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Brief Communications
MAXIMIZATION AS WOKM, STHATEGY, A N D THEORY: A COMMENT O K
PROGRAMMATIC STATEMENTS IN ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY
The impetus for this comment is Scott Cooks paper, The Obsolete
Anti- Market Mentality: 4 Critique of the Substantive Approach to
Economic Anthropology, in this issue. In it he shows (with more or
less success depend- ing on your point of view) : 1. That most
societies by now participate in active market economies, and that
therefore any significance the substantivist position may have for
the study of non-market economies is of little im- portance as a
guide to present field research (Section 11); 2. That the sub-
stantivists have not understood economic theory and are unfair and
un- scientific in their rejection of the possibility that it will
be useful in the study of non-Western economies (Section I11 and
V); 3. That the substantivists, and especially Polanyi as their
leader, are romanticists who see primitives as altruistic and
naturally cooperative (Section IV). Cooks paper, and the many that
have gone before it? in this debate, show that many questionable
statements have been made by both teams. The literature is heavy
with lengthy quotes showing that we) understand and they do not,
but it often seems that the insolvable problems are being discussed
while the basic issues from which they stem are never joined. I n
this paper I will not quote or cite extensively; further textual
analysis will only make it more difficult for the next man. Rather
I will tr). to suggest that there are a t least two legitimate
positions, and that the issues really a t stake are not the ones
that the com- batants explicitly address themselves to. For the
most part I will assume the reader is familiar with the literature
being discussed.
ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY
The formalists say that economics in the study of the allocation
of scarce means to alternative ends. That is, it is the study of
economizing, or the way in which people maximize personal
satisfactions. Economists have some theories about how people do
this, say the formalists, and there is no reason to think that
these theories are not general enough to be helpful in the study of
non-Western societies. I n fact, say the formalists, some scholars
have shown that they are helpful in understanding events in
non-Western societies.
No, say the substantivists, economic theory is based on the
study of market economies where the point is maximization of profit
by both parties to a transaction, and non-Western societies are not
all like that, so the theory is not general enough and will not
apply to non-Western societies. We must study the unique
configurations of non-Western societies, their institutions.
Econoniic anthropology is about the institutions surrounding the
provision of the material necessities of existence to man.
465
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466 American Anthropologist [68, 19661
But, says the formalist, you cannot prove that non-Western man
does not maximize, he clearly is subject to some kinds of scarcity,
if only the scarcity of human energy; and therefore he must
allocate scarce means to alternative ends. And besides, material
and non-material goods are often exchanged for each other, so you
cannot hold to your definition of economic anthropology.
The bystander may think: Yes, but if everybody maximizes and the
realms of material and non-material goods cannot be separated,
economic anthropol- ogy must be the study of all human behavior,
and that seems strange. I thought it was a small subfield of
anthropology.
Insofar as this caricature is accurate, it should be clear that:
1. Some people seem to be interested in maximization processes, and
others
in the study of institutions, but they all say they are
interested i n whether economic theory is applicable to non-Western
societies.
2. Neither approach, given its starting point, provides an
intuitively satisfactory definition which delimits the field of
economic anthropology, and the effort to do this is probably
hopeless.
The controversy, it seems to me, has little to do with the
applicability of economic theory to non-Western society. I t has to
do with the belief by one group that maximization is a good way to
approach human behavior, and the belief by the other group that
human institutions are varied and difficult to categorize, and that
many Leconomic ones are quite distinct from certain Western
institutions in which maximization of something (usually profit) is
the norm. The root of the misunderstanding is best seen by
examining three meanings of maximization.
MAXIMIZATION AS A NORM
There are certain Western institutions which involve
maximization as a norm. For example, in a buying-selling situation
both parties are expected, in fact enjoined, to allocate resources
so as to maximize their profits, In this case, maximization is part
of an institution; it is a norm. The buyer role and the seller role
are institutionalized roles.
As I understand them, the substantivists argue that there are
many institutions in which maximization is not a norm. Presumably
this is true in any society. Furthermore, they say, in non-Western
society, in many of the situations involving provision of the
material necessities of life, it is not a norm for the parties to a
transaction t o maximize material things or any non- material
things that may be exchanged for material things. This contention
of the substantivists has nothing to do with whether the parties to
the trans- action are maximizing or not. The parties almost
certainly may be seen as maximizing adherence to some norm or set
of norms, but none of these norms is itself a prescription to
maximize i n terms of the very objecls being exchanged.
This contrast is seen in two American institutions: buying in a
store and giving a Christmas gift. In the store it is considered
appropriate for the owner and the customer to maximize in terms of
money (getting the most or giving the least), and this is the norm
(in the context of other norms that
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Brief Communications 467
bar fraud). I n the exchange of Christmas gifts (in my American
culture) it is appropriate to maximize equality of exchange. Given
adjustments for obvious differences in resources, both parties to
the exchange are most satis- fied when they manage to guess
correctly the level a t which they are exchang- ing with each
other. Individuals who grossly deviate from the established
standard of the relationship, or people who imply that their gifts
are un- commonly expensive, are not behaving appropriately and are
sanctioned. Granted that, in contradiction of Iolan\ris romanticist
views, the exchange of Christmas gifts may be full!. as
antagonistic, competitive and unaltruistic as the purchase of an
article in a store, what is interesting about the two situations in
that in one maximization of the objects being exchanged is the
norm, and in the other it is not.
When, in non-Western societies, substantial quantities of
life-sustaining goods which would be considered economic goods in
Western societies are transferred in the absence of a norm that
both parties maximize the quantity of such goods finally in its
possession, it is the absence of that norm that is interesting. The
fact that the interaction may be seen as economizing or maximizing
in terms of some set of means and ends like yams, kinship obliga-
tions and prestige does not obviate the normative or institutional
differences.
MAXIMIZATION AS A STRATEGY
That the participants in a transaction can be seen as maximizing
some- thing is true by definition. Maximization is one of the
standard restatements of the a priori truth that all human behavior
is patterned; that all human behavior has a reason. This use of
maximization as a scientific strategy involves seeking out the
norms or motives (or whatever the investigator sees as the impetus
of behavior) and attempting to rank order them so as to see the
behavior as the (conscious or unconscious) maximization of these
things. They become the ends being maximized. When using
maximization as a scientific strategy, the investigator knows that
his analysis is complete when he has stated the norms, motives,
etc. and the conditions (means and their limits, the scarce
factors) such that every act may be seen as a predictable maximiza-
tion of the ends. If he cannot see the act as maximization, he
immediately assumes that his statements of norms, motives, etc.,
and conditions are not yet correct and seeks to balance the
equation so that it wilI work. He does not reject the idea that
people will maximize, for it is the basis of his scientific
strategy. It is in this sense that all people always maximize or
economize. There can be no argument about it, hut knowing this
helps very little in achieving the end of predictions about
empirical cases.
MAXIMIZATION AND THEORIES
The two principal formalist articles to appear in this journal
(Burling 1962 and LeClair 1962) agree in seeing economizing or
maximization as the scien- tific strategy characteristic of
economic anthropology, but insofar as they propose concrete
research programs they are quite different. Burling takes
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468 American Anthropologist [68, 19661
note of some theories that involve maximization of factors like
power, and comments that single factor theories are usually
untenable. He goes on to suggest that economic anthropology be the
search for the multiple factors that people maximize, i.e., he
proposes that studies of human behavior using max- imization as a
scientific strategy constitute economic anthropology and leaves it
a t that. LeClair, though his title is Economic Theory and Economic
Anthropology, does not refer to theory a t all in the positive part
of his paper. He states the economizing principle and then takes up
a number of concepts used by economists and generalizes them so
they may apply t o all human behavior. When he comes to citing
examples he very quickly shifts to a ma- terial definition of
economics.
George Homans has used the idea of maximization in a theory that
applies to all human behavior. A brief look at the problems Homans
encounters in his Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms (1961) will
suggest that, whatever the virtues of the maximization idea, the
research problems still lie in the area of the study of
institutions.
For Homans elementary denotes that aspect of social behavior
that is independent of institutions. He calls it subinstitutional
(1961: 6). Homans wishes to state general propositions about social
behavior that are independent of cultural convention and individual
differences. He uses concepts and ideas like Lcost, reward, profit
and maximization and others about hunger, satiation and
conditioning. I n thinking about cost and reward he comes to the
idea of value, and in thinking about measuring values he arrives a
t the idea that values vary according to the cultural and
individual past of the person involved (1961 : 39-49). Mired again
in institutional behavior, he deftly invokes the dictum that the
best guess we can make is that the future will be like the past and
that thus a persons future valuing will be like his past valuing,
and often like the past valuing of other people who share his
culture. This places Homans more squarely in the middle of
institutional variations and is really no help in making the long
step from his subinstitutional theory to measures of the values
exhibited in human behavior. In the theory all valuing is placed on
a single dimension according to its intensity; in behavior value is
expressed in terms of local custom (disregarding the further
complications introduced by variations in personal preference). The
related problems of learning to read local customs and learning to
equate local custom in one place with local custom in another place
have no automatic solution that will permit Homans to test his
theory. I n this situation Homans merely states that he will be
crude about measuring values and gets on with his task. I n short,
he does not solve the problem of operationalizing his
subinstitutional theory.3
The formalists say that economic theory is not bound by the
market prin- ciple, that it is logically free from limitations of
time and place, that it is, in effect, subinstitutional. Insofar as
this is true, the theory should be equally useful in the study of
non-Western and Western societies; and, insofar as this is true, it
faces the same problems of operationalization faced by Homans
theory and any other very abstract theory.
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Brief Communications 469
We cannot expect to borrow procedures for operationalization
from the economists (as far as I know they are short on them
anyway). The anthro- pological chestnut about the comparability of
institutional forms in different cultures remains a lively topic of
debate in discussion about cross-cultural research in anthropology.
There is no reason to think that nieasures (opera- tionalizations)
devised by non-anthropologists (economists) for a part of our own
culture (the economy) are less subject to difficulties than
ineasi~res devised by anthropologists with a cross-cultural
perspective. To the contrary in fact.
THE SUUSTANTIVISTS AND THE FORMALISTS
In the controversy that has developed it appears that the
formalists have been arguing for the use of economic theory in its
subinstitutional form as a general Scientific strategy, and that
the substantivists have been arguing for the obvious differences
among institutions associated with the transfer of the material
necessities of life. The formalists have made sorties into the
applica- tion of more concrete economic concepts and theory to
non-Western society and the substantivists have made parallel
sorties into the study of the social coricomitants of types of e x
c h a n g e b o t h with sonie success. By the time they had done
this, however, they could no longer talk with each other, and the
basic problem of operationalizing subinstitutional theoretical
propositions or (from the other point of view) building general
theory about varied institutions was for the most part cast
aside.
I n the spirit of reconciliation it might be admitted that while
Cook may he right about the dogmatism of the substantivists, he
does not appreciate the distance between the abstractions of
economic theory and the giving of Christmas gifts; and that while
the substantivists are correct that maximiza- tion (of the material
object being exchanged) is found as a norm only in some exchanges
of material objects, they have not appreciated the usefulness of
maximization as a scientific strategy in situations where
maximization as a norm is not present.
There i5 no contradiction between: Economics is the study of
econoniiz- ing. Economizing is the allocation of scarce resources
among alternative ends (LeClaii 1962: 1188), and The economy, then,
is an instituted process (Iolanli 1957:248).
FRANK CANCIAN Stafzfnrd University
NOTES
1 I am grateful to may wife, Francesca Cancian, and to Roy
DAndrade for coniments on an earlier draft of this paper.
2 Here I am principally concerned with the formalists as they
are represented by Burling (1062), Conk (1966) and LeClair (1962),
and with the suhstantivists as they are represented by Dalton
(1961) and Polanyi (1957).
3 For those familiar with Homans charge that Talcott Parsons has
written the dictionary of a language that has no sentences
(1961:11), it is helpful to see Homans as a man who has written
sentences in a language that has no dictionary.
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470 Americait :1 nthropologist 168, 19661
REFERENCES CITED
BURLING, ROBBINS 1962 Maximization theories and the study of
economic anthropology. American Anthro-
pologist 64:802-821.
1966 The obsolete anti-market mentality: P critique of the
substantive approach to economic anthropology. American
Anthropologist 68:323-345.
DALTON, GEORGE 1961 Economic theory and primitive society.
American Anthropologist 63: 1-25.
HOMANS, GEORGE CASPAR 1961 Social behavior: its elementary
forms. New York, Harcourt, Brace and World.
LECLATR, EDWARD E., Jw. 1962 Economic theory and economic
anthropology. American Anthropologist 64: 1179-
1203.
1957 The econoniy as instituted process. In Trade and Market in
the Early Empires, Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensherg and Harry W.
Pearson, eds. Glencoe, Illinois, Free Press.
COOK, SCOTT
POLANYI, KARL
ISOMETRIC ADVANTAGES OF THE CRADLE BOARD: A HYPOTtIESIs As a
rationale for binding their infants to cradle boards, the
Navahos-
and probably other North American Indians-off er a magical
explanation: cradle boards cause infants to grow strong, The
purpose of this paper is to argue that this is, in fact, a magical
explanation, but that the practice itself succeeds in doing what it
is supposed to do. I shall present evidence that the cradle board
is a device that induces isometric exercise in infants, and that
this exercise effectively strengthens them. The swaddling customs
found in many parts of the Old World probably also induce isometric
exercise, but for convenience I shall omit a discussion of
swaddling in this paper.
The North American Indians custom of binding their infants to
cradles has been of compelling interest to Europeans. Unlike
European cradles, which are built to contain infants while allowing
them freedom of movement, North American Indian cradles are flat
boards or frameworks to which tightly wrapped infants are securely
bound, thus restricting their freedom of move- ment to a minimum.
Although these devices are not always constructed of wood, I shall
for convenience refer to them as cradle boards in the remainder of
this paper,
The Navaho explanation of the way in which cradle boards produce
strong children is magical because it is derived from false
premises, but the practice itself, as we shall presently see, does
succeed in doing what it is supposed to do. Because of the
prevalent assumption that exercise necessitates free limb movement,
it is puzzling, but nonetheless true, that infants bound to cradle
boards for most of their first year of life do not atrophy. On the
contrary, research shows that infants who are reared on cradle
boards develop the same motor skills, in the same sequence, and at
about the same times as infants who are not reared on cradle
boards, Dennis and Dennis cite some figures suggesting that Hopi
infants walk a little later than white infants, but they do not
feel
