ANT 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Reproduction

• School: University of Florida
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANT 2000
• Professor: Donald Berces

Document Summary

Study of the allocation of scarce or finite resources among alternative ends. Study of the production, distribution, and consumption of resources. Field of economics was born of the modern capitalist system. Domestic economy: concern with immediate labor labor necessary to ensure biological reproduction of household. Political economy: concerned with flows of surplus labor labor necessary for social reproduction. Barter is exchange for goods or services without using money. Misconception: certain economies, such as those of foragers, lack surpluses. All economies involve social surplus if not material surplus. They differ in how surplus is appropriated. In complex societies, it is appropriated by class of nonproducers. Besides age and sex differences, all individuals have access to tools and knowledge necessary to ensure reproduction of household. Although each household has the time, labor, and resources to collect more food than they need each day, they do not. They (cid:862)underprodu(cid:272)e(cid:863) (cid:894)work well (cid:271)elow their potential(cid:895)