Global Capitalism: We're All Equal!
Independence and
Exchange
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by Bill Geddes
7 August 2010
 … just at that moment, as though at a
signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of-
Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!
Four legs good, two legs better!
It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the
time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for
the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.
Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked
round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying
anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big
barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood
gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.
"My sight is failing," she said finally.
Even when I was young I could not have read what was written
there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven
Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?
For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read
out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a
single Commandment. It ran:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL
THAN OTHERS
After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs
who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their
trotters.
(Orwell 1951 p. 114)
If there is a single defining feature of Western capitalism, it
might well be the peculiar definition of exchange which lies at its core. If we
can get that definition of exchange into perspective, it will go a long way to
getting capitalism into comparative perspective.
As we have already discussed, the fundamental assumptions upon
which reality is built are historically developed 1. They form the
bedrock upon which community organisation and human interaction are
constructed.
There is a constant ideological management of reality in
communities. Dominant groups continuously and subliminally define and refine
objective reality for their community (this is what many of the
‘specialisms’ of Western communities are about). At the core of that reality are
the ways in which people relate to both their environments and each other.
Communities ensure that their populations know and live by those
understandings.
Since dominant groups know how the world operates, they
also know the best ways in which life should be organized and lived.
They, therefore, feel responsible to ensure that people in the communities in
which they live conform to those understandings. This is ensured through the
many acculturative agencies and processes which can be found in any community of
human beings. These ensure that community organization and individual thought
and action conform to the community’s version of objective reality.
The most important acculturative agencies in Western communities
are contained within the institutional complex known as 'The Education System'.
Education is a major acculturative force in Western communities. One
does not find Western style ‘education systems’ in non-Western communities.
Where non-Western countries have education systems they are modelled on the
systems developed in Western communities.
Western education systems are focused squarely on ensuring that
the most important fundamental understandings of Western communities are
understood and adhered to. Where they exist in non-Western countries, education
systems are essential elements of the hegemonic processes and structures which
Western countries insist non-Western countries must ‘develop’ and continuously
monitor and regulate (to counter ‘poor educational practice’) if they are to
receive recognition and ‘aid’ from the West.
The fundamental assumptions which drive Western education also
drive the development of theory in Western institutions and specialties. Many of
the most powerful theoretical models of social interaction and societal
organisation developed in Western academic and professional circles incorporate
and reaffirm the basic ideological understandings of Western communities. Such
models become unwitting tools in the hegemonic promotion of Western capitalism.
There is nothing fundamentally ‘wrong’ or reprehensible in this,
that is what dominant ideological communities do and have always done, wherever
they are found, and whatever their understandings of the world might be.
However, it is a problem if we want to understand communities in their own
terms.
We, as Westerners, are often not aware that the most
‘convincing’ models will, almost inevitably, incorporate the central cultural
presumptions of Western capitalism. So, we are likely, unwittingly, in using the
models, to describe and explain phenomena we investigate in terms of similarity
to and deviation from Western forms, processes, behaviours and understandings.
Effectively, by default, we judge other cultural communities
against Western ‘standards’ built into the theoretical models we employ, even as
we claim that we are trying to understand them in their own terms. Annette
Weiner (1992), in her book Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of
Keeping-While-Giving, tackled this problem head on in examining the cultural
baggage built into many anthropological ideas and understandings. As she
said,
… ethnographers do not record informants’ words as though on a
tabula rasa, but as modified by their own theories and perceptions honed on the
issues and arguments of previous anthropological discourses. How to get beneath
what historically we, as anthropologists, take most for granted and, in its
stead, hear what our field interpreters are actually saying is a major problem.
(1992 p. 24)
In this discussion we need to be alert to the problem. If our
own cultural assumptions are built into the models we use, we end up comparing
other cultural communities against the values and understandings of the
community to which we belong.
That might be the task assigned to Western moralists (e.g.
‘human rights’ specialists), or to those involved in the hegemonic expansion of
Western capitalism (e.g. ‘Third World Development’ specialists). However, if we
are to understand communities of people rather than be party to a hegemonic
imposition of Western cultural forms on the rest of the world, we must attempt,
to the degree that this is possible, to understand communities and people in
their own terms.
The economic models of capitalism are ideological models
which incorporate all the most basic presumptions about the world and about
human beings which are extant in Western communities. When economic models are
applied to life in non-Western communities they automatically produce
recommendations for change. Inevitably, they compare forms of organization and
activity based on very different presumptions against the forms and activities
extant in Western communities.
Recommendations stemming from the application of these models
are, all too often, used as the base for ‘Third World development’ programs and
projects.
At the heart of economic and most other models of social
interaction and organisation lies the Western definition of 'the individual' and
the Western definition of 'balanced exchange'. Both are assumed to be
fundamental to human interaction and organisation everywhere. Tsui, Farh and Lih
provided a clear summary of the Western view of 'independent individuals':
… the Western view of an independent self … sees each human being
as an independent, self-contained, autonomous entity who (a) comprises a unique
configuration of internal attributes (e.g. traits, abilities, motives, and
values) and (b) behaves primarily as a consequence of these internal
attributes.
(1997, p. 59)
Two additional impulses drive the Western independent
individual. Western individuals are both competitive and acquisitive. These
features, in combination, determine the nature of exchange within Western
communities 2.
In most of the social sciences, it is presumed that the
relationships which exist between individuals ‘emerge’ from the processes of
exchange in which they engage. Human beings, it is assumed, are first and
foremost ‘actors’ and the social relationships in which they are involved are
outcomes of self-interested interaction aimed at satisfying individual needs and
wants. So, exchange based on self-interest comes first, and groups emerge from
those exchanges as people enter into ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships.
Because they are convinced of the importance of reciprocity and
exchange in understanding community organization and interpersonal interaction,
theorists in the social sciences have attempted to define the nature of
exchange. There have been two directions in which these attempts at definition
have gone.
The most common direction has been toward a single definition of
exchange. This has been encapsulated most clearly in economic models of
exchange, but has been replicated in a range of social models developed out of
social exchange theory.
The second direction has been toward defining exchanges
contextually. This approach assumes that the nature of exchanges is determined
by the nature of the relationships perceived as existing between those involved
in exchange. The interconnections between people come first. Exchanges occur
between people who already know how they relate to each other and already know
the kinds of exchanges which are legitimate for such relationships.
There cannot be a single definition of exchange. Rather, the
characteristics of exchange depend on the context in which it occurs.
The presumptions about the nature of individuals and communities
of human beings upon which these two approaches base their reasoning are very
different.
The approaches to reciprocity and exchange which we are going to
examine next illustrate this divide. They are presumed, by those who promote
them, to provide a framework for understanding human interaction and the
relationships in and through which they occur.
In Western communities, it is commonly believed that we are all,
at heart, pre-social, independent, self-interested, self-promoting, competitive
and acquisitive beings. We view relationships as the means by which we satisfy
our 'needs' and 'wants'. It is assumed that we are all intent on conserving and
expanding our consumption/possessions and furthering our own well-being and
independence, if necessary, at the expense of others around us.
There has been a range of models of ‘social exchange’ developed
through the 19th and 20th centuries which are founded on
these assumptions. According to social exchange theorists (whom you will meet in
various guises in most social science theorizing) all exchange is based on the
acquisitive, competitive, and self-interested drives of human beings who want to
be independent 3.
According to this model, if you and I were in an exchange
relationship (since I'm assuming you're a well-enculturated Westerner, let's use
the relationship: 'teacher and student') it would be because you perceived me as
having something you want (a good grade?) and I perceive you as having something
I want (your money?).
I look for ways of getting as much money as I can out of you
while giving you as little as possible of what ‘belongs’ to me (I want to
‘conserve’ what is mine). You look for ways of getting the best grade you can
out of me for the lowest price. The relationship might look like one of
cooperation – teacher and student in the pursuit of knowledge – but it is, in
reality, competitive, with each of us pursuing our own, independent,
self-interested goals.
Our relationship will continue for only so long as I can
convince you to keep giving me money and you can convince me to keep passing
you! Once we see the other as having nothing to offer (you run out of money – I
run out of units you want to do) the relationship ends.
The development of education in most Western countries, over the
past couple of decades, has largely been driven by this caricature of human
motivation and sociability. Educational institutions have become primarily
‘profit making’ organizations and education is being promoted as a ‘commodity’
or ‘consumable’.
In the process, communities have devalued education as a
cooperative pursuit of understanding and emphasized its value as a preparation
for entry into the world of competitive wealth attainment. If it doesn’t lead to
money, what’s the point? Not, of course, that you and I have such a crass view
of the value of education!
Edward Lawler and Shane Thye described the model,
Social exchange theory assumes self-interested actors who
transact with other self-interested actors to accomplish individual goals that
they cannot achieve alone. Self-interest and interdependence are central
properties of social exchange.
Whether it is two lovers who share a warm and mutual affection,
or two corporations who pool resources to generate a new product, the basic form
of interaction remains the same. Two or more actors, each of whom has something
of value to the other, decide whether to exchange and in what amounts.
(1999
p. 217)
In an earlier article Thye and his co-authors addressed the
nature of the 'networks' which emerge out of exchange activities:
Whether the setting involves corporate agents in commercial
enterprises, management-labor negotiations over salaries and benefits, children
vying for limited space on playground equipment, or the ebb and flow of
interests and offers in dating networks, the cumulative effects of what happens
in the short-term - e.g., feedback from, and responses to, each exchange offer -
has profound implications for the long-term state of the larger social system in
which negotiations and exchanges are embedded.
(Thye et al 1997 p.
1031)
Social exchange theory shares a great deal of common ground with
rational action theory and cost benefit analysis. Their roots can
be found in the Western philosophy of utilitarianism 4.
The approach, with minor variations in emphasis and definition, is also
sometimes referred to as rational choice, the problem of collective
action, research in ‘micro fundamentals,’ or methodological
individualism. In anthropology it is also known as formalism, in
contrast to the substantivism of Karl Polanyi and those who have
developed his ideas over the past fifty years. We will examine Polanyi’s ideas
shortly.
Both articles accept the validity of the social exchange model
and review the literature on social exchange theory. They provide an excellent
illustration of the ways in which Western ideological understanding becomes
unconsciously built into Western ‘explanatory’ models and a reminder that social
science theorizing is not acultural.
The ways a theorist sees his or her world, and the basic
presumptions about life which are held to be self-evident are usually either
explicitly or implicitly written into the theoretical constructs which theorists
build.
Social exchange theory presumes that individuals interact in
terms of competitive self interest. Their interactions are focused by both
social incentives to behave in particular socially approved ways and
social constraints on ‘unacceptable’ behaviour (social ‘benefits’ and
‘costs’).
Independent, pre-social individuals are constrained in their
interactions by 'rules and regulations' which, ultimately, work against those
most adept at exchange negotiations. It is this presumption that the
entrepreneurs in communities are stifled in their activities by those who feel
threatened which lies at the heart of Western demands that people be 'freed' to
unihibited exchange activity.
Those incentives and constraints have been developed over time
as a consequence of individuals’ experiences in the competitive cut and thrust
of getting what they feel they need and want. They channel activity to minimize
the costs and maximize the gains of interaction for the greatest number in the
community (it is in this that the model draws most heavily on utilitarian ideas
- the ideal community is, therefore, ‘democratic’).
In these ways, ostensible cooperation between individuals
and groups emerges. A variety of communal structures develop to further what
are, ultimately, individual, self interested activities aimed at meeting
individual needs and wants in an environment of competitors and scarce
resources. The innate traits of human beings turn out to be remarkably similar
to those of individuals as defined in Western industrialized communities.
Claude Levi-Strauss (1963, pp. 279ff), an anthropologist writing
during the 1940s to 1980s, made a distinction between what he called ‘home-made’
models of social interaction and organization, and models designed to uncover
the basic presumptions and principles upon which social life is constructed.
Home-made models perpetuate the phenomena they claim to
explain. Explanatory models elucidate the fundamental presumptions and
principles upon which social life is built.
Although those who employ the conscious, home-made models will
claim that their use ‘explains’ social phenomena, in fact, they are part of the
ideological acculturative process. The use of the models reaffirms and
reinforces the behaviours, attitudes and understandings which they are supposed
to ‘explain’. According to Levi-Strauss,
conscious models… are by definition very poor ones since they are
not intended to explain the phenomena but to perpetuate them. Therefore
structural analysis is confronted with a strange paradox well known to the
linguist, that is: the more obvious structural organization is, the more
difficult it becomes to reach it because of the inaccurate models lying across
the path which leads to it.
(1963, p. 282)
Many anthropologists are wary of models which employ a singular
definition of the nature of social exchange such as that presented in social
exchange theory. However, theoretical models which either explicitly or
implicitly rely on this set of assumptions about human interaction are very
common in social science theorizing.
For researchers and theorists who espouse a variant of social
exchange theory, individual human beings are primary. Social organization and
social interaction are outgrowths of individual human beings trying to fulfil
their own needs and wants and ensure their status as independent individuals.
So, individual human beings, and the relationships they form in
the process of achieving their independent goals come first. Change the needs
and wants of individuals and they will change their interactions and,
consequently, the social structures which have emerged to facilitate the pursuit
of their independent ends.
In the words of George Homans who wrote widely from this
perspective in the mid 20th century,
… elementary social behaviour, pursued long enough by enough
people, breaks through the existing institutions and replaces them. Probably
there is no institution that was not, in its germ, elementary social behaviour.
(Homans, 1961 p. 1)
Social structures and institutions emerge from the interactions
of independent individuals pursuing their own private ends. The relative
statuses of people and the relative power they exercise are also derived from
these relationships, driven by people trying to ensure that they retain any
advantages they have in the exchange process.
Linda Molm and her co-authors (2001) summed up the relative
'power' positions of human beings in interacting groups like this:
The concept of dependence is pivotal to the theory's analysis of
power. Each actor's power derives from the other's dependence: A's power over B
increases with B's dependence on A, and vice versa (Emerson 1972a, 1972b).
Inequalities in power and dependence create power imbalanced
relations, in which the less dependent actor has a power advantage over the more
dependent, disadvantaged actor.
The theory distinguishes between power as a structural potential,
determined by actors' relations of dependence, and power use as the resulting
inequality in benefits obtained by more and less powerful actors in a relation
or network. The former affects the latter, in that imbalances in power tend to
produce corresponding inequalities in exchange benefits.
Because power is a function of dependence, predicting power and
its use requires identifying variables that affect actors' relative
dependencies.
(Molm et al 2001 p. 259)
According to social exchange theory, if two people are in an
exchange relationship, the person most committed to making the relationship work
is in a disadvantageous position. That person will have put more ‘resources’
into making the relationship a success than the other person and so the ‘costs’
and ‘benefits’ of the relationship vary inversely to the commitment of the
participants.
The one who is more committed will have to ‘pay’ more than the
other party to maintain the relationship – they become relatively more
‘dependent’ on the relationship. People who are in ‘relationships of dependence’
feel subservient to those on whom they depend and so, inevitably, human beings
dream of independence, of not having to rely on others for their needs and
wants.
Social exchange theory presumes that human action is
primary and that social structures and institutions emerge out of human
interaction and are finally sustained by it. But what if human action is
instituted by the structures of the community?
Then the forms of interaction which occur will be determined by
the forms of organization and by the ways people are brought up to behave
through their placement within the social whole. Community structures will be
primary and human interaction and exchange will reflect the ways in which
communities are organized.
Karl Marx 
This was the focus of a great deal of Marxist theorizing 5 of
the late 19th and 20th centuries. Human beings, Karl Marx
believed, behave as they are brought up to behave, determined by the ways in
which their society is organized and articulated to the material environment,
that is, the ‘relations of production’ which exist in the society.
In his own words,
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter
into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations
of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material
forces of production.
The totality of these relations of production constitutes the
economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness.
The mode of production of material life conditions the general
process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness
of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that
determines their consciousness.
(1859 p. 1)
Marx, living in a capitalist world, assumed that ‘relations of
production’ would be central to the ways in which people are defined and
interact.
The self-interested, competitive, acquisitive individualism of
Western communities is an inevitable consequence of the stage they have reached
‘in the development of their material forces of production’. It is instilled in
people through their upbringing.
Capitalist societies require self-interested, competitive
individualism and so people are brought up to display those characteristics in
their interactions. In other societies, people will be trained to behave in ways
required by the dominant ‘relations of production’ of their communities.
Economic exchange is the kind of exchange required for capitalism to work.
Marx was a thinker of his time, and an optimist. He was
convinced that human societies were evolving toward a particular set of
‘relations of production’. There would be a final structuring of society reached
6, where
human beings would fully understand the productive potential of their
environments and would harness that potential for the greatest good of each
individual in the society.
Individuals would, ‘naturally’, be brought up to behave in ways
required by the dominant relations of production, ensuring that, at last, each
person would contribute what he or she was able to the social whole and receive
what he or she needed. This is the meaning of the term ‘communism’.
Polanyi
Karl Polanyi, an economic historian writing in the middle of the
20th century was strongly influenced by Marxist ideas, but less than
convinced about the evolutionary direction of human development. He argued that,
the term economic, as commonly used to describe a type of
human activity, is a compound of two meanings. …
The first meaning, the formal, springs from the logical character
of the means-end relationship … from this definition springs the scarcity
definition of economic.
The second, the substantive meaning, points to the elemental fact
that human beings, like all other living things, cannot exist for any length of
time without a physical environment to sustain them; this is the origin of the
substantive definition of economic.
The two meanings… have nothing in common.
(1977 p. 19)
On one hand, there is an economy as defined in economic theory
and as experienced in Western communities. This economy works best if people
behave as self-interested, competitive, acquisitive individuals because it is a
‘market’ economy. People are brought up to behave in ways which will ensure
their success in such an environment.
Polanyi argued that the particular ways in which human beings
utilise their material environments and the forms of relationships through which
goods and services are distributed throughout the society, are not derived from
innate individual human traits and instincts; and are not ‘natural’
consequences of exploiting material environments (it was in this assertion that
he parted company with Marxists).
Rather, the ways in which people behave and the ways in which
they use their material environments are determined by the ways in which their
communities are organised.
He claimed that there is an economistic fallacy,
which
consists in a tendency to equate human economy with its market
form.
(1977 p. 20)
The substantive economy in any community, he argued, is
embedded in the organization and interactions of the community. So,
exchange relationships are determined by the structure of the community rather
than the structure of the community being determined by exchange
relationships.
To demonstrate that not all economic activity is organised like
a Western market economy he described the economic activities of ancient
historical Mesopotamian communities, showing that they were very differently
organised. He labelled the system he described a redistributive
system.
Redistribution stands for a movement towards a centre and out of
it again, whether the objects are physically moved or only the disposition of
them is shifted.
(1977 p. 36)
He claimed that in communities which are organised with a wide
peasant base and a hierarchical leadership structure, goods and services
initially flow from the peasant base upward through the hierarchy 7.
If you examined the system at some periods it would appear that
there was a systematic exploitation of the peasant base by the elite of the
community. However, it is the task of the elite not merely to use the surpluses
they receive, but to provide a range of services and to store and redistribute
surplus production to community members who are in need.
So, if you examined the system from the perspective of the elite
or during times of hardship, you would find that there was a reverse flow
occurring. Goods and services would be flowing from the centre out toward the
peasant base.
To understand how such an economy worked one had to understand
the organization of the society, not merely individual exchanges. What might be
seen as an exploitative system from either perspective, could be shown to be a
‘social welfare’ system when one looked at the long-run activities of all
members of the community.
Polanyi’s challenge to economic theory was based on his claim
that there are forms of exchange of goods and services which do not conform to
the definition of exchange which is used in economic and social exchange theory.
So, it was a fallacy to claim that economic and social exchange models could be
universally applied.
This was a fairly rudimentary attack on the universal validity
of social exchange theory, but it was a start. Polanyi’s models did not explain
why different communities had different forms of redistribution and
exchange, only that it could empirically be shown that this was the case. It
remained for someone to provide a model of exchange relationships which would
spell out why it was possible to have such different forms of community
organization and interpersonal exchange.
Sahlins and Spheres of Exchange
The next major contribution to the debate came from Marshall
Sahlins. Although Sahlins’ model of exchange relationships provided a way
forward, it did not directly deal with the kinds of exchange Polanyi described.
Rather, it described forms of exchange between people who are roughly equal in
status within a community.
Polanyi introduced a focus on hierarchically structured exchange
relationships, the ways in which goods and services moved through political and
social hierarchies. Sahlins was more concerned with the ways in which kinship
and social distance influenced exchange relationships.
He explained this in his most influential book on the subject,
Stone Age Economics, when he said,
Rank difference as much as kinship distance supposes an economic
relation. The vertical, rank axis of exchange – or the implication of rank – may
affect the form of the transaction, just as the horizontal kinship-distance axis
affects it.
(1972 p.206)
Polanyi’s redistributive system is one focusing on exchange
between people of different rank (the ‘vertical, rank axis of exchange’).
Sahlins’ model of reciprocity and exchange focuses on the horizontal axis: the
ways in which the nature of exchange differs with the degree to which people see
themselves as ‘related’ to each other, coupled with the amount they have to do
with each other.
There are 'spheres' of exchange. Exchange relationships differ,
depending on the kind of relationship existing between the parties involved and
the contexts in which exchange occurs.
A number of anthropologists have examined spheres of
exchange 8, exchange complexes which are focused within
particular organizational areas of a community. Frederick Damon described such
spheres in the U.S.A.,
there are spheres of gifts, of wage labor, and of productive and
financial capitals. It is easy to show that each operates by different
principles with different purposes. It is also easy to show – requiring only a
book or two – that complex patterns of reciprocal dependencies, with painful
contradictory consequences, govern their interactions.
(1993 p. 243)
Damon went on to describe similar spheres of exchange for a
Melanesian community involved in Kula exchange.
Sahlins is dealing with one of the spheres of exchange which
exist within communities. The nature of reciprocity and exchange become much
more complex in Sahlins’ typology. Social exchange theory limits its focus to
simple interactions between two individuals (either 'natural' or 'artificial')
in face to face relationships, with presumed 'instincts' driving their
activity.
The key to understanding Sahlins’ contribution to the debate on
the nature of exchange is that he, following Polanyi’s lead, envisaged more than
one definition of an exchange relationship. He concluded that the kind of
exchange relationship which would be found between two individuals or groups was
determined by the nature of the relationship which existed between them.
There are many possible definitions of exchange, since
particular instances of exchange and reciprocity are individuated
expressions of relationships which exist between categories of people.
This points us directly to the kind of model which Levi-Strauss
(1963) called a ‘structural’ model, based on the unconscious principles of
categorization and classification which exist within any ‘structured’ community.
One can understand exchanges best when one realises that they are visible
expressions of the kinds of relationship which people perceive as existing
between themselves, making them into a community of human beings.
The relations which people perceive as existing between
themselves are a sub-set of the relations which occur within and between the
classificatory categories of thought which each member of a community learns
from his or her community from the moment of birth 9.
A human being can’t ‘think’ without such a classificatory
structure since thought is a process of comparison to determine similarities and
differences between perceived items (and that is the definition of
classificatory categorization). These relations of similarity and
difference are expressed in all forms of structured communication between
people, from language to the exchange of material goods and services.
The classificatory categories of any community have been
unconsciously developed over the history of the community and so will be unique
to that community. Yet, because there is a finite set of relations which can
occur between elements in a structure, there will be many apparent similarities
between communities.
We can’t pursue this further here, but, in formal system
analysis it is recognised that there is a variety of kinds and combinations of
relationship which can exist between elements of a structure. As the
Encyclopaedia Britannica puts it,
Each formal system has a formal language composed of primitive
symbols acted on by certain rules of formation (statements concerning the
symbols, functions, and sentences allowable in the system) and developed by
inference from a set of axioms.
(2010 10)
Since human beings are sentient and capable of reflexive
thought, they do not merely conform to the structural requirements of the system
in which they live. They are able, individually, to focus on, and compare and
contrast the forms of relationship in which they are involved. They experiment
with alternative definitions of, and behaviours in structured interactions. That
is, they individuate their social relationships, just as they do every
facet of their experience and understanding.
People are constantly defining and redefining themselves in
their interactions. The structure is, necessarily, conservative, but it is
neither static nor completely prescriptive.
Sahlins pointed to this when he said that,
it is not only that kinship organises community, but communities
kinship, so that a spatial, coresidential term affects the measure of kinship
distance and thus the mode of exchange
(1972 p. 197).
While, in many communities, exchanges are formally structured by
kinship relationships, kin who live close to each other often develop closer
relationships than kin living at a distance. This results in different forms of
exchange developing between an individual and two or more kin who might share
the same formal kinship relationship with him or her but live closer or further
away.
However, the set of relationships from which they build their
individuated interactions is already spelt out in the social structures of their
community. Christina Torens (1999) in a discussion of the ways in which Fijian
kinship relations pattern interactions between people in Fiji, explained,
A Fijian village child lives kinship as the very medium of
existence; such a child constitutes ideas of self and others or, in simpler
terms, comes to be who he or she is, in reciprocal relations between kin. (1999
p. 265)
Sahlins was suggesting that the forms of reciprocity which will
be observed will take their character from the forms of social relationship
which exist between exchangers as members of a structured community. And, in
turn, the social relationships which exist between the exchangers will depend on
the number and kinds of relationships summed up in each person.
People are nodes of relationships and their interaction
with each other person or group is ‘flavoured’ by the blend of relationships in
which they are involved.
If you stop for a moment and think of yourself. You ‘know’ who
you are by the way you relate to everything around you. All the perceived
relationships between yourself and all the recognised elements of your
environments, provide the raw material from which you construct your self-image.
If someone tries to change those perceived relationships, that
person assails your self-image. You, inevitably, react to defend your definition
of yourself. That is, you try to conserve your present definition by
conserving present recognised relationships.
Human beings, born into communities, are taught that certain
forms of relationship are important. So, in any community, one will find that
some kinds of relationship are emphasised more than others.
In Western communities many individuals are taught that
competitively balanced exchange is important and that each individual should
value privacy, independence, and material possessions. Relationships tend to
take their ‘flavour’ from these values. Not all communities see these values as
important.
To understand an act of exchange one has to understand the
relationship which the participants in the exchange perceive as existing between
them.
The form of an exchange between family members will be different
to the form of an exchange between strangers (and different to the forms of
exchange found between people of variant rank or status in the community).
Horizontal relationships between individuals can be viewed as occurring on a
continuum of relationship as below:
The illustration above deals with a continuum of
relationships, not just three different relationships. As we move from left to
right along the line, the relationship is progressively based on perceiving
fewer similarities and more differences between participants in an exchange
11. The resulting exchange behaviour takes its flavour
from those perceptions and so varies as you move along the line.
The more two people see themselves as ‘related’, that is, as
sharing a common identity, the more they will emphasise sharing rather than
holding sets of separate possessions. So, when one person wants something the
other has, they will tend to assume the right to take it and use it, rather than
having to ‘ask permission’ or ‘buy’ it from the other person.
Generalised reciprocity is a very common form of exchange within
nuclear family groupings. There are many possessions that belong to the
household rather than to the individuals in the household. Members use them when
they need to without having to ask permission of other family members. The item
might be in the possession of one of the members, but it can be taken and kept
by another member until someone else needs it.
Degrees of similarity and difference between people are
contextually defined. I might emphasise my ‘difference’ from other family
members when acting inside the home. I might emphasise ‘similarity’ to my family
members when we are acting as a unit in a wider setting. And, perhaps, I, my
family, the family of my uncle and/or my aunt might act as a unit in a still
wider setting. So, depending on the context, I might well behave differently
toward members of those groups at different times.
Sometimes I will emphasise our differences, by insisting that
some things are ’mine’ and others are ‘theirs’. But, sometimes, in different
contexts, we will emphasise our similarity, finding it much easier to ‘share’
things with each other.
The less interacting people see themselves as sharing the same
identity, the more differences they will recognise as existing between them.
This will make it more likely that they will have to ask permission to use an
item in the other person’s possession.
As the differences increase, they will increasingly feel the
need to ‘balance’ the relationship by offering something to the other person in
exchange for an item they want to use. The people involved will tend to hold
separate sets of possessions and feel that they are ‘losing’ something when an
item they have is given to the other person (there is a conservation principle
at work).
By the time we reach the mid-point on the diagram above, there
is a feeling that when something is given to one person, the other should get
something of fairly equal value in return. The exchange should be ‘balanced’.
In most forms of exchange to the left of the diagram, the people
involved in exchange feel themselves to be in some degree related to each other
and are not interested in making a ‘profit’ at the expense of those with whom
they associate. The more closely they consider themselves to be integrated with
each other, the more complete the sense of sharing possessions among them
becomes. Exchanges on the left side of our diagram tend to reinforce social
relationships based on similarity and often seem deliberately designed to do
this.
The ‘balanced reciprocity’ relationship is most commonly found
between acquaintances rather than friends, people who are considered connected
with us in some way, but are very definitely not members of our ‘in-group’.
Neighbours in Western communities are often in this kind of relationship. One
doesn’t feel that it is right to make a profit out of them, but exchanges should
be balanced and when something is lent or borrowed it should fairly promptly be
returned.
As we move to the right of the diagram, people who interact with
each other emphasise their differences rather than their similarities. The less
like each other they consider themselves to be, the more they emphasise keeping
their own possessions and trying to get yours for as little cost as possible
(Weiner’s (1992) ‘keeping-while-giving’ relationship). If you have this kind of
relationship with another person you have no problem in ‘buying’ and ‘selling’
items. If you try to buy and sell to people on the left side there is an uneasy
feeling that this is not the appropriate thing to do.
This is one important reason why many business activities in
close knit communities fail. Outsiders do much better at business because they
can buy and sell without resentment developing in the community as a result of
their activities. Of course, by engaging in competitive exchange they are also
cementing their definitions as ‘outsiders’.
This is very similar to the consequences of Western
understandings of social exchange. The independent individualism which is at the
root of Western processes of socialisation and upbringing is reinforced by
Western exchange activities.
In any community one will find all forms of reciprocity.
It is not that in some communities one finds generalised reciprocity and in
other communities one finds balanced or negative reciprocity. Rather, in every
community one will find people who are closely defined as similar to each other
and others who will be less closely related.
'Correct' forms of behaviour in relationships will be formalised
and appear, to those outside the community, as sets of constrictive 'rules and
regulations'. Those who live in the communities in which the formalised
relationships are 'normal', however, will see them as statements of the obvious,
not as externally imposed restrictions on their individual 'freedoms'.
All these relationships are, of course, relative to the person
on whom attention is being focused.
One will also find people living in neighbouring communities or
on the fringes of communities who are defined as primarily different from
community members. The forms of exchange which occur will reflect the
relationships perceived as existing between people. They will also, in quite
different ways, reflect the status, rank and prestige differences which are
perceived between people.
Conclusion
The exchange presumptions which underpin Western economic and
social exchange theories strip away the multidimensional qualities of human
interaction both with other human beings and with their material environments.
All that is left is 'economic behaviour'.
The arguments of neoliberal economic theory over the past forty
years have been based on the simplistic presumption that all communities are the
outcome of the interactions of independent individuals intent on their own gain.
To ensure that those communities serve the interests of individuals, rather than
inhibiting them, it is necessary to remove all those constraints and incentives
(the 'rules and regulations') which have historically been built to limit the
success of enterprising individuals.
If independent individuals are 'freed' to uninhibited,
self-interested, acquisitive self-promotion, all human beings will be the
beneficiaries of their entrepreneurial activity. That is why they are so
admired. Adam Smith explained this admiration two hundred and fifty years ago:
that eminent esteem with which all men naturally regard a steady
perseverance in the practice of frugality, industry, and application, though
directed to no other purpose than the acquisition of fortune. The resolute
firmness of the person who acts in this manner, and in order to obtain a great
though remote advantage, not only gives up all present pleasures, but endures
the greatest labour both of mind and body, necessarily commands our approbation.
(1759 Part 4 Ch. 2)
Such people do not merely pursue prudent self-interest for their
own gain or because others insist they should. They know, in their own hearts,
that prudent, self-interested industry and frugality are amongst the most
important of the virtues:
In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily
sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable
expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant but more
lasting period of time, the prudent man is always both supported and rewarded by
the entire approbation of the impartial spectator, and of the representative of
the impartial spectator, the man within the breast.
(Smith 1759, Part 6
Section 1)
And this admiration is not only shown toward individual
'natural' human beings! The world also has 'artificial' individuals. Since
social exchange and economic theory focus on interaction between instinct driven
'individuals', they must define groupings of 'natural' individuals as also
'individuals' so that they can incorporate them into their predictive
models.
Business enterprises become 'individuals', entitled to the same
protections under law as 'natural' individual human beings. Adam Ferguson
explained the entitlements of entrepreneurial individuals well:
… he alone has every virtue, except the force to defend his
acquisitions. He needs no aid from the state, but its protection; and is often
in himself its most intelligent and respectable member.
Adam Ferguson (1767
Pt 3, Section 4)
We are all 'equal': human beings and corporations. We can all
compete 'on a level playing field', where the most deserving win. We must ensure
that 'rules and regulations', aimed at stifling entrepreneurial enterprise, are
not generated by the envious and those less willing to persevere "in the
practice of frugality, industry, and application, though directed to no other
purpose than the acquisition of fortune".
Communal 'rules and regulations' exist to protect the lazy, the
indisciplined, the free-loaders. What we need is less government, less
regulation, more enterprise. We only need one commandment:
Henry Thoreau spelt it out:
I heartily accept the motto, -- "That government is best which
governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and
systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,
-- "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is
at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments
are sometimes, inexpedient.
(Thoreau 1849 p. 4)
Leave our future and our wellbeing in the hands of natural and
artificial individuals — as God intended!
Damon Frederick H. 1993, Representation and Experience in
Kula and Western Exchange Spheres (or, Billy), Pp. 235-254 in Barry L. Isaac
(ed) Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 14, JAI Press, Greenwich
Conn.
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Society, Accessed 22 Jan, 2010
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Levi-Strauss Claude 1963, Structural Anthropology,
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1 See Primary Ideology for more on this.
2 Western people, in social interaction, tend to
focus on the objects of an interaction rather than on the participants. The
historical movement which produced the current Western understanding of social
interaction has already been described:
Previously hierarchical obligations and responsibilities were
transformed into 'terms of rent' and attached to the property rather than to the
people involved. A social relation between individuals had assumed 'in their
eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things'.
The focus of Europeans was being fixed on the legal
obligations and quantifiable costs of social interaction, attached to
or incorporated into the object of any exchange, rather than the persons
involved in the interaction.
(See From personalised, cooperative hierarchical relationships to
object-oriented, competitive oppositional relationships for more on
this.)
3 See From Interdependence to Independence for more on this.
4 See Milan Zafirovski (1998) for a
discussion of the nature of this connection.
5 Marxism was extremely influential
through most of the 20th century and still has a strong following.
The Web site http://www.marxists.org/
provides a comprehensive coverage of Marxist writings. For a clear summary of
Marx’s ideas see Fischer E. and Marek F. 1973, Marx in His Own Words
(Translator: Anna Bostock) Penguin Books, Harmondsworth
6 The social philosophers of Western Europe, over
the previous three centuries, had engaged in a search for Utopia, a real and yet
an ideal future toward which the present should be moulded. Marx had his own
particular variant of a 'golden age' toward which humanity was evolving. See Toward the Millennium for more on this.
7 See Redistributive System for more on this.
8 For discussion of the notion of spheres
of exchange, see Guyer Jane I. 1995, Wealth in People, Wealth in
Things-Introduction, The Journal of African History January, Vol. 36 No.
1 p. 83 ;
Pannell Sandra 1993, 'Circulating Commodities': Reflections on the
Movement and Meaning of Shells and Stories in North Australia and Eastern
Indonesia, Oceania, September Vol. 64 No. 1 p. 57
9 See The Nature of Categorisation for more on this.
10 formal system. (2010). In
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 04, 2010, from Encyclopædia
Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/213751/formal-system
11 This is, of course, not the only such
set of relationship possibilities. Firstly, the illustration only deals with
horizontal relationships, that is, relationships perceived as existing between
individuals who see themselves as more or less socially 'equal'. Other
possibilities might include continua of complementarity, displacement,
containment, and accompaniment.
Additionally, there are the sets of relationships
which occur within other spheres of social life.
The reductionist enterprise undertaken in social
exchange theory strips away and treats as irrelevant all such multi-dimensional
aspects of human relationships.
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