The Material Culture and Social Institutions of the Simpler Peoples (Routledge Revivals)

An Essay in Correlation

L. T. Hobhouse, G. C. Wheeler, M Ginsberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415811613
• eBook ISBN: 9781135068493
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Originally published in 1915, this pioneer study has long occupied an important place in the literature of sociology. An exercise in the statistical correlation of the economic and social institutions of the working classes of the early twentieth century, the book is an important link between contemporary sociology, with a focus on the problems of social development, and the classical social liberalism on which L. T. Hobhouse left his mark. The reissue includes the introduction written by Morris Ginsberg in the 1965 reprint, where he explains what he and his colleagues set out to achieve and responds to the criticism faced by the study. This is a classic work which is still of great value to sociologists and anthropologists today.

CHAPTER I.

STAGES OF ECONOMIC CULTURE.

We pass now to the classification of peoples by their economic or industrial culture upon which the rest of our enquiry is founded. Our starting-point here is the work of Dr. Nieboer, to whom we must express our acknowledgments. But our object differs from his in that we are seeking to distinguish grades in economic culture, and for that reason we have had to depart in some essentials from his method.

Dr. Nieboer founds his classification primarily on the method of obtaining food, and in this we follow him for three reasons : (i) For peoples of simple culture the method of obtaining food is closely correlated with the whole method of life. For example, hunting and pastoral peoples seldom have fixed dwellings for any length of time, whereas if agriculture has reached a high development, nomadic habits must be restricted and finally abandoned. (2) Between the man who trusts to the gifts of nature, and the man who sets nature to work for him to supply his food, there is a far-reaching change in point of that which interests us most, the degree of intellectual advance and the consequent extent of control over natural forces. (3) Practically the method of obtaining food is capable of easy observation and is generally reported with fair definiteness by travellers, though some of the finer gradations are, as we shall see, less easy to distinguish.

As we advance along the economic scale the methods of obtaining food become less useful as a differentiating mark in proportion as other industries grow in importance. We carry our classification to the point at which men obtain food by a combination of the pastoral and agricultural arts, keeping cattle, ploughing the land, using irrigation, and practising a rude rotation of crops. Now all people, even the most civilised, gain their food ultimately by these means, and further differentiation along these lines would consist only in the development of more scientific breeding and more intensive agriculture, and so it must be, at any rate until synthetic chemistry makes some very new departure. We do not therefore suggest that the food supply could be fruitfully used for purposes of differentiation beyond the level to which we have carried it, the threshold of what is ordinarily called civilisation.

But even on the lower levels, though the food supply is our starting-point, it is not the sole basis of our classification. The implements used in obtaining food, whether in hunting, fishing, or farming, may also be brought into the account. The nature of dwellings, the presence of other arts—sewing, plaiting, spinning, weaving, and pottery—the use of metal, the employment of canoes, boats, or ships, must also be considered if we are to estimate the position of a people in regard to its general powers of dealing with nature. The question then arises what relative weight we are to attach to each of these considerations. The method which we have followed is to take the...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction to the 1965 Reprint
• Introduction. The Problem
• I. Stages of Economic Culture
• II. Government and Justice
• III. The Family
• IV. War and Social Structure
• Bibliography