Scarcity

[Forstater, Mathew]

There is interesting ethnographic work on the ways that different knowledges,
technologies, medicines have been utilized in communities with little class
formation, where capitalism has penetrated to differening degrees, etc.  Maasai
ilmurran (wrongly translated as "warriors") have become adept at modern vetinary
practices and it is reported that the Maasai in traditional garb with hypodermic
needle tucked into the robe is a common sight.  Interestingly, while the
technology is new, the role of the ilmurran as responsible for health of the
herd is not.  There are many other interesting examples.  Bicycles and radios
are new, but the institutionalized sharing is not.  Maasai were the first in
Africa to use the Colonial court system to try to reverse assignment to
reserves.  Thus, it has been noted that Maasai use new institutions,
technologies, etc., to assist in *maintaining* their way of life.  The
developments that have had the most negative impact are commoditization,
privatization, monetiziation, marketization.  But even there, some of these have
been used as means of preserving traditional relations and institutions.  For
example, selling some livestock at markets to raise cash for vetinary supplies,
supplement diets, for motorcycles, etc.  But the impacts are
contradictory--commoditization has hurt reciprocity (people sell cattle, milk,
instead of giving it away), and reciprocal gift-giving was crucial to social
reproduction.  Why anyone would think that discussing this indicates promoting
mixing blood in our milk or becoming transhumant pastoralists is puzzling to me.
But understanding that rotational grazing preserves the ecological basis for
socio-economic continuity can inform contemporary policy with regards to use of
common resources, etc.  Mat

-----Original Message-----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi [mailto:furuhashi.1 at osu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 10:53 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: Re: Scarcity

Gordon wrote:


>Doug Henwood:
>>  I'm hoping that complexity could come without authoritarianism and
>>  hierarchy. I would not like to live in a "simpler" society, if that
>>  meant no antibiotics or fiber optics. So, I guess I'm trying to evade
>>  the forced binary, though I really wonder if I can.
>
>Well, you're missing all the wonderful inventions the 23nd
>century will bring us.  Eating your heart out?

Walter Benjamin wrote: "One of the most remarkable characteristics of 
human nature, writes Lotze, is, alongside so much selfishness in 
specific instances, the freedom from envy which the present displays 
toward the future.  Reflection shows us that our image of happiness 
is thoroughly colored by the time to which the course of our own 
existence has assigned us.  The kind of happiness that could arouse 
envy in us exists only in the air we have breathed, among people we 
could have talked to, women who could have given themselves to us. 
In other words, our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with 
the image of redemption" (at 
<http://iwebs.upol.cz/kw/texts/history.htm>).

Yoshie