Notes for The Original Affluent Society

by Benjamin Hunnicutt

Maybe we still have to work hard to live nowadays, but at least we have it a lot better that all other peoples in the world and throughout history. We have the twin blessing of technology; we have more stuff and we don't have to work nearly so hard. Right?

Wrong!

Marshal Sahlin's discovery that the "Original Affluent Society" is to be found among tribal and Paleolithic people is still something of a shock to modern prejudice. Most of us assume that pre-industrial folk have to work like slaves virtually all the time to keep from starving or being eaten by bears, or whatever. For years I have relished the surprise, even dismay among students in my classes when I reveal the anthologists' discovery that our industrial societies are poverty-stricken in the time we have to live, compared to the rest of humanity throughout history.

Sahlin's pointed out that there two avenues to affluence; the modern "Galbraithin Way" and the old fashioned "Zen Way." Today, following the "Galbrathian Way," we work harder and harder so that we will always have more. The problem is that as our standard of living improves, we want even more- the gap between what we have and what we "need" never seems to get smaller. Indeed, this is a fundamental reality of modern economies.

As a result there seems to be precious little time left for anything other than work and endless chores. And things seem to get worse. All is speed and rush, whirl and flux. Our lives race ahead, the pace ever more breathless. And the race seems to get longer. We become long-distance runners, plunging headlong at a sprinter's pace.

The "Galbrathian Way" seems to be a case of the Tantalus fable come true-- a new version of the old story in which the gods punish humans by dangling all kinds of goodies in front of us, goodies that remain just out of reach regardless of how hard we try to get them.

The "Zen Way," by contrast, finds "affluence" at hand. Limiting what you need to what is available and easily obtained results in a different kind of wealth, a wealth of time; a sort of quietude, a peaceful pace, a taking of one's time that we moderns have simply forgotten is possible.

This is how some anthropologists describe "stone-age economics" -- the world of present-day hunter-gatherers. They may seem to us desperately poor in material things, but they are rich in time to live. Their economic security depends on "enough," not more, and for them "enough is as good as a feast."

Some time ago, a number of anthropologists were surprised to find that the hunter-gatherer people they visited did things that they could recognize as work for only four to six hours a day-- in some cases only fifteen or sixteen hours a week. Even though these claims have been subject to rigorous theoretical critique and empirical examination over the years, they have held up surprisingly well. Now enshrined in most text books, they has become as close to accepted "truth" as it gets in anthropology.

Anthropologists also agree that what we do and call work is very different from pre-industrial peoples of the world. Our daily grind; our regular, sustained job dictated by economic "necessity," is virtually unknown among hunter-gathering people. It may well be that our way of working is historically unique. Work for tribal folk is highly irregular, seasonal, intermittent and very hard to distinguish from other kinds of daily activities that serve a variety purposes other than solving the Economic Problem.

To illustrate this contrast, I will retell a series of stories about hunter-gatherers and their "work."

For example, McCarthy and McArthur recorded the activities of a member of the Fish Camp group of the Arnhem Land hunters. Among the Fish Camp people, this individual, Wilira, came closest to what we might recognized as a person with a real job. He was recognized as the group's "full-time craftsman." He did not go hunting with the other men but spent his time in haphazard fashion. One day he would net fish industriously, then rest several days. Occasionally he would decide to go out in the bush looking for bees' nests or whatever struck his fancy. His main responsibility, however, was to repair spears and spear-throwers and make smoking pipes and stone axes- for which he was highly regarded for his skills. But he did his "job" only by request, or as the notion took him, spending what we would see as an inordinate amount of time making elaborate preparation and observing complex rituals that surrounded his "work." His was anything but a regular routine. Indeed, from the anthropologist's point of view, he idled away most of his life; eating, sleeping, walking around or gossiping.

Similarly, hunting among the Mbuti is scarcely what we would think of as a job. Like Wilira's, the Mbuti's "work" was highly irregular. Occasionally they would spend the whole day out in the bush. But on these occasions they would regularly kill enough "game" to last several days, during which time they seemed to be happily unoccupied, at least in terms of the tribe's economic needs.

The way they hunted resembled our sport of hunting more than anything we would recognize as an regular "occupation." The Mbuti were just as likely to go out roaming for no purpose other than to be out in the "giving" forest, collecting beautiful or interesting things that had no real "economic value," returning to camp just as pleased with the days' jaunt as if they had made a major kill. (Bird-David, p 30)

Women among the hunter-gatherers typically have a more regular routine. Still they seem to be rich in time from the modern perspective. For example, the women of Australian Bushmen gather enough food in one day to feed the family for three days. Between these gathering forays, they spend their time leisurely in camp, resting, doing embroidery, visiting, and entertaining friends. Even though their "household chores" are more regular than the hunters' routines, still the women's cooking, nut cracking, collecting firewood, going for water, usually take them less than four hours. The rhythm of their daily work is interlaced liberally with "free time."(Sahlins p.23

Anthropologist also tend to agree that with the "advance" of civilizations, work time increases significantly and work become more subject to routine. Men in village cultures work considerably longer, and more regularly than hunter-gatherers, and industrial societies work longer still. Minge-Klevana points out that women in agricultural societies work between 2 and 7.4 hours a day inside the home, while women in postindustrial societies work between 5.8 and 9.5 hours.

So if they don't work, what do they do, the lazy rascals?

I will include several stories to illustrate how tribal cultures spend their time not-working. I will try to draw two main contrasts; between the pace of life of "primitives" and our own culture of "faster," and between the use of non-work time among hunter-gatherers for culture building and maintenance, and our own understanding of "leisure" as a commodity, and use of "free time" for private, passive consumption.

Tony Hillerman, author of the delightful mystery series set among Native American peoples in Southwestern United States, spices his tales with solid anthropological insights. He tells this story: On the trail of a child murderer, the Navaho cop, Joe Leaphorn, discusses the whereabouts of a second, missing boy with a village priest. They agree that the boy, an enthusiast of Zuņi rituals, may be on a pilgrimage to Kothluwalawa, the "dance hall of the dead," in search of his murdered friend. The priest, Ingles, speculates about Zuņi beliefs, observing that this is a "'rather poetic concept. In life, ritual dancing for the Zuņi is sort of a perfect expression of...' He paused, searching for the word. 'Call it ecstasy, or joy, or community unity. So what do you do when you're beyond life, with no labors to perform? You spend your time dancing.'" Dance Hall of the Dead p 146

I will include other examples of such "non-pecuniary," cultural uses of time, leading to these--- Conclusions.

I will try to make this basic point. "Work" (activity done primarily to meet economic needs) is embedded in pre-industrial cultures. There is no clear separation of work and leisure as we understand it. I will argue that what we recognize as "work," is most often subordinate to, and blended with, other kinds of activities that serve extra-economic purposes.

The modern view that all cultures are established primarily to meet some kind of everlasting, universal economic challenge simply does not fit most hunter gathering (and village dwelling) people of the world.

I will review some of the recent theoretical developments in anthropology and history that relate to this point. I will discuss how the long-standing economic understanding of culture has been effectively challenged by recent interpretations that see economies as expressions of the cultures of which they are a part-- not vice versa.

Abandoning the base/superstructure model (the suggestion that culture and society are always erected on an economic foundation), I agree with recent findings that culture and community, not economics or class are history's critical forces.

Before we are "economic man," we are social, cultural creatures. Our first "job" is living together. As we met this challenge, we are then able to deal with the economic problem in terms of the basic human resource, culture-- the structure of values and beliefs, language and customs that join us together in groups.

The focus of tribal societies, then, is not on work or on solving of the economic problem. It follows that the use of time, the setting of daily schedules and activities, is governed by the performing, maintenance, and creation of the culture.

I will divide time use into two major divisions; culture performance and maintenance (the regular doing of culture, telling stories, gossiping, arguing) and the creating of new cultural forms, through what Habermas called "communicative action."

Note

I will review the work of Victory Turner and Johnan Huizinga who investigate the cultural dynamic of the "aimless" behavior of tribal peoples.

A relevant, reveling discussion of work, play, and leisure runs through Victor Turner's writings. Turner suggested in several places that modern leisure is analogous to tribal societies' "anti-structures," i.e., certain phases of rituals (rites of passage) and celebrations (the dancing Zunis) that allow participants to stand "outside" not only economic concerns, but the static social order as well, and to take a fresh look at established roles, rites, and duties. Following the Belgian folklorist Arnold van Gennep, Turner called these times and places "outside," the "liminal."

Turner concluded that such "clearings" permit "new forms of symbolic action," that are "particularly conducive to play... and to experimental behavior... undertaken to discover something not yet known.... In liminality new ways of acting, new combinations of symbols, are tried out, to be discarded or rejected." With Huizinga, Turner concluded that culture changes (or "emerges") through the medium of play during such periods of "liminality."

In short, these kinds of free, economically "aimless," "useless" behavior have a definite cultural purpose- the establishment of "new symbolic behavior" or the discovery of new meaning that serve as cultural leavening- the creative energy that transforms human societies.

Huizinga made a similar point some time ago- suggesting that humans are symbol creating animals, meaning seeking creatures, who essence is not in work but "play."

I begin here to draw a contrast that I will sustain throughout the book, between the assumption that we are "Homo Faber" (the human creature as worker, perpetually driven by economic necessity) and the possibility that we are "Homo Ludens," the human culture creator; the player with and seeker of meaning.