading.  I'd rather hear your opinion or explication of what
you think Levi-Strauss has to offer before I try to read any myself.

I haven't read the Bloch, but I did recently acquire a fairly recent
book on marxism and anthropology that is a collection of essays.  I
don't have it with me now, but I will find it soon and post the cite.

I'm very interested in RCT, tho I know little of its formal
application within economics.  I know well the version that we use in
evolutionary ecology, and I've been having an interesting one-on-one
debate about some of this which maybe could be brought onto marxism2.

Previous contact with Justin has helped to stimulate my interest in
RCT type stuff and the [marxist?] philosophy of science and I was
already interested in MI.  I would love to have him join us.  I would
very much like to be able to discuss all these things and others
where we are not surrounded with verbal attacks and accusations of
being "counter-revolutionary" for even considering such ideas.

I'd very much like to hear more about the projects of Harris and
Frazer.  Do they seek to reconstruct a sequence?  What are their
visions of the mechanism or process of change?

Also, do you mind if I forward your post to marxism2 for some ideas
on threads to begin there?

Thanks for everything,
Lisa

PS.  Do you think there is a contradiction between Polanyi's vision
of non-capitalists as non-competitive, and an RCT approach to
understanding human behavior?  Well, we could take our time with this
stuff, I really have to, do to other pressing demands on my time.
LR



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