Subsistence economy
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "redirect hatnote". Template:Sidebar with collapsible lists A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of sufficient food, clothing and shelter to sustain life) rather than oriented to sustaining a market in essential and desirable assets.
Definition
"Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and one's family at a minimum level. Basic subsistence is the provision of food, clothing, and shelter. A subsistence economy is an economy directed to one's subsistence rather than to the market.[1] Often, the subsistence economy is moneyless and relies on natural resources to provide for basic needs through hunting, gathering, and agriculture. In a subsistence economy, economic surplus is minimal and only used to trade for basic goods, and there is no industrialization.[2][3] In hunting and gathering societies, resources are often, if not typically, underused.[4]
The subsistence system is maintained through sharing, feasting, ritual observance, and associated norms.[5] Harvesting is an important indicator of social capital.[6] Subsistence embodies cultural perspectives of relationships to places, people and animals.[7]
History
In human history, before the first cities, all humans lived in a subsistence economy.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". As urbanization, civilization, and division of labor spread, various societies moved to other economic systems at various times.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Some remain relatively unchanged, ranging from uncontacted peoples to marginalized areas of developing countries, as well as to some cultures that choose to retain a traditional economy.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
List of strategies
- Hunting and gathering techniques, also known as foraging:
- Artisan fishing — a term which particularly applies to coastal or island ethnic groups using traditional techniques for subsistence fishing.
- Aboriginal whaling, including the subsistence hunting of the bowhead whale in the Arctic.
- Agriculture:
- Subsistence agriculture — agricultural cultivation involving continuous use of arable (crop) land, and is more labor-intensive than horticulture.
- Horticulture — plant cultivation, based on the use of simple tools.
- Pastoralism, the raising of grazing animals:
- Pastoral nomadism — all members of the pastoral society follow the herd throughout the year.
- Transhumance or agro-pastoralism — part of the society follows the herd, while the other part maintains a home village.
- Ranch agriculture — non-nomadic pastoralism with a defined territory.
- Distribution and exchange:
- Redistribution
- Reciprocity — exchange between social equals.
- Potlatching — a widely studied ritual in which sponsors (helped by their entourages) gave away resources and manufactured wealth while generating prestige for themselves.
- LETS — Local Exchange Trading Systems.
- A parasitical society, subsisting on the produce of a separate host society:
- Raiding
- Conquest
- Garbage picking, when subsisting in a larger economy
See also
- Amish
- Anthropological theories of value
- Back-to-the-land movement
- Lasse Nordlund
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Natural economy
- Poverty
- Shakers
- Simple living
- Staple food
- Society
- Subsistence crisis
- Tiny house movement
References
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- ↑ 'Subsistence agriculture' in: Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, eds. (1996) Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, London and New York: Routledge, p.624.
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Chief Seattle to President Pierce regarding sale of land
- ↑ Marshall Sahlins (1972) Stone Age Economics, Chicago and New York: Aldine-Atherton, passim e.g. pp.17,34,42,50.
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