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Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins (1972)
Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins (1972)
Beginning as a presentation in 1966, what Sahlins challenged was the historic prejudice which dismissed the rights and value of ‘undeveloped’ societies and their ‘state of nature’.
‘A Book in Five Minutes’ No.16 Podcast:
Download podcast as an MP3 or an Ogg Vorbis file.
Given the various forms of public anguish about the ‘cost of living crisis’, I thought it would be a good time to do another three-part ‘special’ focussing on the nature of how we live our lives – both today, and in the distant past – to objectively question the basis of this ‘modern’ lifestyle.
The first book is Marshall Sahlins’, ‘Stone Age Economics’ – published fifty years ago in 1972.
‘Stone Age Economics’:
First hardback edition, 1972. ISBN 9780-2020-1098-4.
First paperback edition, 1972. ISBN 9780-2020-1099-1.
Routledge revised paperback edition, 2017. ISBN 9781-1387-0261-5.
Free PDF of first edition, via Libcom.
Free text/PDF/epub of first edition, via Internet Archive.
Beginning with a presentation in 1966, ‘Notes on The Original Affluent Society’, what Sahlins challenged was the historic prejudice which dismissed the rights and value of ‘undeveloped’ societies and their ‘state of nature’ (I will not use the word, ‘primitive’, in this context as that is even more politically loaded).
The idea of ‘undeveloped’ societies lacking economic legitimacy, and therefore supremacy over their lands and resources, had been evolved by figures such as Hobbes and Locke in the Seventeenth Century; and was the basis of the justification which permitted the expropriation of land, and the enslavement of peoples, in Africa and the Americas under early European imperial expansion.
As Sahlins says:
“The familiar conception… makes assumptions peculiarly appropriate to market economies: that man’s wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited, although improvable…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
‘Fuel Poverty, the Cost of Living Crisis, and Climate Change’ – A Data Blog
‘Fuel Poverty, the Cost of Living Crisis, and Climate Change’ – A Data Blog
Finding solutions to immediate problems and our future needs requires some difficult decisions, and if not thought-out, short-term thinking might create contradictory responses.
This is a film of my latest ‘data blog’: Ripping apart the statistics on energy, carbon emissions, and consumption, and finding that there’s a fundamental problem with the may politics and the media are debating both energy prices, and tackling climate change.
In this analysis, using recent research and statistics on consumption in the UK, I show how those most directly responsible for climate change are the most affluent 10% or so – both globally, but even on the most affluent nations consumption there is still dominated by the top 10% of the most affluent consumers.
While politics and the media refuse to engage with this reality – and dare I say, many environmentalists who represent a far more affluent demographic than average – then there will be no solution to climate change. For without a core of global and national equity and solidarity, where those which the biggest footprint take the largest reductions, we will not be able to create the conditions where the majority of the population can have confidence that the ‘costs’ of climate adaptation are being borne equally by all.
To view the text/download the data blog, as well as the audio podcast, go to the web page for this post:http://www.fraw.org.uk/blog/posts/019…
It would really help to promote this work if you could follow, subscribe, or like my social media presence — which can be accessed from the link above. In today’s digital analytics popularity contest, all that button-pressing means something in this messed-up world.
#ClimateCrisis #FuelPrices #poverty
The Autumn Raspberry Harvest
The Autumn Raspberry Harvest
Preserving food is not just ‘cooking’; preserving food requires that you think about the future. Hence why growing and preserving food can be a window into planning a new future.
‘An Anarchist’s Cookbook’,
Part 4 Podcast:
Download this recording as:
An MP3 file; or an Ogg Vorbis file
Page bookmarks
(use section number as a hotkey to jump to it, and ‘0’ to jump back to the bookmarks list).
Consumerism isolates & disconnects: The media hypes the desire for this lifestyle, while we struggle to obtain the cash to buy it; and in this process its hyper-individualism turns our focus inwards, isolating us from other people and the natural world.
From climate change to resource depletion, the systems which underpin that lifestyle are failing (though if you are in the ‘precariat’, arguably that happened twenty years ago). Finding a solution to the trap of affluence, or of state-dependent poverty, requires the same practical response:
Opening-up to new habitual methods for living.
“It’s a connection thing…”
This post started out as a simple idea: To document how I tend, pick, store, and use the raspberries that grow in the garden. It’s a thing I do as part of daily life. It’s not a chore that needs doing; it’s a release from the ‘dead’ energy of consumerism, to engage instead with the positive, natural, life-giving energies of own-made food.
OK then, it’s not that simple! Thing is, preserving food is not cooking! It requires that you think about your future. This is about raspberries, but it could equally be about seed sprouting, growing lettuce in boxes, or foraging (which is what the next post will cover).
‘The Limits to Growth’ (1972)
‘The Limits to Growth’ (1972)
Published in 1972, and shrouded in controversy since that date, ‘The Limits to Growth’ is the most successful econometric projection ever made.
The idea of these of blog posts is to introduce people to some ‘historic’ books and reports, which I think should be more widely read. To start, I thought I’d pick a book that for years has been vilified or deliberately ignored. Any discussion of its content is shrouded in controversy. It’s the 1972 book, ‘The Limits to Growth’.
My version is a second revised edition from 1974. Its 200 pages are a little more beaten-up than when I bought it second hand, as I refer to it quite a bit in debates.
Paul Ehrlich’s, ‘The Population Bomb’, had launched a debate about humans and the environment. Problem was, that book is based on pretty poor data. To resolve that lack of evidence, a group of scientists decided to create a properly researched model to look at humanity’s effect on their finite environment.
At this time ‘systems science’, computer models, and computer-based projection, were a very new thing – relatively little understood by politicians and the public. This new application of mathematics had arisen out of Cold War strategic planning. Applying it to global ecological issues was, though, a revolutionary idea.
The group outlined its work on page 27:
The model we have constructed is, like every other model, imperfect, oversimplified, and unfinished. We are well aware of its shortcomings, but we believe that it is the most useful model now available for dealing with problems…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
