Deck 9: How Do People Make a Living

Question 1

That part of the discipline of anthropology that debates issues of human nature that relate directly to the decisions of daily life and making a living is called

A) Political anthropology.
B) Economic anthropology.
C) Ecological anthropology.
D) Psychological anthropology.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT one of the theoretical camps in economic anthropology that make different assumptions about human nature?

A) The self-interested model.
B) The other-directed model.
C) The social model.
D) The moral model.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which model of human nature originated during the Enlightenment and assumes that economic analysis should focus on individuals who maximize their utility under conditions of scarcity?

A) The self-interested model.
B) The other-directed model.
C) The social model.
D) The moral model.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which model of human nature assumes that people ordinarily identify with the groups to which they belong and, in many cases, cannot even conceive of having a self with interests that diverge from the interests of the group?

A) The self-interested model.
B) The other-directed model.
C) The social model.
D) The moral model.

Question 5

Which model of human nature assumes that people's motivations are shaped by culturally specific belief systems and values and that they will experience distress and conflict if tempted to make decisions that are contrary to those values?

A) The self-interested model.
B) The other-directed model.
C) The social model.
D) The moral model.

Question 6

Which of the following statements accurately reflects the position held by Wilk and Cliggett concerning the three models of human nature they discuss?

A) They support the self-interested model.
B) They support the other-directed model.
C) They support the moral model.
D) They are unwilling to accept any model as a fact because they want to know why people are guided sometimes by one set of motivations and at other times by others.

Question 7

Which model of human nature suggests that economics should focus on institutions?

A) The self-interested model.
B) The other-directed model.
C) The social model.
D) The moral model.

Question 8

For more than 90 percent of human history, our ancestors lived by

A) Cultivation.
B) Herding.
C) Foraging.
D) Intensive agriculture.

Question 9

Subsistence is the term often used to refer to the

A) Survival of a people lacking technology.
B) Satisfaction of the most basic material survival needs.
C) Satisfaction of a people's food needs despite an insufficient agricultural yield.
D) Survival of a people with insufficient money.

Question 10

According to the text, the division between food collectors and food producers illustrates a distinction between different kinds of

A) Survival strategies.
B) Nourishment strategies.
C) Food distribution organizations.
D) Subsistence strategies.

Question 11

The agricultural technique in which a plot of land is burned, cultivated, and then allowed to lie fallow for several years is called

A) Intensive agriculture.
B) Extensive agriculture.
C) Industrial agriculture.
D) Mechanized agriculture.

Question 12

Which of the following is NOT a phase of economic activity?

A) Consumption.
B) Distribution.
C) Preparation.
D) Production.

Question 13

Which of the following describes the way European feudal societies handled distribution?

A) Goods and services were allotted to different social groups and individuals on the basis of status.
B) Goods and services were allocated to different individuals on the basis of supply and demand.
C) Every individual family produced and consumed its own goods and services, thus making distribution unnecessary.
D) None of the above is true.

Question 14

Neoclassical economic theory is based on which of the following assumptions?

A) The market determines production and consumption levels.
B) Price is set by supply and demand.
C) People are rational.
D) All of the above.

Question 15

Capitalist economic relations were considered "free" because

A) Consumer goods were more readily available.
B) Demand for basic subsistence goods decreased.
C) People's social status no longer determined their access to goods.
D) Prices for goods were so low, compared with prices under feudalism, that all people could spend next to nothing and still satisfy all their consumption needs.

Question 16

The substantivist Marshall Sahlins, influenced by Karl Polanyi, suggested three modes of exchange that could be identified historically and cross-culturally. These are

A) Reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange.
B) Production, consumption, and redistribution.
C) Barter, cash exchange, and credit.
D) Trade, money, and market.

Question 17

In many small-town cafes in Minnesota (and elsewhere, we are sure) there is a dice cup on each table, used by the morning-coffee regulars to see who pays for the coffee each day. This works because the regulars assume that "it'll all even out eventually." Another phrase for this is

A) Balanced reciprocity.
B) Generalized reciprocity.
C) Negative reciprocity.
D) Redistribution.

Question 18

Which of the following is an example of redistribution?

A) Potlatch.
B) Internal Revenue Service.
C) Salvation Army.
D) All of the above.

Question 19

The most ancient mode of exchange was

A) Redistribution.
B) Reciprocity.
C) Market.
D) Money.

Question 20

Anthropologists distinguish three forms of reciprocity. They are

A) Balanced, generalized, and negative.
B) Impartial, generalized, and constructive.
C) Balanced, constructive, and implied.
D) Implied, negative, and constructive.

Question 21

The theft of a few head of cattle from your herd by a neighboring group of herders from whom members of your family had rustled a few head of cattle in the past would be an example of which mode of exchange?

A) Generalized reciprocity.
B) Balanced reciprocity.
C) Negative reciprocity.
D) Redistribution.

Question 22

The capitalist mode of production is characterized by

A) Private ownership of the means of production.
B) The selling of labor power on the market.
C) The generation of surplus wealth.
D) All of the above.

Question 23

For Marx, the activity linking human social groups to the material world around them was

A) Scarcity.
B) Exchange.
C) Labor.
D) Class.

Question 24

Each mode of production suggests

A) What a society's subsistence strategy is.
B) How people organize themselves to carry out the subsistence strategy they employ.
C) Lines of cleavage in the society along which tension and conflict may develop.
D) All of the above.

Question 25

A ________ is a historically occurring set of social relations through which labor is organized to extract energy from the environment by means of tools, skills, organization, and knowledge.

A) Means of production.
B) Mode of production.
C) Relation of production.
D) Subsistence strategy.

Question 26

The social connections linking human beings who engage in different production tasks and who must work together are called

A) Means of production.
B) Mode of production.
C) Relations of production.
D) Subsistence strategies.

Question 27

In the societies of early modern Europe, trade, money, and markets came together to create

A) Balanced reciprocity.
B) Negative reciprocity.
C) Redistribution.
D) Market exchange.

Question 28

From the perspective of production theory, the tools, skills, organization, and knowledge used to extract energy from nature are called

A) The mode of production.
B) The means of production.
C) The relations of production.
D) Labor.

Question 29

Products of consciousness-such as morality, religion, and metaphysics-that purport to explain to people who they are and to justify to them the kinds of lives they lead are called

A) Social labor.
B) Modes of production.
C) Ideology.
D) Relations of production.

Question 30

Which of the following has been highlighted by an emphasis on production theory in economic anthropology?

A) The way access to resources is determined before exchange takes place.
B) The way the relations of production shape the way people choose to buy and sell.
C) The way human beings are viewed as social agents involved in the construction and reconstruction of human society on all levels in every generation.
D) All of the above.

Question 31

According to Marx, the potential for social conflict is

A) Rare in human societies, which naturally tend toward harmony.
B) Only found in the capitalist mode of production.
C) Built into every mode of production.
D) Irrational.

Question 32

The using up of material goods necessary for human physical survival is called

A) Production.
B) Distribution.
C) Exchange.
D) Consumption.

Question 33

To the question "Why do people X raise peanuts and sorghum?" Malinowski would reply

A) To meet their basic human need for food.
B) Because peanuts and sorghum are the only food crops available in their ecozone that, when cultivated, will meet their subsistence needs.
C) Because eating peanuts and sorghum makes an important statement of social identity in society X.
D) Because both foods taken together provide complete proteins.

Question 34

An institutional practice that can buffer a society from ecological fluctuation, permitting complex elaboration of relations of consumption, is

A) Distribution.
B) Exchange.
C) Production.
D) Storage.

Question 35

The study of the ways in which living species relate to one another and to their natural environment is known as

A) Anthropology.
B) Biology.
C) Ecology.
D) An ecosystem.

Question 36

The particular mix of plant and animal species occupying any particular region of the earth is known as

A) A biozone.
B) An ecosystem.
C) An ecozone.
D) A biosystem.

Question 37

An anthropological attempt to apply the insights of ecology to human beings and their societies is called

A) Economic anthropology.
B) Cultural ecology.
C) Production theory.
D) Exchange theory.

Question 38

Rhoda Halperin would describe the distribution of mongongo nuts, from those members of a Ju/'hoansi camp who gathered them to those who did not, as an example of

A) Ecological relationships.
B) Economic relationships.
C) Changes of place.
D) Both a and c

Question 39

Following Polanyi, Rhoda Halperin connects locational movements, or "changes of place," with

A) Ecological relationships.
B) Economic relationships.
C) Geographical relationships.
D) Trade relationships.

Question 40

Following Polanyi, Rhoda Halperin connects appropriational movements, or "changes of hands," with

A) Ecological relationships.
B) Economic relationships.
C) Geographical relationships.
D) Material relationships.

Question 41

In the 1960s, Richard Lee discovered that, to find enough food to survive, Ju/'hoansi foragers had to work

A) Almost constantly.
B) About 40 to 50 hours per week per person.
C) About 3 hours per week per person.
D) About 20 hours per week per person.

Question 42

Marshall Sahlins coined the expression "the original affluent society" to describe

A) The Ju/'hoansi and others like them.
B) The English in the nineteenth century and others like them.
C) The Azande and others like them.
D) The Tiv and others like them.

Question 43

According to Marshall Sahlins, which of the following is a route to affluence?

A) Colonial conquest.
B) Producing much.
C) Desiring little.
D) Both b and c

Question 44

According to Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, the distinction between "necessities" and "luxuries"

A) Is fundamental to any sound analysis of consumption patterns.
B) Is not helpful and should be ignored in the analysis of consumption patterns.
C) Distinguishes the subject matter of production studies from the subject matter of consumption studies.
D) Is helpful only when analyzing consumption patterns in capitalist societies.

Question 45

According to Mary Douglas, the Jewish prohibition against eating pork

A) Is meaningless and irrational.
B) Makes sense when placed in the context of other Jewish dietary prohibitions.
C) Is paralleled in many other societies living in ecological settings similar to that of the ancient Hebrews.
D) Is based on a scientific understanding of the health risks associated with pork in societies without antibiotics or refrigeration.

Question 46

Among the Trobriand Islanders, women's wealth

A) Is insignificant.
B) Is exchanged for yams.
C) Was first described by Bronislaw Malinowski.
D) Both a and c

Question 47

According to Annette Weiner, the exchange of banana leaf bundles during mortuary rituals in the Trobriands

A) Is a classic example of irrational consumption.
B) Has become more important as a result of Western influence on traditional Trobriand culture.
C) Allows Trobrianders to represent and affirm the most fundamental relationships in their social system.
D) Has been dominated by men in recent years.

Question 48

Annette Weiner argues that the role of women's wealth in Trobriand society

A) Has increased since Malinowski first visited the field.
B) Was less important today than it was when Malinowski first described it in 1917.
C) Could disappear if cash ever became widely substitutable for yams.
D) Had been substantially undermined by colonial rule.

Question 49

Sometimes Western commodities are

A) Rejected by vulnerable groups.
B) Used by local people for their own purposes, rather than for the purpose for which they were originally designed.
C) Used to enrich local culture.
D) All of the above.

Question 50

According to Daniel Miller, for many observers of global consumption, Coca-Cola is

A) An important source of nutrition in regions of the world where diet is insufficient.
B) An example of the advantages of globalization because it provides both work and uncontaminated beverages.
C) A symbol of the destructive global potential of capitalist consumption.
D) A cause of obesity and tooth decay in increasingly large parts of the world.

Question 51

According to Daniel Miller, Coca-Cola in Trinidad is

A) A commodity that has driven out other local drinks.
B) One of several beverages that fits into local categories of sweet drinks.
C) A way for Trinidadians to identify with the United States.
D) Hopelessly unsophisticated.

Question 52

For Daniel Miller, Coca-Cola in Trinidad is

A) One element in a complex image of what it means to be Trinidadian.
B) Directly connected with the political party and ethnic group identification of consumers.
C) Part of the way in which Trinidadians approach the contradictions of globalization.
D) Both a and c

Question 53

Describe the different modes of exchange operating in the society of the United States. What are their interrelationships with one another? Give examples.

Question 54

What is meant by the claim that consumption needs are culturally shaped? Discuss and illustrate with examples.

Question 55

Dietary prohibitions become intelligible when they are not taken individually, but reembedded in the cultural pattern from which they came. Discuss with reference to the prohibition of pork consumption among Jews and Muslims.

Question 56

"Goods assembled in ownership make physical, visible statements about the hierarchy of values to which their chooser subscribes." Discuss and give examples.

Question 57

Describe and discuss the three major modes of exchange recognized by anthropologists, giving examples of each.

Question 58

What is a mode of production? Describe and discuss the three major modes of production outlined by Eric Wolf.

Question 59

What are the advantages and disadvantages for economic anthropologists who choose to emphasize distribution, production, or consumption in their analyses?

Question 60

Discuss the consumption of Western market commodities throughout the world in our current era of globalization. In your answer, pay attention to how commodities are used, as well as the effects of contemporary economic institutions on most of the world's population.

Question 61

"A dialectic between the meaningful and the material is the underlying basis for the modes of livelihood followed by human beings everywhere." Discuss.