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The Particular Theory of Exchange
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
For the past half-century economic anthropologists have been trying to come to terms with the obvious, recognised, indisputable fact that non-industrial economies “feel different” from industrial ones. How to express and communicate that difference? Some people thought they could do it sociologically, preserving as much as possible offormal economic theory, explaining deviation by invoking social influence on universalrationality, allowing the possibility that their evidence and insights might contributeto the proper development of a body of theory acknowledged imperfect and unstable (i). Others thought they could do it economically: they invoked distinct principles of integration and gave them an analytical status equal to rationality (2). For the most part different people took these rather different paths; they were academics and quickly engaged in controversy, tied labels to their opponents (formalist to the first, substantivist to the second) and held no truck with them. Firth alone tried to avoid entrenchment and was prepared to make propositions in both modes (3).
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , November 1975 , pp. 151 - 168
- Copyright
- Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1975
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