Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Topic I Critics of some statements of some textbooks on the Paleolithic way of life.
When studying hunting and gathering economies, economics often points out that those
people had a hard life that barely could give them the means to survive and that they
didnt have time to spend building culture. Therefore they were called substance
economies.
Topic II Question
By the common understanding, an affiuent society is one in which all the people's
material wants are easily satisfied.
First road (market economies): since mens wants are great and their means limited,
they need to have an industrial production to satisfy their needs.
Second road (Zen road): [] human material wants are finite and few, and technical
means unchanging but on the whole adequate. Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can
enjoy an unparalleled material plenty-with a low standard of living.2
Topic V
That, I think, describes the hunters. And it helps explain some of their more curious
economic behavior: their "prodigality" for example-the inclination to consume at once
all stocks on hand, as if they had it made. Free from market obsessions of scarcity,
hunters' economic propensities may be more consistently predicated on abundance than
our own. 3
Topic VI
This is not to deny that a preagricultural economy operates under serious constraints,
but only to insist, on the evidence from modern hunters and gatherers, that a successful
accomodation is usually made. After taking up the evidence, I shall return in the end to
the real difficulties of hunting-gathering economy, none of which are correctly specified
in current formulas of paleolithic poverty.
Notes
When discussing about hunting and gathering societies, people often assert that those
societies live in fight against famine, so that they do not have time to spend on building
culture. But, according to Sahlins, those views are just projecting a way of life foreign
to those societies. The autor argues that in those societies the needs are finite and the
means sufficient, so they live a material plenty
Questions
Why, according to Sahlins, are the hunting and gathering economies called affluent
societies?
Tpico I
Sahlins inicia o texto com uma breve excurso sobre as opinies mais correntes acerca
do modo de vida das sociedades de caadores e coletores. Dentre elas, destaco as
seguintes:
Iminncia de fome;
Tpico III
Tpico IV
Outra fonte de distoro sobre o modo de vida das sociedades de coletores e caadores
a observao de sociedades coletoras e caadoras contemporneas. Esse contexto
etnogrfico distorce nossa percepo sobre essas sociedades. Sem falar na influncia
que antigos registros de exploradores e missionrios tm.
1. In the nonsubsistence sphere, the people's wants are generally easily satisfied.
Such "material plenty" depends partly upon the ease of production, and that
upon the simplicity of technology and democracy of property. 10
Excluda essa hiptese, Sahlins argumenta que existe uma relao entre esse desapego
e o estado nmade em que vivem esses povos. Mobility and property are in
contradiction 12.
A partir daqui, Sahlins discorre acerca de vrias situaes em que existe essa
incopatibilidade entre a propriedade de muitas coisas e a mobilidade.
Sendo assim, conclui Sahlins, melhor enxergarmos os caadores como livres ao invs
de pobres. No so pobres porque no faz sentido a eles os nossos padres de aquisio
e desejo. So livre porque a relativa pequena quantidade de bens que carregam lhes
possibilita viver uma vida livre ir at onde puder ir, fazer o que se precisa fazer, etc.
Subsistence
Tpico I
Baseando-se nos Arnhem land data, Sahlins tira algumas concluses sobre o tempo de
trabalho, a Constancia do trabalho, o uso de possibilidades econmicas (tempo dedicado
produo de mais excedente) e o lazer das sociedades coletoras e caadoras.
A busca dos motivos pelos quais os caadores no estocam comida, mas gastam o
excesso dela e esto sempre em busca de mais, est no centro desse tpico.
Eles veem vantagens na caa e coleta ao lado de migraes para outras regies
The efficient hunter who would accumulate supplies succeeds at the cost of his own
esteem, or else he gives them away at the cost of his (superfluous) effort. 32
Food storage, then, may be technically feasible, yet economically undesirable, and
socially unachievable. 32
Tpico I
A falha dos estudos sobre as sociedades coletoras e caadoras, Segundo Sahlins, foi a
relao entre a dificuldade da vida e os meios disponveis: como so pobres, so
infelizes. Por outro lado, a vida de caador e coletor no simplesmente um mar de
rosas. Existem dificuldades, mas elas passam longe da relao acima.
Utilidade quer dizer portabilidade tudo que pode atrapalhar o deslocamento visto
como um peso, at mesmo pessoas;
Demographic constrains
Tpico II
Mobility and moderation put hunters' ends within range of their technical means. An
undeveloped mode of production is thus rendered highly effective. The hunter's life is
not as difficult as it looks from the outside. 34
Tpico III
Food shortage is not the indicative property of this mode of production as opposed to
others; it does not mark off hunters and gatherers as a class or a general evolutionary
stage.36.
Tpico IV
This paradox is my whole point. Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances
an objectively low standard of living. But taken as their objective, and given their
adequate means of production, all the people's material wants usually can be easily
satisfied. The evolution of economy has known, then, two contradictory movements:
enriching but at the same time impoverishing, appropriating in relation to nature but
expropriating in relation to man. The progressive aspect is, of course, technological.
36-7
The world's most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty
is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends;
above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the
invention of civilization. 37.
Tpico V
All the preceding discussion takes the liberty of reading modern hunters historically, as
an evolutionary base line. This liberty should not be lightly granted. Are marginal
hunters such as the Bushmen of the Kalahari any more representative of the paleolithic
condition than the Indians of California or the Northwest Coast? Perhaps not
Notas
Entendo que, dentre todas as crticas pontuais que Sahlins faz ao evolucionismo,
existe uma crtica geral que envolve todas elas e se expressa melhor na ltima parte do
texto.
No entanto, sem negar todo esse desenvolvimento, Sahlins argumenta que ele veio
acompanhado de uma intensa
Quando Sahlins se refere satisfao das necessidades materiais, o que ele quer dizer
com materiais? Observao: mais adiante, o autor diz que os kung vivem uma
material plenty, uma abundncia material. Mas essa abundncia especfica: ela se
refere a tudo exceto gua e comida. Ser que por ai que o autor entende por
necessidades materiais?