The economists and the primitive societies

Roberto Marchionatti

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2012, vol. 41, issue 5, 529-540

Abstract: The extension of economics to topics that lie outside its classical domain is known as ‘economic imperialism’. But there are territories of social science that persist to be largely intractable using the postulates of economic theory: the anthropological subject of primitive societies represents one such territory. This paper describes and discusses the representation of primitive societies by economists from the proto-imperialist model of Smith to the imperialist Posner's model. It maintains that (a) the economists’ attempt at interpretation is highly unsatisfactory and (b) it is possible to offer a different representation of the primitive societies, one more coherent with the anthropological and ethnographical data, and able to show the inadequacy and insubstantiality of many economic categories when applied to those societies.

Keywords: Primitive societies; Economics and anthropology; Critique of economic imperialism; Rationality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B1 B2 B3 B4 P4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:41:y:2012:i:5:p:529-540

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2012.04.021

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