Chapter 1: Pp. 1–22 1. in Entangled Objects, Nicholas Thomas Even Has

Notes Chapter 1: pp. 1–22 1. In Entangled Objects, Nicholas Thomas even has a section called “value: a surplus of theories” (1991:30), though in it, he really cites only three. 2. Or at least, the more this is the case, the more chance there is that its pre- dictions are accurate. 3. I might note in passing that this simplified presentation might seem like something of a straw man; most accomplished economists are considerably more subtle. But in fact, anyone who has taken introductory courses in, say, rational choice theory is likely to have found themselves face to face with precisely these sorts of arguments. 4. Similarly, power is often defined as the ability to influence other people’s ac- tions, which is again, not very similar to private property. 5. These have often been referred to in anthropological literature as “utilitarian approaches,” a phrase made famous by Marshall Sahlins (1976). I’ve decided to use the term “economistic,” because the meaning is more self-evident, and there’s no danger of confusion with the specific nineteenth century doctrines. 6. Though it must be admitted that many of the economistically minded will try to take it as far as they can. Even the slightest reflection demonstrates that the mere fact that humans are biologically disposed to want food and sex means little in itself; after all, we can all think of forms of culinary or sexual experience that others crave, the infliction of which we would consider the direst punishment. 7. This seems to be a very crude popular version of the thought of nineteenth- century social thinker Herbert Spencer, whose work in scholarly circles is, oddly, considered utterly discredited. 8. Another way to imagine this would be to say each language begins with the complete color spectrum, and chops it up arbitrarily, assigning a word to each division. This is sometimes referred to as “slicing the pie” of reality. 9. Most subsequent authors called it “semiotics” instead. 10. A system that merely indicated that the steak-frites was worth more would, technically, be a ranking system. One that specifies precisely how much more adds an element of “proportionality.” 264 Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value 11. Hence too politically: in France in the ‘60s, Structualists were famous for their political passivity, or even conservatism (since in practice being ‘apolit- ical’ usually means being moderately right wing). 12. Critiques are numerous; I have offered my own alternative model in Graeber 1997. 13. One might note that he has thus managed to add to a simple Saussurean model an element of ranking (but not one of proportionality). 14. This is not to say that Dumont is arguing all societies have these spheres ex- actly; it’s simply an instantly recognizable illustration. 15. To take a more symbolic example from the Western tradition: while in the secular sphere, it is women who give birth to men (a clear gesture of en- compassment), on the higher level of cosmic origins, it was the other way around, with Eve produced from Adam’s rib. 16. In traditional societies, one cannot really speak of “individuals” at all. There is no clear distinction between subjects and objects; rather, actors themselves are made up of different aspects or elements that have different hierarchical values. 17. It served this purpose most famously in Edmund Leach’s (otherwise not at all Formalist) Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954). In the Indian case power (artha) is not at all implicit, but a consciously articulated value (see Dumont 1970:152–66), though it still seems to me to stand on a quite different order than “purity.” 18. In fairness, Dumont himself has argued that it is one of the advantages of his hierarchical, holistic approach that it does not make such clear ei- ther/or distinctions (1986:253–56), because hierarchies are inclusive not exclusive, and are defined by their centers and not their edges. But this seems largely a philosophical statement not much reflected in ethno- graphic practice. Chapter 2: pp. 23–47 1. Another factor was the belated publication of Marx’s own “Precapitalist Eco- nomic Formations,” which also took a much more flexible approach than later Marxists had imagined. 2. In the French-speaking and Spanish-speaking world it has remained a much more prominent intellectual trend. 3. The debate between Marxists and Structuralists, then, was between the legiti- macy of a critical perspective, the Structuralists taking up the relativist mantle and coming up with all sorts of arguments that Marxists really were ethno- centric after all. Marilyn Strathern, as we shall see, continues this tradition. 4. There has certainly been some discussion of Marx’s terms “use value” and “exchange value” (e.g., Godelier 1978, Modjeska 1985, most notably, perhaps: Taussig 1980). I tend to agree with those who argue that “use value” and “exchange value” should best be used to describe the inner workings of a capitalist system, and not outside it. Notes 265 5. This conclusion was already implicit in Durkheim’s notion of “organic solidarity,” in which social solidarity emerges from mutual dependence created by the division of labor. 6. Bourdieu even cites Polanyi on the lack of a “self-regulating market” (1977:183). 7. Bourdieu is pretty up-front about the fact that he is applying economic tech- niques of analysis to just about every field of human action—it is not that all fields are ultimately reducible to economics, he argues, but rather that those studying the economic field have done the best job in isolating certain processes and phenomena (competitive strategies, the formation of certain types of capi- tal, etc.) that actually go on in every field, but are elsewhere, disguised. 8. This can of course be met with the usual objections: if one might as easily be maximizing wealth, or smiles, what’s the point of describing it as “maximizing” at all? 9. Gnostic in the sense that it is assumed that the world we live in is utterly cor- rupt and unredeemable, and that the only salvation possible for humans lies in knowing this. It is only fair to note Bourdieu himself has more recently criticized Derrida for arguing that true gifts are by definition impossible, concluding that “the purely speculative and typically scholastic question of whether generosity and disinterestedness are possible should give way to the political question of the means that have to be implemented in order to create universes in which, as in gift economies, people have an interest in disinterestedness and generosity.” (1997:240). 10. As it turned out, it was individual consumption, which is what prosperous academics were doing with their spare time anyway. Bourdieu, true to form, bucked the trend and immediately began critiquing consumption as repro- ducing inequality (1994). 11. As Marilyn Strathern has pointed out, 1992:171, cf. also Comaroff and Co- maroff 1992:151. 12. “In a surprisingly wide range of societies... it is in the interests of those in power to completely freeze the flow of commodities, by creating a closed universe of commodities and a rigid set of regulations about how they are to move” (1985:57). He never mentions any cases in which powerful people try to increase the scope of exchange, or powerless ones, to limit it. 13. Though some of the essays in the collection do: notably Patrick Geary’s su- perb discussion of the circulation of medieval relics (1986). 14. Similarly, where Levi-Strauss (1949) argued that men create society by ex- changing their sisters with other men, in marriage, Weiner (1987) empha- sizes “sibling intimacy,” the degree to which even after marriage, men refuse to give their sisters up. 15. It traces back originally, perhaps, to the work of Roy Wagner (1975). It is hard to trace precise genealogies: in what follows, for instance, I emphasize the degree to which Strathern’s theoretical models draw on Gregory’s ideas; but Gregory has pointed out his own work was in large part inspired by Strathern’s early ethnography (1975; see Gregory 1998:10). 266 Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value 16. Objecting to such a project on principle seems odd. The danger is if one mistakes the model for reality: for instance, taking exception to someone else’s interpretation of a particular Melanesian exchange because “Melane- sians” couldn’t possibly think like that—although admittedly it’s a tempta- tion next to no one who develops this kind of model, Strathern included, seems entirely able to resist. 17. What really seems to really annoy most feminist critics, I think, is that in a work about gender that is 344 pages long, she feels this admission can be postponed until page 325. 18. It’s not clear which of the two she is arguing; I tend to assume the latter, because there is some fairly strong evidence that even the Melpa-speaking people she takes as her primary example do recognize such a unique creative core (see e.g., A. Strathern 1979). 19. When reading Strathern, it helps to develop one’s own glossary of Strath- ernian terms and the words a more conventional scholar would probably use in their place. Mine includes: to elicit to perceive value meaning (or importance) compared to distinguished from enchainments obligations to coerce to persuade, or make someone feel obliged to do something 20. This is inspired in part by a particularly Melpa idiom of “cause” and “origin” (though see also Errington and Gewertz 1987). The donor is the “cause” of the gift being given, while its “source” or “origin” is whatever, in that con- text, is seen as giving rise to it.

Load more