“Apes do evidently understand what others are doing, and they can prudently do the same, in which sense they "cooperate"—for their own reasons. But they lack the ability to symbolically participate in others' existence and thus communalize their own. [...] "Traditional models of economic decision-making assume that people are self-interested rational maximizers. Empirical research has demonstrated, however, that people will take into account the interest of others and are sensitive to norms of cooperation and fairness. [...] Here we show that in an ultimatum game, humans' closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), are rational maximizers and are not sensitive to fairness. These results support the hypothesis that other-regarding preferences and aversion to inequitable outcomes, which play key roles in human social organization, distinguish us from our closest living relatives." {Jensen, Call, and To masello 2007, 107; see also Jensen et al. 2006) So much, then, for the dismal economic science—whose future is not bright either, inasmuch as chimpanzees are disappearing.” EmpathyEconomicsDecision MakingHuman BehaviorRationalityPrimatesUtilitarianismPrimitivismMutuality Of Being Book:What Kinship Is-And Is Not Source: What Kinship Is-And Is Not
“One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture.” Has BeensSaidAgeNightHumanityCultureHalfEvolutionAmountBedStonesThirdsIncreaseInstitutionsHungerHungryErasFormulasEvery NightReverseStarvationFractionsUnprecedentedOne HalfStone Age Book:Stone Age Economics Source: Stone Age Economics
“The world's most 'primitive' people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. It has grown with civilization, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation.” PeopleWorldMeanEndsCertainSocialPoorClassPovertyAmountCivilizationRelationPossessionInventionDistinctionGoodsPrimitiveSmall AmountsSocial Status Book:Stone Age Economics Source: Stone Age Economics
“We can reproduce within our own minds the way that the world is put together for other people. This is the extraordinary privilege and adventure of anthropology.” PeopleWorldWayMindTogetherAdventureExtraordinaryPrivilegeAnthropology Author:Marshall Sahlins
“Beyond Bookchin”, David Watson, of Fifth Estate, argues that aboriginal society represents a viable Utopia. He quotes favourably the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins; “We are inclined to think of hunters and gatherers as poor because they don’t have anything, perhaps better to think of them for that reason as free.” ThinkingReasonPoorArguingEstatesHuntersFifthUtopiaWatsonAboriginalAnthropologists Author:Marshall Sahlins
