For today's class, I suggest that we first discuss Polanyi and the substantivist - formalist debate that he kicked off in anthropology, and then look at Sahlins who draws on Polanyi.
In the second half, we can look at Marx and the ways in which Marxist theory entered anthropology at different points (Turner, Graeber).
A thread running through these readings is the distinction between 'market' or 'capitalist' economy and all other 'pre-capitalist' forms, which are thought to require a different theoretical apparatus. How valid is this distinction? To what extent can insights about value creation formed in the context of non-state or 'primitive' societies apply to modern capitalist society and economy?
We should also explore the differences between Polanyi and Marx in their critiques of capitalism and economic theory, which also underlie differences between 'substantivist' and Marxist approaches within anthropology. On this, see this useful review: http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2010/234
Finally, we can discuss the questions posed by Savitha and Keya (pasted below):
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I
have to mention that while we did look at all the material suggested,
we could not focus or get into the details of each and every reading
given time constraints and how detailed and dense a lot of them are.
Our questions are therefore based on an attempt to link all the
readings together and find some common thread through which we can
engage with them.
Having
discussed the concept of ' total prestations' from Mauss last week, we
would like to pick up from where we left off to challenge
1) the idea of ' economically deterministic' views of human action, even action that is non-transactional
2)
the distinction between economy and society, or economy as a separate
form society versus the embeddedness of economy within society.
3) the distinction between types of societies and subsequently types of economies ( Sahlins's Zen versus Galbraithean societies)
this is followed by some question we had on the readings-
1) While
Graeber has emphasised action (and this includes Munn's 'potential for
action' component) as the source of generating value, we are yet to
account for what provides the motivation behind human action across
societies?Without structure action or potential action that creates
value cannot be explained and we feel that Graeber himself is getting
caught in the trap of action and structure, even though he was
suggesting a way out of it.
2)
Turner, Graber and Polanyi are attempting to offer us tools to
understand value creation beyond the economically deterministic
approach, whether it is through 'anthropologising' Marx's definitions of
value, appropriation, fetishism or expanding notions of trade, money,
markets, across different types of societies. But how do we fit
Sahlins's dichotomy into this approach. Sahlins approach in affluent
society is similar to what Strathern argued, when she said that we need
different lenses or concepts to examine different societies and their
practices.
3)
Assuming Graeber is writing from a position where he is calling for an
emphasis on moral economy, we would like to ask the class if the moral
economy today has been rendered invisible by the market, in which case
Polanyi's exposition on markets superseding society have become more
real, or, have our notions of value reached a stage where morality
itself has shifted?
*Also, according to Graeber our confusion or problem lies in our non
recognition of action as being the source of value generation, i.e.
fetishization, which has become the norm, this is across types of
societies and economies, Is recognition possible in such a powerful and
pervasive system of the market today?
In addition to what Carol has pointed out to be a theoretical problem in all these discussions, stemming from the dichotomy between materialism and idealism, there seems to be an additional dichotomy that is creating further confusion for me (apologies in advance, if this sounds naïve, or if I understood all this wrong!). And this is the question of why, when traditional societies are seen as operating with the idea of a social whole (that does not separate economic activity, or other realms of value-generation, as a separate sphere), are there distinctions being made between the domestic and public spheres that are also equated with the spheres of women and men, respectively (and Graeber does this as well). On page 77 Graeber argues: “They [Melpa women] are also contributing to reproducing a certain kind of social order: one organized, for example, around a distinction between the domestic sphere, in which pigs are raised and the public one, in which they are exchanged; one that carries with it definitions of what a man is, what a women is, what a family is, what a male reputation is, and why it is that the gift of a pig should be the most effective means by which the latter can be created…In this sense, it is not just the pigs but the male public sphere itself which is constructed in large part by female labour, even if it is also one from which women are largely excluded.” He continues that from this perspective, both women and men can be seen as being exploited by the other because they each partially control the production of objects through which value is created (e.g., women control the production of pigs, and men control the production of crops). Thus, he adds, “This, sort of logic is inevitable, really, if one thinks of value only in terms of particular objects and particular transactions, refusing to consider any sort of larger social whole in which production of both pigs and crops take on value in relation one another” (p.77). In relation to this, in my mind, there are several questions:
ReplyDelete1. First, how is this separation between the domestic and public very different from the separation of domestic and public in capitalist societies?
2. Doesn’t Graeber’s argument - to see objects and transactions in relation to one another – appear to be what Marx seems to arguing happens in capitalist societies wherein objects attain relational values? Or if it is different, how is it different?
3. If Strathern argues that the reason why Melpa women cannot be understood as exploited is because they “see work as an expression of one’s commitment to a specific relationship” (in Graeber, p. 41), cant a similar kind of reading be made of women’s labour within capitalist societies, or for that matter labour’s relation to the capitalist? Doesn’t Graeber’s critique that we separate the larger social whole into individuals, and individual transactions, products, relations, also hold true here?
4. Connecting all this to Marx’s theory of value, I wonder if the real problem with capitalist modes of production is due to reification and fetishism of commodities, or is it to do with capitalism as a discourse and practice, having successfully individuated man and his understanding of himself, from/ and as a part of the larger social whole? Because isn’t the process of fetishization present in other societies as well (e.g., in hiding the real source of prestige won from exchange of pigs in the Melpa case?)