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Making a Living
In chapter 8 of Kottaks Cultural Anthropology book, we will tackle the topic of
Making a Living. This chapter shows us on how Yehudi Cohen used the term
adaptive strategy to describe a groups system of economic production. Yehudi
Cohen argued that the most important reason for similarities among societies is their
possession of similar adaptive strategy. For example, a certain group may have a
specific technique of hunting and gathering while another group can have the same
technique without having to be influenced by the group who pioneered the technique.
This only goes to show how extraordinary the human mind is even without a origin
of an influence. Yehudi Cohen described five adaptive strategies: foraging,
horticultural, agricultural, pastoralism, and industrialism. We will go through each
adaptive strategies and its different factors.
The fourth adative strategy is Pastoralism. Pastoralists are herders who focus on
animals such as goats, sheep, cattle, camels, and yaks. Traditional pastoralists are
found in parts of north and eastern Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.
Hereders have a symbiosis with the domesticated animals. It is an obligatory
nteraction between groups-here humans ans animals- that is beneficial to each other.
And the fifth and final adaptive strategy is industrialism. Industrialism is a large
scale, industrial production, involving factories and mechanization. Industrial
production can be either capitalist or socialist. Industrialism relies on corporate
agriculture. Means of production. The means, or factors of production, involve
territory, labor, and technology. In non-industrial societies, there is a closer
relationship between laborers and the means of production. In industrial societies,
there is frequent alienation of the workers from the means of production. The Market
Principle: operates in a capitalist economy by governing the distribution of land,
labor, natural resources, technology, and capital. Items are bought and sold, and rely
on the law of supply and demand. Redistribution: goods and services move towards
the center, then redistributed (example: Cherokee chiefs).