O'Neil,D (2011). PATTERNS OF SUBSISTENCE:Classification of Cultures Based on the Sources andTechniques of Acquiring food and other Necessities.

Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marcos, California. retrived on saturday at 4/12/2014 from http://anthro.palomar.edu/subsistence/Default.htm

Anthropologists frequently categorize groups by their subsistence strategy, or how they get their food. Through research, anthropologists discovered that the subsistence strategy oftentimes predicted other forms of behavior, e.g., population size and social structure. In this section, we will look at the two types of subsistence strategies, food gathering and food production.

Food Gathering Foraging

For roughly 90% of history, humans were foragers who used simple technology to gather, fish, and hunt wild food resources. Today only about million people living in marginal environments, e.g., deserts, the Arctic and topical forests, forage as their primary subsistence strategy. While studying foraging societies allows anthropologists to understand their cultures in their own right, the data from these studies provides us with an avenue to understanding past cultures. General Characteristics While the resources foraging groups utilize vary depending on the environment, there are some common characteristics among foragers: Foragers generally make their own tools using materials available in the local environment, however, through the process of development and increasing contact with other groups of people, machine made tools are making their way into foraging societies. There is a high degree of mobility as the group may follow migrating herds or seasonally available resources. Group size and population density is small so as not to surpass the carrying capacity of the environment. Resource use is extensive and temporary. In other words, foragers may use a wide-variety of resources over a large territory; however, they leave enough resources so that the area can regenerate. Once the resources reach a certain level, the group moves on. Permanent settlements are rare. Production is for personal use or to share and trade. The division of labor tends to fall out by age and gender. Kin relations are usually reckoned on both the mother and father's side. There is usually no concept of personal ownership, particularly of land.

If left to follow traditional patterns, foraging as a subsistence strategy is highly sustainable.

Types of Foraging Groups Aquatic: Aquatic foragers, like the Ou Haadas, or the Haida, who live among the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada, and Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, United States, rely primarily on resources from water. At the time of contact with Europeans, the Haidu utilized a wide variety of foods from the surrounding waters, including salmon, halibut, crabs, scallops, sea cucumber, sea lion, otters, and seaweed. They also hunted for land mammals like bear and deer and gathered wild plants such are rhubarb, fern, and berries. Pedestrian: As the name implies, pedestrian foragers get there food by collecting on foot. The !Kung San who live on the Kalahari desert are one example of a pedestrian foraging group. The !Kung use about 100 species of animals and over 150 species of plants, although not all are used for food. The primary food source is the mongongo nut that is high in protein. The !Kung eat their way out of areas, starting with their favorite food and then the less desirable food. Once the resources get low, the group will move to a new area. The !Kung also move seasonally as resources become available. During the rainy season, the !Kung live in small groups of 2-3 families. In the dry season, large camps of 20-40 people are established near permanent water sources. Equestrian: Equestrian foragers are the most rare type of foraging group, being identified only the Great Plains of North America and the pampas and steppes of South America. This type of foraging strategy emerged after contact with European settlers who reintroduced the horse to the Americas. The Aonikenks live on the Patagonian Steppes of South America. The Aonikenks, also called the Tehuelche or people of the south, hunted guanaco, an indigenous camelid, in seasonal rounds. They also ate rhea (sometimes referred to as the South American ostrich), roots, and seeds.

Food Production Pastoralists

Pastoralism is a subsistence strategy dependent on the herding of animals, particularly sheep, goats and cattle, although there are pastoralists who herd reindeer, horses, yak, camel, and llamas. This does not mean that the people only eat the animals they raise, in fact, some pastoralists only eat their animals for special occasions. They often rely on secondary resources from the animals for food, e.g., blood or milk, or use the by-products like wool to trade for food. Some pastoralists forage for food while others do small-scale farming to supplement their diet. Like foragers, many pastoralists are forced to live in the world's marginal environments all over the world. General Characteristics Production is for more than meat and milk. Some animals are used as beasts of burden, while others are used for their fur. Animal products are for both personal use and trade. Pastoralism is characterized by extensive land use. Animals are moved to pasture; fodder is not brought to them. Generally speaking, pastoralists live in extended families in order to have enough people to take care of all of the duties associated with animal care and other domestic duties. Division of labor is gender based.

 Most pastoralists are monotheistic (but not all of them); usually the belief is tied closely to their animals. The concept of ownership is restricted to animals, housing and some domestic goods. Land is communal and many pastoralists contend that they have travel rights over lands because of centuriesold migratory patterns that supersede modern land ownership. Wealth is determined by herd size and often number of wives and offspring. Kin relations are usually determined by the father's side of the family only.

While some pastoralists are more sedentary, most are nomadic, moving to temporary pastures as needed or seasonally. Semi-permanent camps are set up with each move. Decisions about when to move are made communally. Because of the low to moderate consumption rate, the sustainability of pastoralism is high if the herders have access to enough land. The Ariaal are one example of pastoralists. They live on the plains and slopes of modern Kenya. The Ariaal are successful because they practice a highly diversified system of animal husbandry with the key being herd diversity (camel, cattle, sheep and goats) and mobility. The Ariaal split the herd and pasture them in different places, a practice that ensures herd survivability against disease and drought. The herds are used to encourage growth of seasonal vegetation, which provides the group with trade items. Sheep and goats are used primarily for food as is camel milk. The blood of the animals is also used. This is a good adaptation because blood is a renewable resource and it is highly nutritious. Cattle is used as bride price (more on bride price in the section on Marriage, Family and Kinship). The exchange of cattle as part of a marriage helps to maintain herd diversity and distribute the wealth among the people. Ariaal settlements are widely dispersed, making it difficult to maintain social cohesion. One way the Ariaal have devised to help with social cohesion is age-sets. An age set is a group of individuals of roughly the same age that are given specific duties within the society at large. In the case of the Ariaal, there are three age-sets for each sex: for males the age sets are boy, warrior, elder; for females, girl, adolescent, married. Each age set has a specific set of clothes, diet, duties and socializing rules. For instance, adolescent girls are not allowed to associate with any males, including their father while warriors are not allowed to associate with women, including their mother. This practice not only ensures that labor is distributed among members of the group, but serves as a form of population control.

Horticulturists
Horticulturalists are small-scale farmers, but this should not be confused with family-farming in industrial regions of the world. Horticulturalists grow not only crops, but often raise animals. They generally produce only what they can consume themselves, a practice anthropologists refer to as subsistence farming. Horticulturalists are found in all areas of the world except the Arctic. General Characteristics Domestic crops are cultivated using hand tools. Farming is done in conjunction with foraging activities and/or trade.

There is limited surplus production, although as a result of modern development we are starting to see surplus production.

Production is primarily for personal use and trade.

The division of labor is generally by gender, although all members of the groups may be called upon to help with the crops. In ancient horticultural societies, the belief system was polytheistic with the primary deities focused on rain and crops. Modern horticulturists follow a variety of different belief systems, but often still have elements of the polytheistic system of old. Most horticulturalists do not own the land they use to grow food; however, they claim land-use rights to it. Land use is extensive as fields as often used for only a couple of years and then allowed to lie fallow from anywhere to 2-15 years. This is called shifting field agriculture. Many horticulturalists practice slash-and burn agriculture whereby vegetation is cut down and burned. When it rains, nutrients from the ash seeps into the soil thereby regenerating soil fertility. Permanent settlements are common. Horticulturalists may practice polycropping (planting different crops in the same field).

Like foragers and pastoralists, if given enough land to utilize, this subsistence strategy is fairly sustainable. The Chimbu of the central highlands of Papua New Guinea grow sweet potatoes, which are used to feed both people and domesticated pigs. The Chimbu recognize over 130 different types of sweet potatoes, each grown in its own microclimate and having its specific use. Sugarcane, bananas, taro, beans and various nuts and fruits are also grown in year-round gardens. Pigs and sweet potatoes are both important resources for food exchange. Food exchanges were used to foster reciprocal relationships among people. If an individual did not uphold the reciprocal relationship by repaying the food exchange, they would lose status within the society. Today, not only is food a part of the exchange, but money earned through the sale of coffee, vegetables and jobs. The Chimbu reckon descent through the father's line. Traditionally, men live in communal houses away from women and children. The men's communal houses are usually placed in areas that were easily defensible. The women and children live in natal groups near their gardens where they can keep a close eye on the crops. Women are also responsible for raising pigs. Currently, the traditional patterns of residence are breaking down and nuclear families are becoming more common.

Intensive Agriculture
There are two basic forms of intensive agriculture: industrial and non-industrial (what has been referred to as peasant agriculture). The latter is dependent more on human labor and draft animals, while the former is reliant on machinery. Commonalities: Both forms of intensive agriculture manipulate the landscape. This may entail actual modification of the landscape through clearing tracts of land, terracing hillsides or digging irrigation systems. Fertilizers are usually required because growing takes place on permanent fields. The type of fertilizers varies. Non-industrial agriculturalists may use natural fertilizers such as animal dung. Industrial agriculturalists use chemical fertilizers.

Occupational specialization is another shared featurepeople have different jobs. Some people may be farmers, but others may be potters or weavers or computer specialists. This creates a situation where there is a high degree of interdependence among members of the society, each person depending on others to successfully do their work. With the advent of intensive agriculture, urbanization occurred. Private ownership is the norm in intensive agriculture. While non-industrial agriculturalists may own the land with extended family, often with industrial agriculturalists land is owned by a single family or corporation. Permanent residences became the norm. With the advent of industrial agriculture other changes occurred. Women began to be relegated to the private arenathey became the homemakers while men engaged in public work, farming, politics, etc. Mass production of food became the primary focus of agricultural endeavors. Mono cropping replaced polycropping. Machinery became common, requiring agriculturalists to have a high capital investment in their farms, leading to many family farms being bought out by large corporations. Unlike the other forms of subsistence, intensive agriculture is not sustainable because it destroys habitats, increases erosion, increases water use, undermines stability of other systems, and encourages high consumption both of fossil fuels and food itself.

References
Villainous, Nancy. 2010. Cultural Anthropology, 2nd edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Ember, Carol R. and Melvin Ember. 2011. Cultural Anthropology, 13th edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Harris, Marvin and Oran Johnson. 2007. Cultural Anthropology, 7th edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Hutchinson, Pamela Rae. 2006. Haidas, in Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Vol. 3, H. James Biro, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference, p. 1126-1134. Jones, Kristine L. 2008. Squelches, in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, Vol. 6, 2nd edition, Jay Innsbruck and Erick D. Anger, eds. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 37-38. Lavender, Robert H. and Emily A. Schultz. 2010. Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology, 4th edition. Boston: McGowan Hill Higher Education. O'Neil, Dennis. 2006. Foraging. http://anthro.palomar.edu/subsistence/sub_2.htm, accessed October 9, 2010. Rambo, Karl and Paula Brown. 1996. Chimbu, in Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, p. 34-37.

Distribution and Exchange

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS:
An Introduction to Systems of Distribution and Exchange

When goods and services are given away, purchased, sold, or traded, there are potentially two components of the exchange--pure economic gain and social gain. Both of these motives usually occur at the same time in non-market economies. However, in market economies, the social component is often missing except when the exchange is between relatives or friends. With strangers, the social gain is usually sacrificed for efficiency and speed. Important exchange items in non-market economies include many more things than just food and manufactured objects. The most valued gifts are likely to be courtesies, entertainment (e.g., songs, dances, and speeches), curing, military assistance, women (to be wives), and children. In the Western World today, the idea that women and children could be given away as gifts is shocking. However, that was not always the case in Europe. Well into the 19th century, the heads of royal and wealthy families gave their daughters and sometimes sisters in marriage in order to establish or solidify economic and political alliances. Men giving female relatives to potential male allies has been a powerful bonding tool throughout most of the world. Gift exchanges are usually reciprocal . That is to say, if you receive a gift, you are obliged to repay it with another gift. Reciprocity typically results in a continuing sequence of giving, receiving, and repaying gifts. Breaking this obligation to continue the reciprocity is commonly seen as a slight or even a rejection of the other person involved in the exchange. Reciprocity is a binding mechanism in that its continuance helps to hold friends and families together. Reciprocal exchanges generally do not redistribute a society's wealth in a way that causes some people to become richer than others. Rather, they usually result in a circulation of goods and services. There is not a net economic loss for individuals because they ultimately receive gifts in return. Reciprocity requires adequacy of response but not necessarily mathematical equality. In North America, for instance, when adults give a Christmas gift that cost $50 to a five year old child, they do not expect that the child will reciprocate with a gift that also cost $50. If the child reciprocates with a small painting he or she made in school, it is usually considered to be a more than adequate response.

Types of Reciprocity

Reciprocal exchanges are not all alike. In 1965, an anthropologist named Marshall Sahlins observed that there are three distinct types of reciprocity that occur in human societies around the world--generalized, balanced, and negative. Generalized reciprocity is gift giving without the expectation of an immediate return. For example, if you are shopping with a friend and you Example of generalized reciprocity buy him a cup of coffee, you may expect him to buy you giving birthday gifts to a friend one in return at some time in the future. However, you (North America) would likely be mildly offended if he insisted on buying you a cup of coffee at the same time that you bought him one. To do so would suggest that he does not wish to become involved in a continuing reciprocal exchange with you. In a sense, it is a rejection of your token of friendship. With balanced reciprocity, there is an explicit expectation of immediate return. Simple barter or supermarket purchases involve this understanding. If you walk out of a store without paying for the goods that you have taken, you very likely will be stopped by the store employees and possibly arrested because you failed to immediately reciprocate with the appropriate Example of balanced reciprocity amount of money. Christmas gifts in the Western World selling surplus vegetables in a are also usually a form of roughly balanced reciprocity. If local market for money (Papua you go to the home of relatives or close friends on New Guinea) Christmas and give them Christmas gifts, there is an expectation that you will receive gifts in return at the same time. If you do not receive them, you are likely to infer that your relatives or friends either made a social mistake or do not care about you. On the other hand, giving a birthday present is more like generalized reciprocity because you do not expect a gift in return when you give one. However, you may expect to get one from the recipient of your gift later in the year when your birthday comes along. Negative reciprocity occurs when there is an attempt to get someone to exchange something he or she may not want to give up or when there is an attempt to get a more valued thing than you give in return. This may involve trickery, coercion, or hard bargaining. For instance, your neighbor may be offered a new job in a distant city starting in two days. She desperately needs to sell her car before she leaves. It is nearly new and it cost her $22,000. You offer her $10,000 which she reluctantly accepts because there is no other choice. Your taking advantage of her situation resulted in negative reciprocity.

Example of negative reciprocity selling prepared food in an urban center at an inflated price when there is very little competition and high demand (North America)

At times, negative reciprocity does not involve taking advantage of someone. In fact, someone may willingly give you more than you believe that you are giving in return. For example, a poor student wanting to go to an expensive university might be polite and respectful toward a rich uncle with the hope that he will help out financially. That uncle may gladly pay for his nephew's or niece's Example of negative reciprocity education in return because of the attention and being respectful towards a boss recognition that he receives. The money is relatively in order to get a promotion unimportant to him compared to the respect and attention (North America) that is offered. Likewise, an employee acting respectful, or even subservient, towards an employer in order to get a promotion could be considered an attempt at gaining a negative reciprocity advantage in the workplace.

Redistributive Exchanges
Some economic exchanges are intended to distribute a society's wealth in a different way than exists at present. These are referred to as redistributive exchanges . They usually function as economic leveling mechanisms. In the Western World, charity and progressive income tax systems are examples of redistributive exchanges. Progressive income taxes are intended to make people with greater wealth give at higher rates than those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Some of the tax money is then allocated to help the poorer members of society. The intended net effect is to reduce or prevent extremes of wealth and poverty. When wealthier individuals in a society make charitable donations, it can have a similar effect. What the donors get in return may be a tax advantage, a relieved social conscience, and/or increased social status and recognition. Indeed, one of the main reasons that some very wealthy individuals make sure that their large charity donations are publicized is because of the public recognition that results.

Redistributive exchanges are not unique to the Western World. In fact, some of the most elaborate ones that we know of have been in small-scale societies with non-market economies. The potlatch among the Indian cultures of the Northwest Coast region of North America is a good example. This was a complex system of competitive feasting, speechmaking, and gift giving intended in part to enhance the status of the giver. While potlatches were important traditions of Indian communities from Oregon to Southern Alaska, they are most well known among the Kwakiutl people of northern Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Strait in Western Canada. For the Kwakiutl, potlatches were important social gatherings held to celebrate major life events such as a son's marriage, the birth of a child, a daughter's first menses, and the initiation of a sister's son into a secret society. They also were used to assert or transfer ownership of economic and ceremonial privileges. It sometimes took years to accumulate the things needed for a big potlatch. Loans (with interest) had to be called in from relatives for this purpose. When all was ready, high ranking, influential people from the local and other communities were invited for several days of feasting and entertaining. Guests were seated according to their relative status. The host made speeches and dramatically gave gifts of food, Hudson Bay Company blankets, canoes, slaves, rare native copper artifacts, and other valuable items to the guests. The guests with higher status received more. The host sometimes also destroyed money, wasted fish oil by throwing it on a fire, and did other things to show that he was willing to economically bankrupt himself in order to increase his social status. The acceptance of the gifts was an affirmation of the host's generosity and subsequently of his increased status. The feast and the gifts essentially placed the guests in debt to their host until they could at some future time invite him to their own potlatch and give him more than he gave them--in essence a return on an investment. The potlatch served as a tool for one-upmanship for important Kwakiutl men. During the 19th century, there was a continuous cycle of potlatches among the Kwakiutl in which the amount of wealth given away progressively escalated. The Canadian government outlawed potlatches in 1884 partly out of the mistaken belief that the Kwakiutl were bankrupting themselves. In fact, very little wealth was being lost. What was happening was a redistribution of perishable goods and items of high value throughout the society. Men who voluntarily gave away their wealth in potlatches were later the recipients of many potlatch gifts. The Canadian government finally lifted their ban on potlatches in 1951. Potlatches are again occurring openly among the Kwakiutl and some other indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast. Today, they are used to commemorate important family and clan events such as baby showers, weddings, school graduations, special anniversaries, and in memory of dead relatives.

NOTE: While the 19th century Kwakiutl potlatch feasts were greatly focused on impressing other men of high status in order to move up in social ranking, this competitive aspect of gift giving was less important for other Northwest Coast societies. Among the Salish people of Washington and Oregon, this sort of competition was considered to be inappropriate. Among the Tlingit of southern Alaska, gifts given at mortuary potlatches were simply intended as compensation for assisting at the funeral.

Among many of the indigenous societies of New Guinea, elaborate redistributive exchanges similar to the potlatch have been very important cultural traditions. In order to increase personal status and become a respected "big man," senior men often spent years accumulating pigs and other valuable, exotic items such as cassowaries (large birds similar to emus and ostriches) in order to give them away at elaborate ritual feasts. As in the case of the potlatch, recipients of pigs and other valuable things were obliged to return gifts of greater value at some time in the future. Failure to do so would be unthinkable because of the loss of respect and status that would result. Perhaps the most well known of the New Guinea pig give-away traditions was among the Kawelka of the Central Highlands. As a result of trade with the outside world, the Kawelka pig giveaway events had grown in scale by the 1970's to include motorbikes, trucks, and tens of thousands of Australian dollars. At times, the total value of the goods given away reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was an extraordinarily large fortune for essentially subsistence base horticultural societies. It is important to keep in mind that most of this wealth actually circulated within the society. As a result, there was very little net loss. However, a small number of the pigs were eaten and the cassowaries were usually killed for their feathers.

Papua New Guinea men preparing themselves for a ceremony

Commerce Between Small-scale Societies

So far, we have primarily examined the nature of economic exchanges within a single society. As the scale of societies gets larger, they increasingly become involved in commercial exchanges with other societies. During the last two centuries, international commerce resulted in an enormous redistribution of wealth to the industrialized nations located mostly in the northern hemisphere. This process essentially began with Western European nations draining the surpluses from their colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The colonies

provided raw materials at low prices for European factories, and the colonists bought the products of those factories at elevated prices. The net effect of this institutionalized negative reciprocity has been that the majority of the former European colonies are still underdeveloped poor nations. As the old colonial empires collapsed over the last half century, multinational corporations and large banks continued the process of draining the surpluses from underdeveloped regions and funneling them mainly into Western Europe, North America, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and a few oil rich nations (especially around the Persian Gulf). China and India are in the process of joining this club of major international creditors. It is not likely that this progressive redistribution of global wealth to a few rich nations can go on forever without serious consequences for the global economy. Trade imbalances can cripple economies in debtor nations when their debts become larger than they can repay. It is sobering to realize that the largest national debt in the world is owed by the United States. In fact, the U.S. has had a massive trade shortfall every year for nearly 30 years. It is unlikely that the U.S. or any other nation can continue to be a net importer of goods for long without major negative impacts on its economy. The U.S. still has the largest economy in the world. Consequently, an economic crisis in the U.S. can cause extremely serious problems globally--there can be a domino effect which would devastate international trade. Commerce among small-scale societies in the past usually involved more institutionalized balanced reciprocity than is found in the international trade system today. In addition, commerce generally involved considerably more social gain. An example of such inter-societal commerce among small-scale societies was the Kula Ring of the Southwest Pacific Ocean. This was an extensive network of inter-island trade to the east and northeast of New Guinea. The Kula Ring was studied firsthand among the Trobriand Islanders during World War I by an anthropologist named Bronislaw Malinowski. At that time, it still operated largely in its purely indigenous form. The Kula Ring was a closed trading system in which only established senior male trading partners from each island could participate. The trade was carried out with large outrigger sailing canoes. Long, dangerous sea voyages were undertaken for the purpose of this trade. On the surface, it appeared to be primarily an exchange of gift items and ceremonial feasting organized to reinforce bonds between senior trading partners. The trade network was essentially circular. If a trader was traveling in a clockwise direction around the circuit, he would give long necklaces of red shells (soulava) as gifts to his trading partner. If he was traveling in a counterclockwise direction, he would give armbands of white shells (mwali). These necklaces and armbands were the kula items.

Kaibola men of the Trobriand Islands

The way in which traders greeted each other on arriving at an island and carried out their trade was prescribed by tradition. While the senior trading partners formally greeted each other and reinforced their friendship and authority by giving kula gifts, the younger men usually unloaded more practical trade items on the beach to be bartered. These were mostly surplus luxury items from their home islands. The kula gifts were exchanged with the assumption of generalized reciprocity. The regular trade goods were mostly traded in a manner that resulted in balanced reciprocity. If asked why they were undertaking these long distance trading expeditions, the Trobriand Islanders would very likely emphasize the social rather than the economic gain. However, both were the result.

Non-market Economies
The isolated, self-sufficient foraging, pastoralist, and horticultural societies of the past rarely had market economies. Their economies were qualitatively different from ours in large-scale societies today. In order to understand them, it is first important to realize that financial gain was not the prime motivator in the distribution of goods and services. As a result, standard economic analysis is inadequate in explaining how and why these non-market economies functioned. Typically, there is a low level of technological knowledge in societies with non-market economies. There is a preoccupation with the daily and, at most, seasonal food supply because techniques for long term preservation of are generally inadequate. They usually consist only of drying or smoking perishable items. Work teams are small and usually only include members of the local community. Large-scale collaboration on subsistence jobs is of short duration if it occurs at all because most tasks are relatively simple and require only a few people.

Work related interactions between individuals are of a face-toface personal kind in non-market economies. People who work together hunting, gathering, herding, or tending crops are usually kinsmen or lifelong friends and neighbors. Little or no attempt is made to calculate the contribution of individuals or to calculate individual shares of what is produced. Social pressure generally obligates individuals to freely share food Non-market economy and other products of their labor with whomever needs it or Polynesian teenagers asks for it in the community. This operates as an economic sharing their catch to leveling mechanism. As a result, there is little or no possibility feed their families of saving and becoming more wealthy than anyone else. Subsequently, the incentive to work is not only derived from a desire to acquire what is being produced but also from the pleasure of working with friends and relatives. In addition there is potential for increased social prestige from doing the job well. This is radically different from a factory or office job in a modern market economy. In that kind of work, strangers come together, often in impersonal groups of thousands. Every minute of labor is accounted for because pay varies with the Market economy specific job an individual does and how much time is spent in North American office worker exchanging his doing it. The goal of work is likely to be primarily the money time and work for money that is paid for doing it rather than the pride in producing a good product or working with friends. However, there is a greater opportunity to save and accumulate wealth in market economies. There rarely are impersonal commercial exchanges in non-market economies. The distribution of goods and services usually occurs through either barter or gifts and involves a considerable amount of social interaction. Barter is trading goods and services directly for other goods and services without the use of money as a medium of exchange. For instance, if I have a fish and want the bunch of bananas that you have, I might negotiate a trade with you. However, if you do not want my fish, I will need to barter with someone else who has something for which you would be willing to trade. This can be a complicated, time consuming process involving a good deal of talking. In small-scale societies, barter is generally used in exchanges with people from other friendly communities. When the communities are frightened of or hostile towards each other but still wish to trade, dumb-barter may occur. This is barter without direct contact between the traders. Individuals from one group leave trade goods at a neutral location usually on the edge of their territory and then leave. Sometime later, members of the other community pick up the goods and leave something in exchange. The first group then returns and either picks up the things that were left by the strangers or leaves them until additions or substitutions are made that are acceptable. In the past, dumb-barter of this sort occurred in parts of West Africa, Northern Scandinavia, India, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Timor, New Guinea, and the Amazon Basin of South America. Dumb-barter is also known as silent trade and depot trade.

Gift giving is a common form of non-market exchange within a community. In smallscale societies, the gifts are frequently tools, food, and other supplies needed to meet family shortages. Public opinion forces a family whose harvest is larger than another's to share it. This results in equality of distribution within the community. The primary motivation for this form of economic exchange is not economic but social. Political power and influence in small-scale societies with non-market economies rarely comes from the control of production and wealth. Rather, it comes from social status, and that is usually acquired by gaining respect through generosity and personal skills such as being a good story teller, curer, hunter, or midwife. Often the most influential person is the one who has impoverished himself by giving away virtually everything of value to others.
Principal form of exchange in non-market economies Within a society Between friendly societies Between mutually hostile societies gift giving face to face barter dumb barter (rare)

Social ties function as rudimentary credit institutions in non-market economies. Kinship bonds within and between families operate to facilitate the distribution of food and other goods through the community. This distribution most often takes the form of gifts. Giving gifts is perceived as a strong moral obligation between kinsmen. Since these small-scale societies usually consist of people who are all related to each other through actual or fictive kinship, everyone is protected by this economic security net. The crucial difference between gifts and sales is that gift exchanges create and strengthen social relationships. In contrast, continuing social relations are generally incidental when things are bought and sold in a market economy. In order to better understand this, think about the difference between a birthday gift and a supermarket purchase. When you give a friend a birthday present, it reinforces the bond between you and sets up an obligation for your friend to reciprocate when it is your birthday. If you purchase an item at a supermarket, there rarely is a bond created between you and the people working there. There is not an inherent social component to this type of exchange, especially in cities. Formal market places are rare in isolated, small-scale societies because the advantages of trading in them are slight. Every household usually provides for its daily needs from its own production. Surpluses cannot be easily sent to areas of scarcity because of the difficulties of transport. Serviceable roads and vehicles to carry surplus goods to market are scarce or non-existent. Adequate food preservation technology is usually not available either, so perishable things do not last long. When formal markets do exist in isolated, small-scale societies, they are more likely to be places where nonperishable luxury items are traded (e.g., beautiful feathers and mollusk shells used to make jewelry and other ornaments).

Non-market economies can only function successfully in isolation. They have always been destroyed by prolonged contact with societies that have market economies.

Concepts of Ownership
In societies with non-market economies, land and other property rights are usually restricted by the overriding rights vested in the community as a whole. Ownership is based on the concept of usufruct . This is very different from the concept of proprietary deed that is common in large-scale market economies. With usufruct, an owner normally can "own" land and other substantial property only as long as it is being used or actively possessed. The society as a whole is the real owner. The individual "owner" is responsible for looking after the property for the society--he or she essentially only has stewardship over it. If the "owner" no longer needs the property or dies, it is reallocated by the society to others. In contrast, with proprietary deed, an owner of property has the right to keep it whether or not it is being used or actively possessed. For instance, an individual may own a number of houses and never use them. In addition, the owner has the right to pass the property on to descendants or to others chosen by the owner. In fact, ownership is not always absolute in large-scale societies today. In the United States, for instance, ownership may be forfeited to the government under certain circumstances (e.g., eminent domain , failure to pay taxes, or its use in the commission of a felony). When European Americans encountered indigenous foraging peoples with non-market economies in North America during the 18th and 19th centuries, there were conflicts that arose as a result of the failure of both societies to understand the other's concept of ownership. Most often, the indigenous societies had usufruct concepts, while the U.S. legal systems was solidly based on proprietary deed. When government representatives or individuals bought land from Indians, they assumed that they were acquiring all of the proprietary rights to the property. At the same time, the Indians often thought that they were only selling or leasing the use of the property. When the Indians did not leave the land or returned to it later to live, they were perceived as reneging on a legal contract. From their perspective, the European Americans were taking something that did not and could not belong to them. More often than not, the result was hostile relations. The same kind of cultural misunderstanding occurred in western Canada as well. During the 19th century, there was a common derogatory term in the U.S. that owes its origin to the European American misinterpretation of this sort of failed agreement. Anyone who wanted property back despite the fact that there was a binding agreement to sell or trade it was referred to as an "Indian giver."