Economics
Traditional Economies
Traditional economies are based on customs, traditions, and bartering systems, with little reliance on technology or modern methods of production. These economies often revolve around subsistence farming, hunting, and gathering, and are typically found in rural and remote areas. Decision-making is guided by cultural and social norms, and economic activities are passed down through generations.
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6 Key excerpts on "Traditional Economies"
- Showren, Tana(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Regency Publications(Publisher)
Chapter 5 Traditional Economic Base In every human society the physical means of subsistence and means for the production of other wants must be suited to the ends of one’s own subsistence. There must have been also some degree of ‘satisfaction’ 1 , which means economic activities were to some extent regulated by prevailing ecology and environment. Discussing about the aim of traditional economy, Lionel Robbins calls it as, “Human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternate use.” 2 About the nature of traditional economic organisation R.Firth states, “Economic organisation is a type of social action. It involves the combination of various kinds of human services with one another and with non-human goods in such a way that they serve given ends.” 3 While George Dalton opines that, “All societies have structured arrangements to provide the material means of individual and community life. It is these structured rules that we call an economic system.” 4 Some other ethnologists like H.K.Schneider has rightly observed, “Traditional economics is insensitive to the constraints normative, cultural and ecological, that condition the play of the market.” 5 Reading such writings one might envisage that the significance of the traditional economics and ethnohistory study was already established in the minds of many social scientists and thinkers. Broadly speaking, the ‘neolithic revolution’ 6 has changed the economic activities, which permitted the general expansion and domination of tribal societies over hunting and gathering societies of the palaeolithic stage. 7 The gradual expansion of ‘neolithic economics’ in course of time involving the whole world, a process which began around 9000 years B.C., included the first form of plant and animal domestication. Then came the progressive disappearance of palaeolithic hunters and gatherers who were This ebook is exclusively for this university only. Cannot be resold/distributed.
eBook - PDFThe Organization of Ancient Economies
A Global Perspective
- Kenneth Hirth(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Preexisting economic arrangements may continue to be practiced even in the face of new, more productive or efficient ones depending on a variety of circumstances. The perpetuation of older technologies and economic practices can be the result of their being appropri- ate solutions for small-scale economic activities. Domestic economies are THE STRUCTURE OF ANCIENT ECONOMY 7 generally conservative because of limited labor and/or capital resources. Older practices and technologies will continue in use as long as they get the job done (Langlands 2017). This explains why rural farmers in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey still used animal- and human-drawn sledges (dhoukani) edged with sharp chert flakes and blades (Figure 1.1) to thresh grain well into the middle of the 20th century (Anderson et al. 2004:figure 5; Kardulias and Yerkes 1996; Pearlman 1984). The result is a heterogenous economy where old technologies and traditional practices such as mobilizing resources through gifts or along kinship lines continue to be important even in today’s modern capitalistic world. RECONSTRUCTING ANCIENT AND PREMODERN ECONOMIES How can a comparative understanding of past economies be developed given the diversity, plasticity, and heterogeneity of their economic practices? The place to begin is to recognize that no single discipline can do it alone. Temin is correct in the epigraph that few economists have displayed an interest in past economic systems, but this should not be a surprise. The field of contemporary economics is concerned with explaining the operation of capitalistic markets, not ancient or premarket economies. 8 Economists rarely examine historic 1.1 20th-century dhoukani threshing sled with close-up of its stone chert blades. (Photographs by Nicholas Kardulias. Photography on top modified by author with permission of Nicholas Kardulias) 8 THE ORGANIZATION OF ANCIENT ECONOMIES trends in the economy unless they have the measurable data to do so.
eBook - PDF- Chegedua Tangonyire, Kyaligonza Achal, Lawrence(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Langaa RPCIG(Publisher)
59 Chapter 4 Economic Systems As Institutionalized Selfishness By economic systems is meant the structure of ownership and control of important resources in a given economy. The owner of important resources determines what is to be produced in the economy, how it is to be produced and for whom it is to be produced. Because they have all these powers, the owners of the important resources in the economy tend to be domineering and selfish. Economic systems therefore are ways in which selfishness is institutionalized in societies. To know the economic system of any given society is to know how selfishness is institutionalized in that society. In other words, the selfishness within a given society is revealed by the way important resources are owned, controlled and used within that society. Every society has an economic system at any given time. However, as societies evolve, they change from one economic system to another and because of this evolution economic systems can also be called economic regimes . Most economic regimes are characterised by selfishness or even solipsism. Primitive Economic Systems Subsistence Economics Subsistence economics is the economic system that pertains to a world which is still very primitive. The primitive world is mainly characterised by rudimentary technology and a very low population density. There are no organized leadership structures, markets or industries. People live either as individuals or as nuclear families and there is hardly any interaction among them because of the poor means of communication. People depend on natural resources for their livelihood, for example, forests, bushes, rivers, lakes, and swamps. These resources belong to no one; they are still in their natural state and so nobody possesses them except may be God. Primitive activities such as hunting, fishing and fruit gathering are the main economic activities and they are carried out using simple tools such as stones, arrows, spears, hooks, and sticks.
eBook - PDFSustainable Development
Understanding the Green Debates
- Mark Mawhinney(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Thus, it seems logical that the environment would become an area of importance as scarcity occurred, while the social implication of economic systems continued to remain an open area of debate. Initially, it appears that the concerns about the environmental and social implications of economics were practice-led and they lacked a clear explanation in traditional theory. It is important to note, however, that `economics' likewise was a system before it was a theory. Thus, sustainable development, which initially may have been set up as a challenge to the status quo within economics, may simply be a relatively young off-shoot of economic theory. This is a hypothesis that is examined again in Chapter 8. The basics of economics show similar principles and drivers to sustainable development and it is important therefore to further break down the sources of the economic viewpoint and the evidence. This is done in the following two sections by initially looking at the traditional arguments and then looking at advocates of reform to that traditional stance. 2.2 The traditional end of the argument The well-publicised view of this side of sustainable development sees the supporters of a traditional economic-led approach to sustainable development centred around the world's biggest companies, the multi-nationals, and global financial institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the governments of the developed world (Appleyard 2001). Much debate revolves around the activ-ities of the World Trade Organisation, which seeks to achieve consensus for a common set of rules on global trade policies across 135 countries. It has a broad agenda covering such issues as trade barriers, dispute settlements and specific sector agreements, and runs with the central tenet that free trade benefits all (Schott 2000).
eBook - PDF- William Haviland, Harald Prins, Walrath, Bunny McBride, William Haviland, Harald PrinsWalrath, Bunny McBride(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
This is because, in these nonstate societies, the economic sphere of behavior is not separate from the social, religious, and political spheres, and thus is not completely free to follow its own purely economic logic. Production and Its Resources In every society, particular customs and rules govern the kinds of work done, who does the work, attitudes toward the work, how it is accomplished, and who controls the resources necessary to produce desired goods, knowledge, and services. The primary resources in any culture are raw materials, technology, and labor. The rules directing the use of these are embedded in a people’s culture and deter-mine the way the economy operates within any given natu-ral environment. Land and Water Resources All societies regulate allocation of valuable natural resources—especially land and water. Food foragers must determine who will hunt game and gather plants in their home range and where these activities take place. Groups that rely on fishing or growing crops need to make similar decisions concerning who carries out which task on which stretch of water or land. Farmers must have some means of determining title to land and access to water supplies for irrigation. Pastoralists require a system that determines rights to watering places and grazing land, as well as the rights to land where they move their herds. In Western capitalist societies, a system of private ownership of land and rights to natural resources gener-ally prevails. Although elaborate laws have been enacted to regulate the buying, owning, and selling of land and water resources, if individuals wish to reallocate valuable farm-land to some other purpose, they generally can. In traditional nonindustrial societies, land is often controlled by kinship groups such as the family or band rather than by individuals.
eBook - PDF- Paul Cloke, Terry Marsden, Patrick Mooney, Paul Cloke, Terry Marsden, Patrick Mooney(Authors)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Such cost reductions are referred to as economies of agglomeration. Rural economies were usually, then, originally based upon exten-sive agriculture and/or extractive industry (for example, agriculture, forestry and fishing), pri-mary sector activities with high ratios of space to population. Commerce and public affairs con-stituted the core of urban economies because of the existence of economies of agglomeration. In terms of consumption, twentieth century Fordist mass production demanded sales in huge quanti-ties, a function which urban populations more readily satisfied. Cities also functioned as net-work nodes for transportation to reach distant markets. 2 Modernization: escape from the countryside Some towns and cities grew quickly into metropolitan areas, leaving many rural economies behind in per capita income. Most rural eco-nomies became synonymous with lagging or backward economies, as if frozen at an early stage of development, producing mainly primary goods. On the other hand, urban economies were identified with advanced economies, character-ized by manufacturing (secondary sector) and service provision (tertiary sector). ‘Rural’ was often associated with poverty, lack of opportuni-ties, traditionalism and isolation, while ‘urban’ was associated with wealth, opportunity, moder-nity and concentration. The modernization process primed an out-migration flow from tradi-tional rural areas to metropolitan areas. By the second half of the twentieth century warn-ings were put forward that the exodus from the countryside – attracted by wage differentials and opportunity expectations – would soon empty traditional rural areas while congesting metropolitan areas. Desertion of rural areas (often deprived of their most valuable human capital) was often forecast as the biggest threat to local rural economies.
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