wealth, status, power, capital

Capitalism and Culture Anthropology 4392 Peter Benson

What is affluence? Do technological progress and modernization satisfy wants? Do you spend more or less time than hunters gatherers in satisfying needs and wants?

Assumption that early life was brutal and characterized by scarcity, risk, and malnutrition Not true according to empirical data Only in a market economy is there a perpetual difference between wants and resources, and chronic famine and hunger

The Original Affluent Society

few needs plentiful resources sporadic work lots of rest and time underuse of available labor mobility no private property health good nutrition, low body fat affluence without abundance
9

By the common understanding, an affluent society is one in which all the peoples material wants are easily satisfied. To assert that the hunters are affluent is to deny then that the human condition is an ordained tragedy, with man the prisoner at hard labor of a perpetual disparity between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means.

- Marshall Sahlins

scarcity is not a natural condition for humans scarcity is a relationship of means v. ends (Want not, lack not.) the social definition of norms, expectations, and values in modern societies endless wanting and working are seen as normal and natural the good life is a an anthropological not philosophical or economic question

Northwest Coast Indians Potlatch status & competitive gifting rituals

The Rise of Capitalism

bourgeoisie

Kanye West (1977 )

Varieties of Power
material wealth physical violence & force formal structural power (e.g., ascribed, delegated) rhetoric & charisma knowledge & expertise expressiveness social power & differentiation (e.g., race, gender, class, sexuality)

Michel Foucault (1926 1984)

history of institutions reproduction of population workers & consumers

Pierre Bourdieu (1930 2002)

Varieties of Capital
economic capital monetary and fixed capital assets social capital relations, networks, world symbolic capital prestige, honor, attention cultural capital competencies, skills, qualifications all forms of capital derive value from society

Conclusions
meaning of affluence depends on the context wealth status power capital the anthropological approach to studying capitalism and the modern world looks at complex dynamics of power and resistance