1494 . American Anthropologist [68, 19661

rights and duties (the various types of heirs, testators, etc.), as well as the rights and duties themselves. A componential analysis is usually concluded rather than started with a set of components that define segregates of the analyzed matrix.

In conclusion I would like to suggest that for the sake of accuracy, clarity, and objectivity it is always better to quote the author that one is about to criticize than to proceed in the loose way that is Goldberg’s practice.

LEOPOLD POSPISIL Yale University

REFERENCES CITED

HAXMEL, E. A. 1965 Introduction. American Anthropologist 67, no. 5, pt. 2: 1-8,

POSPISIL, LEOPOLD 1964 Law and societal structure among the Nunamiut Eskimo. I n Explorations in

cultural anthropology. W. H. Goodenough, ed. New York, McGraw-Hill. 196% A formal analysis of substantive law: Kapauku Papuan laws of inheritance.

American Anthropologist 67, no. 6, pt. 2: 166-185. 196513 A formal analysis of substantive law: Kapauku Papuan laws of land tenure.

American Anthropologist 67, no. 5, pt. 2: 186-214.

MAXIMIZATION, ECONOMIC THEORY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY : A REPLY TO CANCIAN

To express my principal thesis as concisely as possible: Cancian has “maxi- mized” (i,e., rationally calculated) economics out of anthropology by equating “formalist” economics with the study of maximization processes. In reducing the formalist-substantivist split in economic anthropology to a difference in problem-focus (i.e,, study of maximization vs. study of institutions)-an exer- cise that no doubt reflects his sincere effort to simplify some abstruse discus- sions-Cancian has, I believe, glossed over certain critical differences in ap- proach among the “formalists” and has failed to appreciate the wider theo- retical-philosophical implications of issues that have emerged in the recent literature. Finally, although Cancian’s comments were apparently conciliatory in aim, underlying his main argument is a variation on the substantivist theme that the “formalists” are nonanthropological (i.e., “subinstitutional”) in their approach to the study of economics.

Cancian’s use of the term “formalist” raises doubts in my mind as to whether this label can have any further denotative value in economic anthro- pological discourse. In my article (Cook 1966:327) I employed the term in an epistemological sense in opposition to the “romanticist” syndrome, and in that context it served a useful expository purpose. However, in equating “formal- ist” with “maximizationalist,” Cancian implies the existence of a degree of theoretical consensus among the critics and nonpractitioners of the substan- tivist approach that is not evident from their writings. To illustrate this point we can consider his treatment of what he terms “the two principal formalist articles to appear in this journal” (1966:467), namely, those by Burling

Brief Communications 1495

(1962) and LeClair (1962). While Cancian is correct in asserting that both of these authors define economics in terms of “economizing” or L‘maximization,” he fails to note the crucial difference in their positions vis-a-vis the role of max- imization as a general social-scientific strategy. Whereas Burling, in unequivo- cal terms, advocates the general applicability of the economist’s maximization model, LeClair is more cautious in his remarks: “TO suggest that economics may logically concern itself with all of social life does not imply that economics can satisfactorily explain all of social life” (1962: 1182). “Certainly,” continues LeClair, “no logical basis for such a view can be established” (1962:1182). Furthermore, whereas Burling advocates the extreme position of excluding technology, subsistence, and ecology from the “economic” realm (1962 : 804- 805), LeClair carefully and, I think, more correctly incorporates these into his “abstract-analytical” model of the economic system (1962: 1188-1196).

In Cancian’s reduction exercise, which hinges upon his critique of Homan’s work, he formulates his own version of a fundamental tenet in the substanti- vist ideology, which can be most conveniently expressed in the following two sets of syllogisms: I. (a) Proposition 1:

(b) Proposition 2:

(c) Proposition 3:

11. (a) Proposition 1:

Substantivist economics = study of norms, institutions, or culture

Anthropology= study of norms, institutions, or cultwe

Substantivist economics = anthropology

Formalist economics= study of economizing or maximizing (rn- tional calculation), without regard to particular time and place (i.e., norms, institutions, or culture) ; it is “subinstitutional”

(b) Proposition 2: Nonanthropology = nonconsideration of norms, institutions, or culture

(c ) Proposition 3: Formalist economics = nonanthropology

This reasoning may indeed be applicable to Homans and to other social scientists (including most economists) who study the logic of choice and maxi- mization in human decision-making, but it has little relevance to an evaluation of the work of economic anthropologists like Goodfellow, Firth, Belshaw, Salis- bury, Pospisil, etc., who are greatly concerned with “culture” and “context” in their application of models, principles, and concepts from economic theory to the analysis of primitive and peasant economies. Yet Cancian, referring to the “formalists,” states that “there is no reason to think that measures (operationalizations) devised by non-anthropologists (economists) for a part of our own culture (the economy) are less subject to difficulties than measures devised by anthropologists with a cross-cultural perspective” (1966: 469), and concludes with a warning that “we cannot expect to borrow procedures for

1496 American Anthropologist [68, 19661

operationalization from the economists” (1966: 469). “Operationalization” is, however, an ad hoc process that each anthropologist who has drawn upon the economist’s theoretical tool kit has worked out in accoidance with the specific problems and situations involved in his own particular research. Moreover, economic anthropologists (Cancian’s “formalists”) like Firth and Salisbury have never sought procedures for operationalization from economists but, rather, have borrowed from them modes of conceptualization and analytical models in the search for meaningful insights into the nature of economic behavior.

More relevant (than the problem of operationalization) to the issues raised by Cancian’s comments is a set of philosophical problems dealing with the interrelationship between epistemological “levels” or “orders.” Do, for ex- ample, labels such as “maximization,” “economy,” “economic system,” and “economic relations” refer to similar or to distinct epistemological entities? As I conceive it, the concepts of “economic relations” and “economy” belong to the epistemological order of empirical things and events, or, if you will, they are approximate representations of concrete experiences and perceived empirical data. As an anthropological field worker, I cannot directly observe an “economy,” but I can observe acts and/or activities (i.e., “economic rela- tions”) that are components of an “economy.” In contrast, “maximization” and “economic system” are conceptual creatures of the epistemological order of “model-building” and theoretical analysis, in which the basic operations performed tend to be more a priori than a posteriori in nature, with deductive reasoning being relied upon to yield heuristic conceptualizations. There is a precedent in the recent anthropological literature for the argument I am mak- ing here since a good case can be made for a distinct parallel between LBvi- Strauss’ position on social structure and the economists’ (and, by implication, certain economic anthropologists’) position on economic theory. The object of studies in economic theory for economists (like that of social structure studies for LLvi-Strauss) is to understand economic relations with the help of models. For economists the term “economic system” (like the term “social structure” for Lhi-Strauss) has nothing to do with empirical reality, but with models that are built up after it. For economists, economic relations are the raw data of social experience of which the model or models comprising the “economic sys- tem” are built. The economic system, on the other hand, belongs to a different epistemological category; it can never be reduced to the ensemble of the eco- nomic relations to be described in a given society,’ That Cancian has a different conception of the nature of economic theory is obvious from his statements {1966:468) about LeClair’s article, As I interpret it, this article is essentially an attempt to translate economic theory into a form that has more direct rele- vance to anthropological (i.e., cross-cultural and empirical) inquiry. LeClair’s model of the economic system, it seems to me, represents a mid-level in ab- straction between the highly abstract models of economic theory and the min- imally abstract “descriptive” models of the anthropologist.”

Finally, one gets the impression from Cancian’s discussion that maximi- zation is a great deal more in economic theory than simply one of the com-

Brief Commltnicadions 1497

ponent postulates in the economists’ model of man, which, taken by itself, must necessarily present a distorted view of that model. If I understand it correctly, the economists’ model is conceived as a heuristic device to assist in the analysis of choice situations under scarcity conditions-choice that the economist assumes is exercised in accordance with culturally determined pref- erence scales. Since economic models, concepts, and principles are essentially deductive and heuristic in character, i t follows that they can be applied to the analysis of exchange situations regardless of whether maximization is a norm or whether there is a prescription to maximize in terms of the very objects being exchanged (in the empirical situation being analyzed), as Cancian sug- gests (1966:466). Rottenberg has concisely expressed an axiom that many economic anthropologists have long recognized and that all who wish to appreciate the role of economic theory in anthropology must understand: “ . . . the significant question is not whether real-world duplicates can be found to the assumptions (of economic theory), but whether real-world observed experience duplicates theoretically derived predictions” (1958: 677). I n the spirit of clarification it might be admitted that while Cancian may be right about the shortcomings of maximization as a strategy in social-scientific inquiry, he does not appreciate the subtleties of relationship between economic theory and anthropology in the work of many economic anthropologists, that is, those he labels “formalists.”a

SCOTT COOK Oaxaca, Mexico4

NOTES

’The above statements have been paraphrased from an expository paragraph on Levi- Strauss’ thought in Nutini 1965:708.

LeClair’s intentions are expressed quite clearly in his section on “The Structure of an Economic System,” in which he distinguishes between “descriptive” and “abstract-analytical” models (1962: 1193). Given the obviously theoretical nature of LeClair’s discussion in the latter half of his paper, in which he posits the fundamental properties of the economic system, I am at a loss to understand Cancian’s assertion that LeClair “does not refer to theory at all in the positive part of his paper” (1966:468).

8 A major obstacle that I encountered in attempting to understand Cancian’s comments is his ambiguous use of the term “norm” and his failure to clarify the level (or order) to which hi statements about maximization are being directed (i.e., the level of observable behavioral acts or the level of nonobservable and inputed motives underlying behavioral acts). With regard to his use of the term “norm,” I found four apparently distinct meanings in the space of five pan- graphs: (1) as “part of an institution” (1966:466); (2) “normative” 8s synonymous with “institutional”-“ . . , does not obviate the normative or institutional dierences” (1966:467); (3) as an ideal guide to behavior (Le., as values or prescriptions) -Ii . . . maximizing adherence to some norm or set of norms, but none of these norms is itself a prescription to maximize” (1966:466); (4) as synonymous with “motive”--“ . . . seeking out the norms or motives (or what- ever the investigator sees as the impetus of behavior)” (1966:466). With regard to the question of “levels,” the following unqualified assertion by Cancian can be cited: “In the exchange of Christmas gifts (in my American culture) it is appropriate to maximize equality of exchange” (1966:467). In the first place, I don’t think that “maximize” is the proper word in the context of the sentence; it would be better replaced by a word like “seek.” But be that as it may, the assertion, in my opinion, confounds two discrete levels of analysis: the institutional (or socio- logical) and the motivational (or psychological). One could rephrase the statement 80 as to

1498 American A nlhropologisl [68, 19661

eliminate this confusion as follows: “In American society there exists the custom of exchanging gifts at Christmas. In considering this phenomenon in the light of anthropological knowledge concerning types of exchange in various cultures, indications are that it represents a ‘balanced exchange’ (that is, a direct exchange in which reciprocation is the customary equivalent of the good or service received and is without delay [Sahlins 1963: 145-1491).’’ In this form the statement is strictly sociological and makes no assumptions as to the motivational structure underlying the exchanges. Alm, at the riek of making too much of Cancian’s example, I would hypothesize that in American society the motivations underlying gift exchanges at Christmas vary in terms of certain attributes of the exchanging parties (e.g., social status, kinship, etc.). One would expect to find, for example, a different set of motives in an exchange between a broker and a customer than between, say, two school boys or a brother and a sister.

4 The writer is a PHS Predoctoral Fellow with the Department of Anthropology at the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh and is currently conducting field work under a NIMH grant among Zapotec- speaking peasant-artisan groups in the valley of Oaxaca, Mexico.

REFERENCES CITED

BURLINO, ROBBINS 1962 Maximization theories and the study of economic anthropology. American Anthro-

CANCIAN, FRANK 1966 Maximization as norm, strategy, and theory: a comment on programmatic state-

ments in economic anthropology. American Anthropologist 68:465-470.

1966 The obsolete “anti-market” mentality: a critique of the substantive approach to economic anthropology. American Anthropologist 68: 323-345.

1962 Economic theory and economic anthropology. American Anthropologist 64: 1179- 1203.

N m , HUGO G. 1965 Some considerations on the nature of social structure and model building: a critique

of Claude LCvi-Strauss and Edmund Leach. American Anthropologist 67: 707-731.

1958 Review of trade and market in the early empires. American Economic Review 48:675-678.

1963 On the sociology of primitive exchange. Working draft for the ASA conference, London, June 25-30.

pologist 64: 802-821.

COOK, SCOTT

LECLUR, EDWARD E,, JR.

ROTTENBEPQ, SIMON

S A H ~ S , MARSHALL D.

ON PATRILOCAL BANDS The propositions advanced by Roger Owen in his recent paper, “The Patri-

local Band: A Linguistically and Culturally Hybrid Social Unit” (1965), are not without interest. But generalizations of this kind are only as good as the ethnography upon which they are based, and in this case the ethnography is quite bad. The local organization of food-gatherers has, by and large, been so little studied that i t is doubtful whether there is sufficient evidence to accept (or reject) Owen’s formulations or even the classic typology of Steward (1936; 1955 : 101-150). Owen compounds this difficulty by considering food-gathering societies a t much too general a level, by very incompletely covering the lit- erature on some of the “societies” he considers, and by what may be loosely termed “misinterpreting the data” in some cases.

Since at least the timeof Steward’sfirst study (1936), it has been custom-