The document discusses different types of social organization and economic systems throughout history. It describes how 19th century anthropologists viewed societal evolution as increasingly complex. Modern perspectives reject this view as ethnocentric. Economics and subsistence strategies, like foraging, horticulture, pastoralism, shape societies. Foragers live in small, egalitarian, nomadic groups relying on hunting and gathering. The development of simple agriculture allowed for larger, semi-nomadic communities and less egalitarian social structures as surpluses could be produced.

1. Social Organization:
Politics and Economics

2. Society
• A society can be defined as a group of
people that share culture and
institutions.

3. 19th
Century Perspectives
• Most 19th
Century anthropologists like Lewis
Henry Morgan were Unilineal Evolutionists: they
believed that the tendency for societies was to
become increasingly complex.

4. 19th
Century Perspectives
• Evolutionists organized societies into
hierarchies based on cultural
“achievements” like whether or not they
had a written language. Societies were
imagined to develop through these
stages over time.

5. Lewis Henry Morgan’s Model
Civilization

Barbarism

Savagery

6. Modern Perspectives
• The Unilineal Evolutionist model has
been almost universally dismissed as
being ethnocentric: “civilization” always
reflected the society the anthropologist
was living in.

7. Economics and Society
• Economics studies the production,
consumption and distribution of wealth
(whether in the form of goods, money or
services.)
• Economics is an exceptionally
important factor shaping the overall
form of a society.

8. Economics and Society
• Livelihood and Production: how do the
members of a society get what they
need to survive?

9. Subsistence Strategies
• Subsistence economies refer to
economic systems where the primary
purpose is the gathering or production
of that which is needed for survival.

10. Subsistence Strategies
• Foragers: those who
hunt and/or gather what
they need to survive
directly from the
environment.
• For the vast majority of
human history this was
the only means of
human survival.
• Agriculturalists: those
that use various forms
of agriculture to
produce what they need
to survive.
• This includes the raising
of crops and/or the
raising of animals for
survival.

11. Foragers
• Foraging was the sole means of human
subsistence till approximately 10,000
years ago.
• Foraging takes many different forms
depending on the native environment.

12. Foraging
• The !Kung people living
in the Kalahari Desert
are traditionally hunter-
gatherers. 60-80% of
the diet is based on
plant matter, mostly,
thought not exclusively
gathered by women.
• The remainder of their
diet comes from game
animals mainly hunted
by men.

13. Foraging
• Inuit peoples living
in arctic conditions
were traditional
foragers that relied
almost exclusively
on hunting with very
little plant matter in
their diet.

14. Foragers
• Foragers tend to form relatively small
societies: usually between 10 and 50
people.
• Foragers tend to be nomadic or semi-
nomadic: they follow the source of food,
whether plant or animal…unless they
live in particularly rich environments.

15. Nomadic vs. Sedentary
• Nomadic people move around, not
forming permanent settlements. They
typically have residences that can be
easily and quickly constructed.
• Sedentary populations form permanent
settlements. Their homes are typically
designed to be much more durable.

16. Foragers
• Foragers tend to live in very egalitarian
societies: they are not marked by major
differences in power, wealth or status.
They tend to have a high degree of
equality between the sexes.
• Foragers lack the ability to produce a
surplus of wealth, so no one had
significantly more stuff than anyone else.

17. Egalitarian vs. Stratified
• An egalitarian society is composed of
people of relatively equal wealth, power
and prestige.
• A stratified society is composed of
people whose wealth, power and
prestige differ.

18. Foragers
• Foragers don’t have chiefs or kings. They
may have individuals that are more
respected, but no one can technically force
others to obey them.
• Foraging societies operate around social
conventions, but there are no laws that can
be enforced, as there is no permanent
leaders, armies or police force.

19. Simple Agriculture
• Simple Agriculture began
around 12,000 years ago
when humans began to
cultivate plants and
domesticate various
animals.
• Simple Agriculturalists,
whether horticulturalists
or pastoralists tend to be
semi-nomadic.
• Horticulture involves
the raising of plants for
food using simple
tools. No plows.
• Pastoralism involves
the raising of animals
that typically graze
(such as cows and
sheep).

20. Maasai: Pastoralists
• Pastoralism is practiced
by the Masai people of
East Africa.
• Their diet is based
primarily on meat, milk
and blood from the
cattle they raise and
care for.

21. Horticulturalists
• The Huli people of
Papua New Guinea
practice simple
agriculture, raising such
crops as sweet
potatoes. Women do
most of the farming.
• Men supplement the
diet by hunting.

22. Horticulture and Pastoralism
• Horticulture and Pastoralism are both
extensive strategies of production,
because they require lots of land and
moving around (semi-nomadism).
• Horticulture and Pastoralism both can
support larger communities: up to a few
hundred.

23. Stratification
• Simple agriculture allows for the
development of a surplus: so it is possible
for some people to have more wealth than
others.
• Simple agriculturalists tend to be less
egalitarian than foragers. They also tend to
have less equal relations between the
sexes.