HOUSEHOLD FAILURE

A third dimension of primitive underproduction, the final one here considered, is perhaps the most dramatic; at least it is the most serious for the people concerned. A fair percentage of domestic groups per­sistently fail to produce their own livelihood, although organized to do so. They occupy the lower end of a very large range of variation in household production, variation in appearance uncontrolled, but consistently observed in primitive societies of different circumstance, tradition and location. Once more the evidence is not definitive. But coupled to the logic of the case, it seems enough to encourage the following theoretical suggestion: that this variation, notably including a substantial degree of domestic economic failure, is a constituted condition of primitive economy.²²

22. Again this is no necessary contradiction to the "original affluent society" of Chapter 1, which was defined on the collective level and in terms of consumption, not production. The deficiencies here indicated in domestic production do not at all pre­clude amelioration by interhousehold distribution. On the contrary, they make intelli­gible the intensity of such distribution.

I was myself first struck by the magnitude of household production differences while working in Fiji, collecting estimates of food cultiva­tion from the household heads in a number of Moalan villages. These were mainly estimates, so I cite the results merely as an example of the anecdotal comment to be found often in the monographic litera­ture:

Differences in production within any given village are even more critical than output differences between villages. At least no Moalan village seems to be starving, whereas it is apparent that some men do not produce enough food for family needs. At the same time no village [with one possible exception] appears to have much surfeit, whereas some families are prod­ucing considerably more food than they can consume . . . familial differ­ences in production of such . .. magnitude occur in every village and with respect to virtually every staple, secondary, and minor crop (Sahlins, 1962a, p. 59).

C. Daryll Forde's investigation of yam staple cultivation among 97 families in the Yako village of Umor, shown in Figure 2.3, is more precise, and certainly more graphic. Forde remarks that, although a representative Yako family of husband, one or two wives and three or four children will have one and one-half acres of yams under cultivation each year, 10 of the 97 he sampled were cultivating less than half an acre and 40 percent between a half and one acre. The same kind of deficit occurs in the output curve: mean production per house was 2,400-2,500 yams (medium-sized units), but the mode was only 1,900; a large proportion of families fell toward the lower end of the scale. And some of those at the lower end were below the customary subsistence requirement:

Figure 2.3. Yam Production, Umor Village, Yako' (after Forde, 1964)

It would be . .. incorrect to assume that there are no substantial variations from household to household in yam consumption. Although there is probably no gross insufficiency of supply of this staple food, there are at opposite ends of the scale households which, through inefficiency, sickness or other misfortune secure much less than they need by local standards, and others in which the fufu bowl is always heaped full (Forde, 1946, p. 59; cf. p. 64).

The situation depicted in Derek Freeman's classic study of rice production among the Iban is yet more serious (Freeman, 1955). But this example, covering the 25 families of Rumah Nyala village, carries two important reservations. First, the Iban maintain a considerable trade in their rice staple with mercantile centers of Sarawak—al­though in fact Iban families do not always produce enough for subsist­ence, let alone a surplus for export.²³

23. By contrast, in a parallel study of six household outputs among the Lamet of Laos, Izikowitz (1951) found considerable variation, but all on the surplus-over-subsistence side, (The Lamet apparently depend more on rice sales than the Iban, and have apparently done so for a longer time.) Cf. also Geddes, 1954, on the Land Dayak.

Secondly, the period of observation, 1949-50, was an exceptionally bad year. By Freeman's estimate—approximate, as he cautions—only eight of the 25 house­holds were able to harvest a normal consumption quota (including rice for seed, animal feed, ritual expenses and beer). Table 2.7 summa­rizes yields in relation to consumption requirements for 1949-50. In ordinary years this distribution would probably be inverted, to show a normal rate of household failure on the order of 20 to 30 percent.

At first sight, the fact that only about one third of bilek families managed to secure their normal requirements seems surprising, but it must be re­membered that the 1949-50 season was an exceptionally bad one. . . . Nonetheless, it seems probable that even in normal years it is not uncom­mon for a minor percentage of households to fall below the ordinary level of subsistence as we have defined it. In the absence of reliable data we can do no more than make an informed guess. From my discussions with Iban informants, I would expect that in normal years from 70% to 80% of bilek families would attain their ordinary requirements, and that in favourable seasons virtually all would be successful… There are probably few, if any, Iban families which have not, at some time or another, found themselves in straitened circumstances with insufficient padi for their barest needs (Freeman, 1955, p. 104).

Table 2.7. Rice yields in relation to normal consumption requirements, 25 families ofRumah Nyala (1949-50) (after Freeman, 1955, p. 104)

Another enthnographic example, to some degree making up by its precision for its modesty of scale, is Thayer Scudder's study (1962) of cereal cultivation among the 25 families of Mazulu village, Gwem-be Tonga (Northern Rhodesia). The region is plagued by famine, but the yield of Mazulu farms is not of present moment; the first question is whether the several households had planted sufficient acreage to assure their subsistence. Scudder adduces a figure of one acre/capita as normally sufficient.²⁴

24. However, it may be that the figure of one acre/head was determined in part from the actual tendency of gardens to cluster around that ratio—coupled with evidence from a neighboring region that such an amount should suffice. The norm of one acre/capita, moreover, does not make allowance for differential food requirements of men, women, and children, important when assessing the economic success of partic­ular households. In a later section discussing household labor intensity (Chapter 3), such adjustments are made in the Mazulu data.

But as indicated in Table 2.8, presenting the results of Scudder's field study, four of the Mazulu households come seriously short of this level, and altogether 10 of the 20 fail to reach it. The domestic differences seem distributed as a normal curve around the point of per capita subsistence.

Table 2.8. Household variations in output/capita, Mazulu village, Valley Tonga, 1956-57

(after Scudder, 1962, pp. 258-261)*

♦For further discussion of Mazulu production in relation to subsistence, including attempt at a more detailed analysis, see Chapter 4.

Enough said? Nothing is more tiresome than an anthropology "among-the" book: among the Arunta this, among the Kariera that Nor is anything scientifically proven by the endless multiplication of examples—except that anthropology can be boring. But the last prop­osition does not need an elaborate demonstration, and neither does the one under discussion. For certain forms of production, notably hunting and fishing, the likelihood of differential success is known to common sense and experience. Besides and more generally, insofar as production is organized by domestic groups, it is established on a fragile and vulnerable base. The familial labor force is normally small and often sorely beset. In any "large enough community" the several households will show a considerable range in size and composition, range that may well leave some susceptible to disastrous mischance. For some must be unfavorably composed in the ratio of effective workers to dependent non-producers (mostly children and the aged). Of course others are in this respect more fortunately balanced, even overbalanced, on the side of capable producers. Yet any given family is subject to this kind of variation over time and the domestic growth cycle, just as at any given time certain families must find themselves facing economic difficulties. Thus a third apparent dimension of prim­itive underproduction: an interesting percentage of households chron­ically fail to provide their own customary livelihood.

Elements of the Domestic Mode of Production

The foregoing constitutes a first empirical experience of widespread and profound tendencies of underproduction in the primitive econo­mies. The succeeding is a first attempt to explain these tendencies theoretically by reference to a widespread and profound structure of the economies in question, the domestic mode of production. Neces­sarily the analysis will be as generalized as the phenomena are broadly distributed and variably expressed, a procedure which demands as an initial task certain methodological apologies.

Date: 2014-12-21; view: 975