Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:26:22.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Particular Theory of Exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Get access

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
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey, F. G., Stratagems and Spoils. A social anthropology of politics (Oxford, Blackwell, 1969).Google Scholar
Barth, F., Models of Social Organisation (Londor, R.A.I., 1966), Occ. Pap. Anthrop. Inst. 23.Google Scholar
Blau, P.M., Exchange and Power in Social Life (New York, Wiley, 1964).Google Scholar
Boulding, K. E., Notes on a Theory of Philanthropy, in Dickinson, F. G. (ed.), Philanthropy and Public Policy (London, Columbia U.P., 1962), N.B.E.R.Google Scholar
Burns, T., A Structural Theory of Social Exchange, Acta Sociologica, III (1973), 188208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Codere, H., Exchange and Display, International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, V (1968), 239245.Google Scholar
Cook, S., The Obsolete anti-Market Mentality. A critique of the substantivist approach to economic anthropology, Am.Anth., LXVIII (1966), 323345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, G., Theoretical Issues in Economic Anthropology, Current Anthrop., X (1969), 63101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, J., Passatella, . An economic game, Brit. J. Soc., XV (1964), 191206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, J., Honour and Politics in Pisticci, Proc. R. Anthr. Inst., (1969).Google Scholar
Davis, J., Gifts and the U.K. Economy, Man, VII (1972) n.s., 408429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, J., Forms and Norms. The economy of social relations, Man, VIII (1973) n.s., 159176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firth, R., Essays on Social Organisation and Values (London, Athlone, 1964), L.S.E. Monog. Soc. Anth. 28.Google Scholar
Firth, R., Primitive Polynesian Economy (London, Routledge, 1965).Google Scholar
Gellner, E., Concepts and Society, Trans. Fifth World Congress of Sociology (1962). Repr. in B. R. WILSON (ed.), ationality (Oxford, Blackwell, 1970), pp.18–49.Google Scholar
Godelier, M., Rationality and Irrationality in Economics, trs. by Pearce, B. (London, New Left Books, 1972).Google Scholar
Goodfellow, D. M., Principles of Economic Sociology (London, Routledge, 1939).Google Scholar
Gouldner, A. W., The Norm of Reciprocity. A preliminary statement. Am. Sociol. Rev., XXV (1960), 1961–78.Google Scholar
Higgs, H., Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy (London, Macmillan, 1926), 3 vols.Google Scholar
Homans, G.C., Social Behaviour as Exchange, Am. Journ. Sociol., LXIII (1958), 597606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Homans, G.C., Social Behaviour. Its elementary forms (London, Routledge, 1961).Google Scholar
Institute of Economic Affairs: The Economics of Charity. Essays on the comparative economics and ethics of giving and selling, with applications to blood (London, I.E.A., 1973), readings 12.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Ci., Introduction à I'œuvre de Marcel Mauss, in Mauss, M., Anthropologie et sociologie (Paris, P.U.F., 1950), ILII.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B., Argonauts of the Western Pacific (London, Routledge, 1922).Google Scholar
Meeker, B. F., Decisions and Exchange, Am. Sociol. Rev., XXXVI (1971), 485495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mises, L. von, Human Action. A treatise of economics (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1949).Google Scholar
Orioo, I., A Measure of Love (London, Cape, 1957).Google Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, J., Honour and Social Status, in Peristiany, J. G. (ed.), Honour and Shame. The values of Mediterranean society (London, Weidenfeld, 1965), pp. 1978.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, J.T., The Purchase of Paradise. The social functions of aristocratic benevolence, 1307–1485 (London, Routledge, 1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, M.D., Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief. Political types of Melanesia and Polynesia, Comp. Stud. Soc. Hist., V (1963), 285303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, M.D., On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange, in Banton, M. (ed.). The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology (London, Tavistock, 1965), A.S.A. Monog. 1, pp. 139236.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M.D., Stone Age Economics (Chicago, Aldine, 1972).Google Scholar
Shurmer, P., The Gift Game, New Society, XVIII (1971), p. 482.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. A., Carlyle at his Zenith, 1848–1853 (London, Kegan Paul, 1927).Google Scholar
Wilson, D. A., Carlyle to threescore-and-ten, 1853–1865 (London, Kegan Paul, 1929).Google Scholar