The usefulness of the term ‘value’ (given
its many registers) in understanding the processes of circulation and exchange
will be something we will debate and discuss throughout the seminar.
Almost all
scholars we read for the first session (Malinowski, Mauss and Graeber) strongly
critique the prevalent and predominant theory of value coming from within the
discipline of economics. The economic theory of value operates with the
utilitarian notion of an individual as a rational and autonomous being seeking
to economize and maximize his/her self interest. Anthropological approaches to
value, instead, advocate the need to attend to the sociality within which value
is embedded. A key observation within these theories is the role played by
rituals, social conventions and mores that guide any act of exchange. The
question that came up over and again in response to this claim is: ‘is it
possible to discount self interest completely from social relationships that are
geared towards creation of value? Do we not find vestiges of self interest in
all kinds of social relationships? Reflecting on this question again, can we
consider the possibility of reading the anthropological critique of utilitarian
theory of value as not exempting the notion of self interest inherent in social
relationships, but only resisting the reduction of all transactions among
individuals to the maximization of self interest? From this point of view, how
then do we distinguish social activity from economic activity, or is there a
need to make this separation at all?
Another major question
was around value and conservation of heritage. Where does value reside? In
objects or in social relationships that give meaning to those objects? If we
read Weiner closely, she seems to be arguing that there is a ‘transcendental value’
that inheres in objects (with a precondition that individuals recognize it). This, then, also seems to imply that the
value that inheres in objects also belongs to the immaterial realm of memory /
history / time. What does such a reading of Weiner entail while thinking about
the practical problem of conservation of heritage?
Others such as
Munn seem to point to value as arising in action – as a potentiality that is
realised in action. This is significant since the potential for action also
rests on having objects to exchange. How does this link to objects that are
kept out of circulation, or people who are out of the network of circulation by
virtue of possessing nothing to exchange? In the former case of objects kept out
of circulation, should one understand value in terms of actions that can keep
it out of circulation (i.e., the very act of keeping it out of circulation as
what contributes to its value)? This requires a further reading of Munn, in
order to achieve more conceptual clarity in terms of how value is created through
action. To address the latter problem,
we also need to look into debates around alms / charity, etc., which we will be
reading about in the subsequent sessions.
Another
significant point to think about is, perhaps, the relation between ‘wealth’ and
‘value’, since none of the works discuss the meaning of ‘wealth’ itself. Do
objects that are ‘valuable’ indicate a sign of wealth, even if they have no
commercial value? Or does wealth presuppose commercial value? Should wealth be understood in terms of what it
can make available (‘purchase’), or in terms of what can be given away (‘gift’
and its relation to status)?
-Rashmi &
Maithreyi
Thanks Rashmi and Maithreyi for these comprehensive notes, outlining issues that will recur throughout the seminar.
ReplyDeleteI think Graeber, in successive chapters, tries to address the problem of wealth (what counts as valuable and the social significance of possessing valued objects) and how value is created through various social practices, including exchange, circulation, and the attribution of histories and meanings to objects, by drawing on these various authors. His discussion of the distinction between value and meaning is also useful here. Oddly, he does not draw much on Weber and other classical social theorists such as Tocqueville who distinguished between wealth and social status, and tried to understand their interconnections.
A basic theoretical problem in all these discussions stems from their seeming reliance on the classic divide between 'materiality' and 'abstraction', or materialism/ idealism - a fundamental move of western philosophy that confounds the understanding of the symbolic meaning of objects (merely 'material'), especially in 'primitive' or precapitalist societies such as the Melanesian ones described by Strathern et al. I think Munn, Strathern and others are struggling to overcome this dichotomy through an 'emic' or cultural analysis of how these systems of exchange are understood by the actors involved.
We will encounter the same problem in Marx's theory of value - although his notions of reification, commodity fetishism, etc point to a possible resolution of the materiality/ immateriality dualism, he does not go the distance because he also adheres to a 'naturalistic' notion of human activity and labour as the fundamental basis of social life.