Limited good

Economic, applied, and development anthropology
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Basic concepts Commodification Barter Debt Finance Embeddedness Reciprocity Redistribution Value Wealth Gift economy Limited good Inalienable possessions Singularization (commodity pathway) Spheres of exchange Social capital Cultural capital
Provisioning systems Hunting-gathering Pastoralism Nomadic pastoralism Shifting cultivation Moral economy Peasant economics
Case studies Prestations Kula ring Moka exchange Potlatch Gifting Gifting remittances Organ gifting Shell money Provisioning Aché people (hunter-gatherers) Batek people Colonialism and development The Anti-Politics Machine Europe and the People Without History Political economy Jim Crow economy
Related articles Original affluent society Formalist vs substantivist debate The Great Transformation Peasant economics Culture of poverty Political economy State formation Nutritional anthropology Heritage commodification Anthropology of development
Major theorists Paul Bohannan Alexander Chayanov Stanley Diamond Raymond Firth Maurice Godelier David Graeber Jane I. Guyer Keith Hart Marvin Harris Bronisław Malinowski Marcel Mauss Sidney Mintz Karl Polanyi Marshall Sahlins Harold K. Schneider Eric Wolf
Social and cultural anthropology

In anthropology, limited good is the theory commonly held in traditional societies that there is a limited amount of "good" to go around. In other words, the amount of land, money, etc. available is held to be finite, so every time one person profits, another loses.

Societies that subscribe to this philosophy tend to display strong levels of equality among members and to be strongly resistant to social change.

The term was coined by George M. Foster in his 1965 article, Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good, "American Anthropologist." The concept has been described by Allen as the rural counterpart of the culture of poverty. The Mexican peasants (in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán) Foster studied were seen by him to lack interest in new opportunities because of their perception of the world as a "competitive game." This led to a high level of distrust and envy and fragile and constantly shifting patterns of alignment.^[1]

Sources

Foster, George M. (1965) Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good, American Anthropologist New Series, Vol. 67, No. 2, Apr., pp. 293–315
Kennedy, John G. (1966) Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good": A Critique, American Anthropologist New Series, Vol. 68, No. 5, Oct., pp. 1212–1225

References

↑ Allen, Tim (2000) Taking Culture Seriously — Chapter 21 in Poverty And Development, Second Edition, Edited by Tim Allen and Alan Thomas, The Open University and Oxford University Press

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