Now that we've covered some of the basic foundations of anthropology and the abstract issue of culture, over the next few weeks we are now going to focus on components of culture. These components of culture include things like economic systems, kinship systems, political systems, religion, marriage and family, etc. For ease of presentation we are going to discuss these issues independently from each other but we must always keep in mind that this is not really how culture works. Culture is an integrated whole. Although we are going to be discussing them primarily independently, we will see that these different components of culture are NOT independent. In fact, they tend to vary together. If we know what type of food getting strategy a society has we can also predict what type of economic distribution system, religious system, family organization, political organization, etc. that they have. These complex systems of interconnected components of culture are referred to as adaptive strategies. There are five primary adaptive strategies: Foraging; Horticulture; Pastoralism; Agriculture; and Industrialism. You may notice that these adaptive strategy names correlate with how people within each of these types of societies get food. Why is that?
Getting food is the most basic human need. It is thought that everything else develops around how we, as societies, get food. In addition to being the most basic human need, subsistence, that is, how we get goods we need to survive, is also the most basic distinction between societies. Regardless of where two societies are located in the world, if they have the same subsistence system they will be more alike than if they do not. For example, in terms of cultural systems, a foraging society from the Northwest coast of North America has more in common with a foraging society on the edges of the Kalahari desert than it does with an agricultural society also on the Northwest coast of North America. Of course the society from the Northwest coast and the society from the Kalahari desert do not have exactly the same strategies. Differences are generally due to different historical experiences and differences in the environments and subsequently available resources. But it does turn out that similar adaptive strategies produce similar cultural results. Why certain things vary together is actually quite logical. Hopefully, as the semester continues this logic will become clear to you.
At this point, you probably have a good idea that we will be primarily talking about how people get food. But then why is this section titled "Economic Systems?" How we get food is a part of an economic system, but not the only part. An economic system is composed of three parts:
PRODUCTION How we get, make or produce goods needed for survival (subsistence).
DISTRIBUTION How goods are spread throughout the community.
Production can be conceptualized as what we do to get food even if what we do is work in a factory to make money to buy food. It is from production that all other facets of society stem. There are five types of production systems: Foraging; Horticulture; Pastoralism; Agriculture; and Industrialism. Again these are the same words used to describe adaptive strategies. However, production really only refers to the getting of food while adaptive strategy refers to the whole cultural complex associated with how you get food. Here, in addition to explaining the production component, I will highlight the key aspects of the adaptive strategy associated with each form of production.
Until about 10,000 years ago, foraging was the only production strategy humans had--meaning, for over 99% of the history of humans, we have been foragers. It is a very successful strategy dating back to, at the very least, 2.5 million years ago. Foraging is also referred to as hunting and gathering which is exactly what it is--hunting and gathering. Although hunting has always been stressed by anthropologists studying these groups, in foraging societies the majority of food (between 60-80% depending on the particular society and resources available in the environment) is attained through the gathering component. The video to the left a well studied foraging group, the !Kung San or Ju/'hoansi. The video starts off a bit slow...so you may want to skip ahead to about the 3 minute mark. (If you do not see the video, refresh the page and allow active X content or Click Here.)You'll be reading more about them later in the semester.
Foragers are completely reliant on the resources naturally found in their environments. They gather fruits, tubers, nuts and berries, etc. only when they are naturally occurring. At certain times of the year there may be more resources available than others. The limitations of the environment and the need to allow resources to replenish restricts foraging groups, especially in regards to population size. Generally, foraging groups are small, nomadic family groups consisting of approximately 40-60 people. These groups are also very fluid. In times of plenty, groups will merge together. When resources are scarce, they will split into smaller groups. Having small flexible groups helps to exploit the environment more efficiently. The smaller groups can more easily move through the forest as they move from food source to food source or as they follow groups of wild animals. Having fewer people, they also don't overtax the resources in a given area. Generally, a foraging group has a home range that they travel through throughout the year. Within this home range they are very familiar with what plants can be found where and when and exactly how much they can gather so that there is enough to replenish the forest for the years to come.
Attitudes about the land itself are also very much associated with how the foragers interact with their environment. Within this type of society there is no concept of land ownership. They live off of the land, but no one has ownership of it. Because of this everyone has equal access to everything they need to survive. No one has more resources than anyone else leading to an egalitarian society. Basically this means all people have equal power and wealth. Actually, foraging societies are not perfectly egalitarian. Within foraging societies there are slight differences in status based on gender and age. The differences in status based on age are more of an issue of respect and experience. As one gets older, one gains respect. The differences based on gender are due to the division of labor. Men hunt while women gather. Although gathering does account for a higher percentage of food, hunting is seen as more prestigious and more important because it provides necessary protein. Still, even though these slight differences in status do exist, compared to all of the other adaptive strategies, foraging is the most egalitarian.
Another key thing to understand about foraging societies is the importance of cooperation. Cooperation is more important for foraging societies than in any other adaptive strategy. In fact, I generally refer to cooperation as the underlying theme that makes all the different systems (political, kinship, etc.) associated with foraging make sense. Why is cooperation so important here in foraging society? Well think about how they are getting food and remember that how you get food is the foundation for everything else. Hunting and gathering is actually a great way to get food--there's lots of variety, the food is healthy...but it does have some drawbacks. If any of you are hunters or know hunters you may already know why. When a person goes hunting, what are the chances that they actually find and kill something? Is it 100% of the time? Take out the concept of the gun (foraging societies don't have them). Now what are the chances of killing something--even less. Any given day, even if you are the best hunter of the group, the chances of you, as an individual, coming home without any food is pretty high. What does that mean? Well, if it were just up to you to feed your family...your family may starve. BUT, what if all the people in your group worked together. Granted, I might not get a kill today, but chances are someone will. Wouldn't it be nice if that person shared with me? Yes it would--and that is the way this society is set up. Regardless of who gathers it or kills it, the majority of resources are pooled and then split among the entire group ensuring no one goes hungry. If one person eats, everyone eats. This theme of cooperation will come up repeatedly in connection to foragers throughout the semester.
Horticulture is referred to as the first cultivating economy, meaning this is the first economic strategy where people are producing food instead of just hunting and gathering. Generally when we think of producing food we tend to think of agriculture--but horticulture and agriculture are not the same. At the most simplistic, one can think of horticulture as a less intensive form of agriculture--but this isn't quite accurate. In horticulture, naturally occurring plants, that is, undomesticated plants, are relocated to a "garden" where they can be more easily tended and harvested. These gardens are usually created through a process called slash and burn. In this process, once a location for a garden is selected, the men clear the land by slashing all the small vegetation (they usually leave larger trees in place) and then burning the slashed material. In addition to clearing the land, the burning component also provides important nutrients for the soil. These nutrients are even more important because another of the hallmarks of horticulture is that they use simple technology--which, in part, means that they do not use any fertilizer. Another component of the simple technology is that they do not use any animal labor, no plows, and generally only work with a machete (for clearing) and a digging stick for planting and harvesting. While the men generally do the clearing, it is the women who do the planting, garden maintenance, and harvesting. The picture to the left is of an Erigbaagtsa woman and her digging stick. The Erigbaagtsa are a horticultural group from the Mato Grosso region of Brazil who primarily cultivate a plant called manioc. Notice that the land she is standing on is scorched. They are preparing this land to be a garden.
With fertilizer not being used, land becomes infertile quite quickly, sometimes as quickly as one to two years. As the land becomes less and less fertile, it becomes less and less productive. The only solution is to shift or move the garden and leave the land fallow. Ideally, land should be left fallow for a period of up to 7 years (depending on the environment). This means that at any given period of time, more land has to be left fallow than is being used. The necessity of leaving so much land fallow leads to two other characteristics of a horticultural society. The first is that population is limited by land availability and the second is that people own the product of the land they work, but not the land itself. Generally, the population in a horticultural society maxes out in the low 100s. The composition of these groups is that of a single kin group that can be further broken down into households of about 20 closely related individuals that work together as an economic unit. Unlike in a foraging society where everyone within the group shares all their resources (food), that is not the case in a horticultural society. Gardens are worked by a particular household. The household owns the product of the land. Anything that they plant and harvest, they keep for themselves. They do not have to share with the extended kin group. However, they, as individual households, do not own the land itself. The larger kin group claims ownership of the land. Anyone who is a member of that kin group (basically anyone who is a member of the society) can use the land on a first come first serve basis. As it comes time to shift garden plots, a household has to find fertile, unused land to shift to. Although they can use any of the land owned by the kin group, as the population grows, it becomes more and more difficult to find free fertile land, resulting in people creating gardens on land that hasn't been left fallow the full time period necessary--so their crops are not as productive. This situation effectively creates tension within the group, which inevitably, as the population gets larger and larger, leads to the kin groups fissioning into two distinct groups with their own territories.
Pastoralism is a strategy devoted to gaining a livelihood through the care of herds of domesticated or partially domesticated animals. Gaining a livelihood through the care of herds, however, does not necessarily mean relying on meat. Animal products are often more important than meat for daily survival within these types of societies. The primary food sources in pastoralist societies generally are milk products and blood products. This is then supplemented with hunting and gathering and food that is traded for. (Horticultural societies also supplement their food source with hunting and gathering and trading.) Usually herd animals are only slaughtered and eaten on special occasions. This really is a very good strategy considering that in order to eat meat you have to kill an animal. A dead animal is no longer productive. (You do not have to kill the animal to get blood--just bleed it.) Also, within this society, one gains prestige and status by the size and quality of their herd, so people are reluctant to kill off their animals because how many animals you have directly relates to your position in the society.
As the semester goes on, we shall see that pastoralism and horticulture are very similar in many ways. Like in horticultural societies, the pastoralist population tends to max out in the low 100s with land being the limiting feature. Here it is not because land needs to be left fallow, but rather because herds eat all the grass in an area and time is needed for the grass to regenerate. Because of this, pastoralists tend to be somewhat more nomadic than horticulturalist--following their animals to available pastureland. Land rights, however, work the same. Pastoral groups are made up of large kin groups that can be broken down into smaller households of extended families. While the larger kin group owns the land, each household owns their own herd and the rights to the products their herd produces. Being a member of the kin group, they can use any land owned by the kin group that is not already being used by someone else from the kin group. I can't overemphasize how important kinship is to both horticultural and pastoral societies.
The Basseri (Culture Sketches, Ch. 3)
As mentioned earlier in the unit, how a group gets food creates the base from which the rest of society stems. The Basseri, as nomadic pastoralists, are no exception. What are some of the ways in which the Basseri's adaptive strategy of pastoral nomadism influences their other social institutions (i,e,, poltical systems, kinship systems, family organization, religious systems, etc) and interpersonal relationships? How might Basseri life change with increasing sedentism?
We are more familiar with this type of society. It was the foundation of America for many years. Agriculture, like horticulture, is a cultivating economy, but agriculture is much more intensive. Agriculture is characterized by the use of domesticated plants and animals and increased use of technology such as animal labor for plowing, irrigation systems, storage systems, the use of fertilizer so the same land could be used continuously, and terracing that turns hilly terrain into workable farmland. Considering that land could be used continuously, it is not surprising that this is the first system where we start to see individual land ownership. Individual families hold rights to land that are passed down from generation to generation and that land is extremely important for it not only provides subsistence, but also status. In agricultural systems, in association with land ownership, we also start to see great differences in wealth and status between people.
With agriculture comes a large increase in the amount of people that can be supported. Rather than the low 100s, agricultural systems support in the thousands, and not even just low thousands. The more advanced the agricultural technology, the larger the population that can be supported. So, we can find agricultural societies in the 100s of thousands to even low millions. This is possible because a single agricultural farm can support more than just the people who work that farm. This produces a surplus that can be used to support others who do not have access to farmland and subsequently do not farm. This allows many people to start to specialize. Prior to the development of agriculture, everyone did everything. You as an individual had to produce/gather/hunt your own food, make your own tools, build your own dwelling, etc. In agriculture this is not the case. Because there is a surplus of food, some people do not have to make their own food--they can trade for food. These people are then free to specialize in other areas. In agriculture the first specialists we start to see are religious specialists, government officials, architects and carpenters, bakers, tradesmen and laborers.
"THE WORST MISTAKE IN THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE"
In 1987, Jared Diamond, a well known multidisciplinary scholar currently faculty in the physiology department of the UCLA medical school, wrote an article stating that the development of agriculture was "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race." Although we do know that agriculture did allow for rapid population growth even in areas that previously were somewhat uninhabitable and that agriculture, because of storage, provided a more reliable diet on a daily basis, Diamond identifies a number of reasons why the negatives associated with agriculture outweigh the benefits.
There is much archeological and paleopathological evidence to support the claim that the shift from a foraging lifestyle to an agricultural lifestyle had negative health consequences. These negative health effects stem from three consequences of agriculture. The first is malnutrition. In the shift from foraging to agriculture, in order to feed a growing population, we forsook quality for quantity. As a forager, our diet was highly varied, providing a more balanced diet. In agriculture we tend to specialize on one or two starchy crops that don't provide all the essential nutrients. Even the meat products are not as good for us. Foragers eat wild game that is very lean. Agriculturalists eat domesticated animals that tend to have a much higher saturated fat content. Evidence of this malnutrition is seen in the bones and teeth. Skeletal analysis of pre- and post agricultural shift populations from the same area indicate a great decrease in height with the rise of agriculture as well as more dental anomalies. These along with other analyses of bone composition are indicators of malnutrition. Beyond just the loss of variety causing malnutrition, it turned out that even though on a day to day basis food is fairly reliable, the risk of starvation is much more real in an agricultural society. This also is due to the lack of variation in the diet. In an agricultural society only one or two crops are grown and the majority of calories come from those primary crops. If those few crops fail, then starvation is almost inevitable. In a foraging society, however, although each day you have to search for food, the chances of prolonged starvation are minimal because since there is such a varied food source, chances are that some food source will be available. Starvation in a foraging society is very rare.
A second health consequence associated with agriculture is an increased rate of infectious disease. In addition to just increased population, agriculture is associated with increased population density--more people in a smaller area. This is the perfect atmosphere for the spread of infectious disease--for any of you ever living in the dorms or sending your children off to school it's the same principle. If one person in that environment has a cold, everyone gets it because they are in such close proximity. However, for the time period we are talking about, we are not just talking about colds--we add much more debilitating and infectious diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, influenza among others. Having all these people in close proximity caused other problems too--namely waste. We are talking about two types of waste. First, there are no sewage systems in the earliest of these agricultural systems. People in these early agricultural societies are coming into close contact with human waste, increasing exposure to unhealthy bacteria such as e. coli. Non-human waste also accumulates attracting vermin that carry disease and fleas and ticks that can pass diseases, such as the bubonic plague, from an animal host to the human population. Because there are low population densities and people are constantly moving around leaving behind both their human and other waste, infectious disease is not an issue for a traditional foraging society.
The third health consequence was the development of bone conditions such as arthritis due to increased labor. Whereas in a foraging society an individual has to work at low intensity approximately 2-3 hours a day to produce subsistence, in agriculture days are extended to 9-12 hours of high intensity work. In the archeological record this is shown by higher rates of arthritis which can be observed as pitting of the bones at the joints.
An additional negative consequence that Diamond identifies has nothing to do with health, but rather the development of social inequality. We are producing more food than we need and trading it for goods. Because we are tied to the land, we are also staying in one place allowing for the accumulation of goods. In this type of society we start to see the development of haves and have nots. In foraging societies, everyone has equal access to the goods they need for survival. That is not the case in an agricultural society. We start to see extreme class divisions where the elites have access to an over abundance of what they need to survive while those of the lower classes barely scrape by. The rise of agriculture is directly related to the introduction of poverty.
Although we are probably most familiar with an agricultural system, with less than 2% of America's population working in food production, the loss of the family farm and development of agribusiness, and the shift to greater and greater mechanization in all that we do, we have effectively shifted to an industrial society. Well, actually that isn't true either. We, and all the developed countries, are actually in a transitional stage from industrialism to post-industrialism, but the transition is not complete so we don't have that stage well defined yet. While we figure that out, let's explore what it means to have been an industrial society.
The two key features of industrialism are: 1) people are one step removed from food production and 2) it's all about machines. In industrialism people do not produce their own food. They sell their labor for wages which they then, in turn, use to buy food produced through large scale agribusiness. This society is all about mechanization and the maintenance of machines. It's not so much the people doing the laboring, but the machines. The people maintain and run those machines. Because of these two key issues, we also see a shift in mobility within an industrial system. While agriculture is a truly sedentary system--people are tied to the same piece of land generation after generation--industrialism is not. In agriculture people are tied to the land because that is how they make a living. In industrialism people are tied to the job and to the machines because that is how they will put food on the table. When the jobs move, so do the people.
Two additional features of industrialism are individualism and globalization. Unlike in agriculture where the economic unit is the family and there are well defined gender roles for how that economic unit should function with the man being the farmer/worker and the female being the caregiver, in industrialism this is transcended. While women still do tend to be the caregivers, the division of labor is determined by function. We get the jobs that we, as individuals, are uniquely qualified for due to specific training and we work, get paid, and get rewarded through advancement (or fired) because of our individual achievements or failures, not those of our entire family. The final feature is that industrialism is a truly global system. Although we can identify independent societies, these societies (such as America) have populations in the millions and, although discrete, they are intricately connected to the rest of the world through trade. This trade is especially important because of our mechanization. We need to keep the machines running and often we do not have the raw materials within our borders to do this--global trade to get those goods is the solution. Without it, industrilism would crash. These international resources are so important to the functioning of an industrial society, that industrial societies will go to war when access to those resources are threatened. Some of the more cynical among you (I have to admit--I'm among you) may even be thinking that that is a primary reason (perhaps not the only one, but a big one) why we went to war with Iraq and participated in Desert Storm before Iraq.
Now that we know how people produce what they need to survive, now we must explore the second component of an economic system: How people distribute those goods throughout the community. There are three general types of distribution: Reciprocity; Redistribution; and Market Exchange. Although each of these types of distribution are primarily associated with a particular adaptive strategy, as the adaptive strategies get more and more complex, these systems coexist with one strategy predominating.
DISTRIBUTION
Distribution System
Adaptive Strategy
Reciprocity
Generalized Reciprocity
Foraging
Balanced Reciprocity
Horticulture and Pastoralism
Redistribution
Agriculture
Market Exchange
Industrialism
In addition to being associated with the different adaptive strategies, we also find that the type of exchange that occurs is also related to how closely related you are to the people involved in an exchange. Since we don't lose any of these distribution systems as society becomes more complex, although we primarily use market exchange, we also have elements of all these different distribution types within our society.
Reciprocity involves the giving and taking without the use of money and is most closely associated with foraging, horticultural and pastoral societies. It is important to note that these are the three types of adaptive strategies that are also based on kinship--that is, relatedness. We tend only to find reciprocity in situations where people have close ties, such as kinship. This is because there needs to be trust between the people involved in order for this type of system to work. All individuals must be accountable. Reciprocity can be further divided into two basic types: Generalized Reciprocity; and Balanced Reciprocity.
GENERALIZED RECIPROCITY:Generalized reciprocity is the purest form of giving and is the primary form of distribution found within foraging societies. In this type of distribution system all goods are pretty much shared. People give without the expectation of return, but, in the end, it all balances out. This type of distribution system is extremely important for a foraging system where whether or not you as an individual are able to find food each day is rather chancy. Although the odds that you find food are chancy, the odds that at least someone within the foraging group finds food is pretty high. Basically, with generalized reciprocity, if one person eats, everyone eats. However, this only works when people are closely related because there has to be a high level of trust and accountability to make sure food is distributed evenly. In order for this to work you have to be sure that everyone will share unselfishly and not put themselves above anyone else. Often foraging societies have mechanisms to ensure that people do not view themselves as being better than others--something that would endanger this system. If someone thinks that they are better than someone else there runs a risk that that individual will feel that they have entitlement to more resources. This is unacceptable in the foraging lifestyle. Even though there are differences in hunting ability among foragers, even the best hunter will not get a kill every time he hunts. Even the best hunter has to rely on the group to get resources at least some of the time. To ensure that the good hunters, however, do not "get a big head," or become arrogant and decide not share, they tend to belittle the hunting accomplishments of anyone to level people out.
Although not the primary form of distribution in our society, we do see examples of this in our society. Think about it. Many of you have children. Are you keeping track of every cent you spend on them with the expectation of getting that in return? For those of you without children, when you turned 18, did your parents present you with a bill? No. Parents give to their offspring without the expectation of return, but over time, what a parent gets from a child is just as valuable as what the child gets from the parent. Although in our society it may not work out like this, in a true industrial society this even works out economically. In a true industrial economy, parents take care of their children when small, but then children are expected to care for their parents as they age. This expectation is waning in our post-industrial society.
BALANCED RECIPROCITY: Unlike generalized reciprocity where there is no real expectation of return, with balanced reciprocity, as its name implies there is an expectation of return. Balanced reciprocity is the primary distribution form used among horticulturalist and pastoralists. It is also used by foragers when they are dealing with other foragers not in their immediate group. Like generalized reciprocity, because the exchange is not immediate, this type of distribution system generally only occurs among people who are accountable to each other--generally this means people who are related to some degree. Think about it, who are you going to trust to reciprocate? Some stranger, or someone for whom you share lots of acquaintances/family members who you can go to if that someone does not fulfill their obligation.
Last week, some of you may have read about the Trobriand Islanders. The Trobriand Islanders are a group that live on a group of islands in the pacific near New Zealand. The Trobrianders have something they call the Kula ring. The Kula ring is a system of noncompetitive, ceremonial exchange that helps to establish and reinforce alliances and trading relationships. In the Kula ring only two things are exchanged. Bagi (also referred to as Soulava), the red shelled necklace seen in the picture to the right, are traded in a clockwise direction while mwali, the white shell arm band also seen in the picture, are traded counter-clockwise. This is balanced reciprocity because if you get a mwali from someone, you are expected to give a bagi in return and vice versa. This system is somewhat unique however, in that it doesn't necessarily happen between family members. This ceremonial exchange is actually how the close relationships are developed for the trade of non-ceremonial goods. The system of trade of non-ceremonial goods is called gimwali and is essential for getting the resources needed for survival since no one island produces all the resources necessary. We have examples of this type of exchange in our society as well. Perhaps the best example I can think of is gift giving. Think about who you give gifts to. Do you give gifts to complete strangers? No. You give gifts to people who are either friends or family. And, when you give a gift, often you do expect a gift in return--perhaps not right at that moment, but sometime in the future. For example, if you give someone a birthday gift or wedding gift, chances are you will also receive a gift on your birthday or for your wedding.
Redistribution is the primary form of distribution for agricultural systems. In a redistribution system a centralized authority accumulates goods from the people of the society and subsequently distributes those goods as that centralized authority sees fit. Often these resources are used for community good such as the development of sewage systems, roads, irrigation, military or to help the less advantaged in society. These are all things that the resources (fiscal, planning and labor) of any one individual would not be able to accomplish. Only by pooling resources is this possible. However, a key point to be made is that the people actually contributing to the centralized authority have little to no say in how the resources will be used. Because there is a centralized authority associated with this system, we only start to see this system where there is a hierarchical social structure with leadership figures--this primarily means agriculture. We really do not see those attributes at all in foraging and only minimally in pastoralism or horticulture. However, just as we find that foragers use one type of distribution system within their immediate group (generalized reciprocity) and another for dealings between groups (balanced reciprocity), the same is true for horticulturalists and pastoralists. As mentioned, their primary form of distribution within their group is balanced reciprocity, but between groups, they tend to rely on redistribution where a central figure accumulates goods and then holds a festival where those goods are not necessarily distributed among his own people, but distributed to the other group. The video to the left depicts a Potlatch, a redistribution system found among the Kwakuitl Indians of Northwest North America. (If you do not see the video, refresh the page and allow active X content or Click Here.) The Potlatch is an excellent example of a redistribution system that is used between two groups so that the leader can gain prestige. In addition to gaining presitige, this type of redistrbutin found between groups is also often viewed as a source of competition or even warfare between the groups.
While in an agricultural system redistribution primarily works through the payment of tribute, in our system it is an issue of taxation. What is the difference? With tribute you are contributing a portion of your product to the system. If you are a farmer you provide a portion of your crop; if you are a barrel maker you provide so many barrels. For us, since we are wage laborers, we pay in a portion of our income in the form of money to the centralized authority--the government. Our government then decides what to do with that money.
Market Exchange is the type of distribution system found in industrial societies. In this type of system we do not directly exchange goods for goods. We sell our goods (labor counts as a good) for money that we then use to purchase other goods. Another unique feature of the market exchange system is that the value of a good is not fixed. It is determined by the rules of supply and demand. In this system, nothing has any intrinsic value--it all depends on how much is available, and how much people want it. If demand is high and supply is low, value will be high. If demand is low and supply is high, value will plummet. Because of this the value of any product is highly variable.
Consumption is the third part of an economic system. Consumption technically refers to how goods are used, but is often also associated with the pattern of distribution of goods within a society. Unlike production and distribution where there are distinct categories associated with each adaptive strategy, there are not categories for consumption. But, consumption patterns do vary with adaptive strategy. Before we discuss this, however, we have to understand what we are concerned with when looking at consumption.
When discussing consumption, we are primarily concerned with capital and how it is used. Capital, at its simplest, can be defined as goods used to produce other goods. In a market exchange system such as ours, capital includes money as well as machines, but societies that do not have either money or machines still have capital goods. In societies without money, anything that will help to get goods is a capital good. So capital goods include any weapons used for hunting, digging sticks, baskets, etc. One of the defining features of adaptive strategies is the extent to which people have equal access to capital goods. As a general trend, as we move from less complex (foraging) societies to more complex (industrial societies) we find more and more differences in the access to these capital goods. Everyone can have a digging stick--just go out in the woods and find yourself one, but not everyone can have that high-tech machine that makes cars or prints newspapers. But, someone owns those machines. Back to this point in a moment.
In foraging and horticultural societies, technology and materials are simple. Tools are made by hand out of raw materials available in the natural environment. Every adult has equal access to capital. No one is deprived the means necessary to produce food and/or other goods necessary for survival. This is not the case in more complex societies. In agriculture and industrialism access to goods falls into the hands of the ruling class. Ownership is limited to a very small group. Here's a statistic: The wealthiest 10% of our population owns over 70% of U.S. capital. Compare that to this statistic: The poorest 40% of our population owns approximately 0.5% of U.S. capital. Having so much capital gives the wealthiest people power over others because they control the means of their (the others) economic production. Lots of people may work in a factory, but none of them own the capital of that business (the machines that produce the goods) or the profits those goods then produce that can be used to further increase wealth.
This issue of differences in access to capital goods is directly related to poverty. In agricultural societies and market economies where there is the accumulation of goods there are also high rates of poverty. Some have, some have not. In societies where there is no accumulation of goods, however, there really is no such thing as poverty, or at least not true poverty. You are probably thinking this woman is crazy--look at those other societies, they have nothing--they are the essence of poverty. Our idea of poverty, however, is very ethnocentric. In fact, many have referred to foraging societies as the "Original Affluent Society" meaning everyone in these societies is wealthy. This is an issue of how we define wealth. How DO we define wealth? How do we recognize if someone is wealthy? It is based on the stuff they have managed to accumulate. My neighbor is driving a brand new Mercedes Benz while I am driving my '95 Ford Escort--That person is wealthy. I'm poor. This is an issue of relative deprivation. I see what is possible and I cannot attain it, so I am poor. Is this the case for a forager? Traditionally, everything that a forager needs or even knows to want, they can get from their natural environment. If you don't know to want a Mercedes Benz do you still want one? No. We can define wealth as having everything that you need and/or want. If we define it that way, foragers are wealthy indeed while the majority of people living in industrialized countries have not attained wealth and probably never will.
Foragers are completely reliant on the resources naturally found in their environments. They gather fruits, tubers, nuts and berries, etc. only when they are naturally occurring. At certain times of the year there may be more resources available than others. The limitations of the environment and the need to allow resources to replenish restricts foraging groups, especially in regards to population size. Generally, foraging groups are small, nomadic family groups consisting of approximately 40-60 people. These groups are also very fluid. In times of plenty, groups will merge together. When resources are scarce, they will split into smaller groups. Having small flexible groups helps to exploit the environment more efficiently. The smaller groups can more easily move through the forest as they move from food source to food source or as they follow groups of wild animals. Having fewer people, they also don't overtax the resources in a given area. Generally, a foraging group has a home range that they travel through throughout the year. Within this home range they are very familiar with what plants can be found where and when and exactly how much they can gather so that there is enough to replenish the forest for the years to come.
garden is selected, the men clear the land by slashing all the small vegetation (they usually leave larger trees in place) and then burning the slashed material. In addition to clearing the land, the burning component also provides important nutrients for the soil. These nutrients are even more important because another of the hallmarks of horticulture is that they use simple technology--which, in part, means that they do not use any fertilizer. Another component of the simple technology is that they do not use any animal labor, no plows, and generally only work with a machete (for clearing) and a digging stick for planting and harvesting. While the men generally do the clearing, it is the women who do the planting, garden maintenance, and harvesting. The picture to the left is of an Erigbaagtsa woman and her digging stick. The Erigbaagtsa are a horticultural group from the Mato Grosso region of Brazil who primarily cultivate a plant called manioc. Notice that the land she is standing on is scorched. They are preparing this land to be a garden.
We are more familiar with this type of society. It was the foundation of America for many years. 
In 1987, Jared Diamond, a well known multidisciplinary scholar currently faculty in the physiology department of the UCLA medical school, wrote an article stating that the development of agriculture was "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race." Although we do know that agriculture did allow for rapid population growth even in areas that previously were somewhat uninhabitable and that agriculture, because of storage, provided a more reliable diet on a daily basis, Diamond identifies a number of reasons why the negatives associated with agriculture outweigh the benefits.
The two key features of industrialism are: 1) people are one step removed from food production and 2) it's all about machines. In industrialism people do not produce their own food. They sell their labor for wages which they then, in turn, use to buy food produced through large scale agribusiness. This society is all about mechanization and the maintenance of machines. It's not so much the people doing the laboring, but the machines. The people maintain and run those machines. Because of these two key issues, we also see a shift in mobility within an industrial system. While agriculture is a truly sedentary system--people are tied to the same piece of land generation after generation--industrialism is not. In agriculture people are tied to the land because that is how they make a living. In industrialism people are tied to the job and to the machines because that is how they will put food on the table. When the jobs move, so do the people.
Last week, some of you may have read about the Trobriand Islanders. The Trobriand Islanders are a group that live on a group of islands in the pacific near New Zealand. The Trobrianders have something they call the Kula ring. The