May 3, 2012

PRACTICING KINOCENTRIC ECONOMICS

BEAD (AND FOOD) EXCHANGE EXERCISE

Ritual Congregations

Fiestas in Southern California (like Northwest Coast Fiestas in Southern California (like Northwest Coast potlatches) are the “total institutions” (aka potlatches) are the “total institutions” (aka “gathering of institutions” where all “gathering of institutions” where all economic/kinship/political/ecological/ceremonial economic/kinship/political/ecological/ceremonial aspects of segmented (aka decentralized) kin-mode aspects of segmented (aka decentralized) kin-mode societies converged; they were the key integrating societies converged; they were the key integrating institutions of “non-differentiated” societies; they institutions of “non-differentiated” societies; they were the key to survival were the key to survival

Getting Started: Join a Clan, Claim your beads, and sit together comfortably with your clan

Wildcat Moiety Coyote Moiety

Buffalo Wild Wings (4)

Not So Happy (4)

Hawks (5) Anteaters (6)

Tornados (6) JAKD (7)

Bee Jars (3?) Endless Gazettes (3)

Standardizing Bead Value: an Exercise in Consensus

According to Durkheim, nothing is inherently sacred (e.g. clan totems). [Note that he defines the essence of the “sacred” as group interest and unity. ] That which the community believes is sacred is a “construction” –more or less arbitrarily--arrived at through social consensus.

What is the value of each brown bead? the equivalent of how many sticks of gum? A) 2 b) 3 c) 4 d) 5EACH CLAN VOTEDecision?

Among the Yokuts, each deerskin was worth 25 cents, which was convertible to a unit of Indian bead money, the “Chok of beads”. “

The Sacred Value of Things: Ideologically-charged Prestige Goods

Exchange with ‘foreigners’ across long distances would not be possible without a standard and portable medium of exchange and a shared shared belief in the symbolic value of certain ‘prestige goods’ with sacrality/animation/power/energy of their own and associated with transcendant values like sacred authority, public order, the social compact.

Beads were used in many ceremonial contexts, esp. mourning ceremonies for the dead/afterlife. Chumash elites were buried with 1000s of beads.

Large sacred enclosures/shrines were located in the coastal political/ceremonial town; venerated old men sat and made beads, reported Librado. “They were like interpreters, interpreting for god.”

Each Clan

Inventory your goods: beads and foods and other “hard” goods brought for exchange.

1. Community well-being is more important than the advancement of the individual in communal kin-mode societies.

2. Material goods are pooled among kin. [social storage]

3. Exchange is embedded in social relationships: Maintaining relationships entails reciprocity, gift-giving, and generosity.

4. Generosity is self-interested: sharing with others obligates them to reciprocate. [social insurance]

5. Only in generosity is there safety. Pay it forward

Kinocentric Economics of Kin-mode people

Reciprocity is gift exchange: equal exchanges between persons or groups symmetrically placed whereas Redistribution is exchange between one centralized leader and his followers.

Major Economic Forms of Kinocentric Economies

GiftingGifting

In a famous writing, In a famous writing, Essay on the Gift, Mauss argues that trade is at the very center of social life. Material flow underwrites or initiates social relations. Every exchange embodies some coefficient of sociability, and “cannot be understood in its material terms apart from its social terms.” (Sahlins, p. 183)

If friends make gifts, gifts make friends. Mary Douglas on Mauss: "A gift that does nothing to enhance solidarity is a contradiction."

Part I: EACH CLAN: Engage in Reciprocal Exchange: 5-10 min.

Gift, feast, share, and engage in reciprocal exchange with your clan-folk.

Good News: Studying economic anthropology could be useful

Duckheim and followers seached for “laws of society” that were universal. They were especially interested in looking at “primitive” societies for the answer to what integrates society in the evolution of humanities before modern, industrialized states and their centralizing bureaucratic institutions and national ideologies. Social forms that appeared in widely separated groups (where cultural diffusion is not an explanation) constituted a function that suggested a social law, universally applicable. (note the comparative method)Examples: 1)Religion integrates people in belief systems2)Durkheim’s nephew, Mauss through comparisons of gift-giving of archaic societies worldwide that there are universal rules, viz. the obligation to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. There are no free gifts. Showing that religion, exchange, political structure are entwined, Mauss notes that people give offerings to deities, because of the ironclad law of reciprocity: giving and receiving.

A) Student “X” gives $100 to Prof. Thorne. Why is this ‘wrong’?

B) Prof. T gives a gift to Student “X”. What does the student feel? Gratitude, unease, indebtedness, all of the above?

The Darker Side to Gifting

Gifts as social control, inducing social obligations or forcing the receiver to loose honor.

“Gifts make slaves.”

1. A lineage/clan leader has a special right to group resources. Chiefs had the right to call upon the produce of the underlying population. Pooling resources is a communal activity to achieve group goals and safety and security.

2. Playing it forward: giving (not accumulation) confers high status.

3. Leaders occupy key positions in the redistribution of goods.

4. The relation of the giver-receiver is one of leader-follower.

5. Choose a clan leader to represent your clan.

Part II: Pooling and Redistribution 5 minutes

Trade Feasts as Social Insurance

As Lowell Bean writes: Formal or informal trade feasts were set up between groups living in different ecological areas so that goods from mutually advantageous but politically separate areas were exchanged for those of others.” (Mukat, p. 12)

Groups with abundant goods/foods could Groups with abundant goods/foods could “bank” their excess with less-fortunate “bank” their excess with less-fortunate neighbors via feasting. neighbors via feasting.

Part III: Inter-clan exchange: 10 minutes

1. Clan leaders move to engage in exchange with other clan heads.

2. Return with goods and redistribute to followers. 3. Do an inventory.

A Kinocentric Tale of Social Change

Once upon a time, (about 2000 BPE), there were egalitarian groups of hunter-gathers in California and corn-growing people living in New Mexico (the Pueblo people) …

Climate change

Three centuries of drought, ca 900 A.D to 1200 A.D., were times of upheaval and transformation. There are possible parallels between those times and today with our current warming trends, technological change, and globalization. Creative thinking is needed to face the new challenges to survival.

To save themselves and their corn crops from hungry marauders, the Anasazi built their communities onto cliffs.

Money Innovations1) Digital technology is now impacting conventional market practices. One

can go into a Starbucks, and face-recognition software will automatically bill your account for your lattes.

2) An i-Phone application allows customers to use a “crypto-currency” digital currency called “bitcoms.

3) Social insurance: A recent NPR presentation suggests that many, many Americans have no savings and could not raise $2K from banks or family/friends in an emergency, YET the poorest people buy the greatest number of lottery tickets. Why? Because people LIKE to gamble and because it is their one chance in getting rich. A bank in South Africa combined both: savings accounts for the poor with monthly chances to win based on each $25 in savings accounts. WIN/WIN Savings and a chance to win more.(Small sums were shaved off the bank’s interest rate to offer these jackpots.).

Adaptations to climate change in California

included:

–Population migrations

–Technological change and craft specialization to increase production of surpluses for trade

–Increase in volume of shell money for trade in Southern California along routes occupied by speakers of Uto-Aztecan and Yuman languages

–Increased social stratification

Native people adaptedlong distance trade networks extending from the Pueblos to the Santa Barbara coastline.

Rise in Social Complexity among Chumash, ca. 1000 AD

Increased SOCIAL STORAGE (dried fish, chia seeds, acorns, beads, etc) permits growth and concentration of population, esp. along coast (500+)

Ranking emerges to facilitate redistribution; chiefs store and redistribute food surpluses

Village elites intermarry, but Chumash territory divided into competing and sometimes warring ‘fiefdoms’

Sodalities: Brotherhood of the Tomol and ‘Antap put all skilled professions (boat-making, ritual specialists, healers) under control of the elite

Chumash exchange (in an olivella shell)

“The economic relation of giver-receiver is the political relation of leader-follower.” (Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 133)

Chumash nobles received tribute from their own village and sometimes multi-villages and in turn generously threw feasts and supplying the needy in hard times from their surpluses. According to Fernando Librado, A village leader would collect enough “gifts” from his guests at a feast to “have enough for the festival and the rest of the year. “ He would store some of the surplus “so that when his subjects were in distress he would have something with which to assist them.” (225)

Only the elite could wear prestige goods like flint knives with shell inlays, certain kinds of shell beads, and otter capes

Gifts and feasting were usually a prerequisite to trade.

Trading with non-kin (especially those speaking a different language and having different customs) would cause anxiety, but when exchange is couched as a ceremonial event, the aura of sociability reduces anxiety and masks commerciality.

Extending the Kin-mode to Outsiders

Part IV: A Trip to the Capital of Chumash: You’re Invited 5 min.Clan Leaders are Invited by the Wealthy Chieftain-ess Thorne, otherwise known as She-Gives-So-Much-It-Is-Hard-to-Carry-Without-A-Bag (also renowned for her generosity in grading) to a Feast in the Capital City of In-Front-of the Classroom. (No need to bring a gift; this one’s on her. … Heh, heh, heh)• Gather your gifts of food, etc.• Choose a gift necklace of beads as a token of your authority.•Return to your clan and redistribute goods to clan members. Feast. •Question: What do you feel? A) gratitude b) endebtedness or obligation c) like you’ve been ranked d) deference to the chieftain-ess e) bloated

Expansion of Regional Trade Networks Competing for status, Chumash elites invited guests from farther away, these

bringing rare and exotic goods from their home territories to exchange. E.g.The Chumash obtained a kind of sugar deposited by aphids on stalks of reed grass. Guests received ceremonial wands composed of yucca stalks and birdfeathers and other exotic items. The demand for shell money increased to accommodate more attendees, in mutual exchanges of ceremonial gifts in beads.

Some large Chumash coastal villages became political-ceremonial-market centers where the richest and most powerful chiefs lived. “The coast of the mainland was where inland Indians, coast Indians, and island Indians mixed,” said Librado. “All these Indians are fond off trafficking and commerce, said Jose Martinez in 1792. “They use beads for money.”

“[P]owerful individuals gained ever-increasing status [because of their wealth in beads and status goods obtained in trade] and control over exchanges as the demand for prestige goods in the burgeoning mainland settlements increased,” writes Lynn Gamble p (21)

Exchange and Ranking

“Within the political economy the ability to own especially decorative, refined and costly beads was limited to community managers, and their only use was in maintaining and validating exchanges between managers of different communities.” (Chester King) The more expensive (involving more skill and effort to make so more rare) were politically controlled or monopolized by the elite; ownership was hereditary..

California elites were religious-political leaders “boundary players in the broad-ranged network of social systems encompassing many political and several language groups.”

Among the Cahuilla, writes, Bean, most money was owned by the “net” and used by him in ceremonial exchanges and trade with other lineages.

The Chumash Cultural Pump

An abundant flow of bead money increased energy flows and equalized food distribution regionally

ALSO, it also served to socially stabilize communities by undergirding the authority of inland chiefs. Inland elites (with prestige markers, ceremonial/political leaders) married elites from other villages.

THE KINOCENTRIC ECONOMY ABSORBED THE MARKET ECONOMY, NOT vice versa.

Shell beads were used (like money) as a form of “stored energy,” writes Chester King. All living systems require the change of stored forms of energy (firewood, gasoline, electric batteries) into kinetic energy or heat for those times when sufficient energy is not available in the environments. Stores of food reduce want due to seasonal fluctuations. Stores of beads also avert famine and violence due to starvation conditions.

The Chumash pump (cont.)

Any household might have resources (food or “common” beads) to share, exchange, or trade, but the large reserves of food that chiefs (or “captains”) had in most areas of California for feasting guests or for helping community members at times of shortages were important to the community at large and so were SUBJECT TO RITUAL REGULATION

“Thus what began as an ecologically adaptive convenience becomes a socially catalytic necessity, stimulating the production, exchange, and consumption of economic goods, reinforcing interpersonal and intergroup relationships, and providing the context for political cooperation and integration.” (Tom Blackburn)

REVIEW: Trade Chiefs

Leaders displayed wealth objects as a sign of their status and authority; Shell beads were a signifier of prestige, the wearer commanding respect and deference.•chiefs exchanged gifts with other chiefs; they had a monopoly on diplomacy and inter-group grade.

Good News II (more laws)

3) Radcliffe-Brown found moiety organization a “widespread social phenomenon” and proposed that “association by contrariety … is a universal feature of human thinking” (up/down, strong/weak, etc.) that amounts to a “general law”: everywhere moieties are found, they are in relations of “opposition” that separate and, at the same time, unite: this is a structural principle of the union of opposites. Humans perceive life in terms of binary oppositions and objectify this basic concept in social institutions to create balance, order, and integration in their social lives.

Menaced always by deterioration into war, primitive groups are nevertheless “reconciled by festival and exchange,” writes Marshall Sahlins. “The gift is the primitive way of achieving the peace that in civil society is secured by the State.” Exchange was “a form of political contract.” (Sahlins, 169)

Exchange as Legal Contract

V. Bad News: Restoring Harmony

1. A member of the “Not So Happy” clan is really unhappy since one of the Giant Anteaters insulted them. Determine a payment in beads from Ants to Not Sos to settle the problem without violence.

2. The Tornados have violated a serious tabu by saying the word “…….[too terrible to repeat here]” and the Hawks are Buffalo Wild Wings are even wilder than usual. Decide on a suitable bead payment from the Tornados to the Buffalos and Hawks to settle the matter.

3. The Bee Jars and JaKDs entered the territory of the Endless Gazettes and ate their Agave. Endless Gazettes want satisfaction. Decide on a suitable payment and make it.

Choose a Moiety Chief

Based upon 1) generosity and 2) wealth display, each moiety choose a leader of the moiety. Ownership and display of prestige goods with sacred character enhances power and authority.

Part VI: Guest and Host Relationships and Reciprocity among Moieties 10 minutes

•A member of the Wildcat Moiety has past on requiring the Coyote Moiety to provide a ceremonial feast. If you are a Wildcat Moiety leader (and a trade feast Guest), prepare a gift of brown beads by pooling them from within your moiety) to the host chief as a ceremonial prelude at the beginning of the exchange event. •Coyotes host Wildcats to feast. Engage in reciprocity and gifting and trade as a group.

•*Feel free to contract marriages.

Moiety Reciprocity

•Alas, a member of the Coyote moiety has passed on, requiring the Wildcat Moiety to hold a ceremonial feast. If you are a Coyote Moiety leader (and a trade feast Guest), prepare a gift of brown beads for the host chief to be given as a ceremonial prelude at the beginning of the exchange event. •Wildcats host Coyotes to feast. Engage in reciprocity

and gifting and trade.

Part V: Assessment: 10 minutes

Assess results. Inventory your beads and other goods.

Are you wealthier or poorer in bead wealth?

Have you made more friends?

Have you bonded with the class? Has there been social integration via exchange?

Did generosity bring respect? Were debts incurred? Have you incurred obligations to others?

Final Day of Class: Fiesta hosted by Moiety Chiefs

Can you think of new exercises to experiment with economic forms of social storage and social integration?Can you think of a way to improve the bead exercise?Can you think of any possible way to apply what you’ve learned in class to the “real” world?

Extra Credit projects will be presented the last day of class.

The End

Although the functionalist school is known for over-stating the harmony of societies whose functions of integration they study…

The Kin-mode People Lived Happily Ever After, sharing their Earthly Resources and living in Peace and Order in a functionally-Integrated Society.