chapman barter article_hom_0439-4216_1980_num_20_3_368100 (2)

Anne Chapman

Barter as a Universal Mode of ExchangeIn: L'Homme, 1980, tome 20 n°3. pp. 33-83.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Chapman Anne. Barter as a Universal Mode of Exchange. In: L'Homme, 1980, tome 20 n°3. pp. 33-83.

doi : 10.3406/hom.1980.368100

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/hom_0439-4216_1980_num_20_3_368100

BARTER AS A UNIVERSAL MODE OF EXCHANGE*

by

ANNE CHAPMAN

. . . the conception of pure barter (gimwali) stands out very clearly, and the natives make a definite distinction between this and other forms of exchange.

Malinowski 1922: 189. The earlier view that primitive tribes lived without trade in private domestic economy must be described as incorrect. It may be said, on the contrary, that even among the lowest tribes, consisting of hunters, trappers, and collectors, such as the Kubus, the Veddas, and the Pygmies of Central Africa, etc., barter is regularly carried on.

Thurnwald 1932: 141.

The literature on trade in nonliterate societies makes clear that barter is by far the most prevalent mode of exchange. . .

Herskovits 1952: 188. Barter proper appears to have been carried on all over A ustralia.

McCarthy 1939-40: 177.

Introduction

This paper is addressed to what Karl Polanyi considered one of the main problems of his research: the determination of the place of economy in society. It is surprising that over twenty years after the publication of Trade and Market in the Early Empires1 — during which time considerable theoretical and descriptive literature has appeared on primitive economics — the anthropologists have given

* I wish especially to thank the following persons, who read the typescript, for their helpful comments and criticisms: Edith Borstein-Couturier, Gérard Bûcher, Michel Panoff, Joëlle Robert-Lambin and Emmanuel Terr ay. I do not mean to imply, however, that they agree with all the contents of this paper.

1. Edited by Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg & Harry W. Pearson (1957).

L'Homme, juil.-sept. iq8o, XX (3), pp. 33-83.

34 ANNE CHAPMAN

so little attention to an analysis of "barter pure and simple" to use Malinowski's expression (1922: 189). It is all the more surprising when one considers how frequently barter is mentioned in the ethnographic sources, and subject to theories — as those set forth by Marx, Polanyi and certain economists.2

Initially barter appeared to me too difficult to apprehend, too illusive to analyze; inconsequential in its simplicity, disconcertingly universal. It did not seem to quite belong to the "clan" of institutions, systems, structures, complexes, modes and parameters; it looked rather like a poor relative who had not "made it" and kept showing up at family parties, whether invited or not. When finally I agreed with Polanyi to label barter a "pattern", I felt better. Then at least it could be accorded the respect due a dignified rational member of the clan. All I then had to do was to inquire of its ancestry. Here I failed. Eventually I realized that it has none. It just is, like a star in the heavens, like Topsy, always itself through the ages, never ageing. I will now refer to Barter as "he" simply because "it" seems to be promiscuous. Did he marry a girl called Gift? Another Miss Money? And others? Did he have any offsprings? Is or is he not the progenitor of all (or most) of our ills and blessings, of the self-perpetuating market (the consumer's paradise, the consummated chaos) better known as capitalism? Is Barter the "Economic Man"? Or is this the name of Barter's favorite son? Or are they kin at all?

This study begins with a model of "pure barter" in order to define, to situate, the subject. Then it proceeds to an examination of barter as a cultural pattern and a consideration of the problem of barter and money. It closes with analyses of barter as viewed by Polanyi and Marx, in an attempt to throw some light on the problem of the role of economy in Society.

In the sources barter is often subsumed under a variety of terms such as truck, swapping, direct exchange, exchange in kind, non-ceremonial trade, inter-tribal trade or, simply, trade. Aristotle described it as "natural trade".3 It is almost invariably distinguished from transactions involving money as a medium of exchange. The dichotomy barter /money appears time and again in the anthropological as well as the economic literatures.4 Barter is typically considered direct

2. A. Marshall 1961, I: 791-793, II: 790-798; Walras 1952: 465-473. Schumpeter (1972: 911) comments on the latter as follows, "The first problem that Jevons, Menger, and Walras — Gossen too — tackled by means of the marginal utility apparatus was the problem of barter. Like their 'classic' predecessors, they realized the central position of exchange value although, also like these predecessors, they did not make it sufficiently clear to their readers and perhaps did not sufficiently realize themselves that exchange value is but a special form of a universal coefficient of transformation on the derivation of which pivots the whole logic of economic phenomena. Their barter theories or, to use Whately's term once more, their catallactics, differed greatly as regards technical perfection and correctness: the peak achievement of the period is contained in leçons 5-15 of Walras' Éléments."

3. Quoted from Polanyi 1977: 68. 4. See below, pp. 53-58.

BARTER 35

exchange, that is to say, that no third object (money) partakes of the transaction. The distinction between ceremonial gift exchange and barter has been commented upon frequently by students of primitive economy. While some consider the distinction to be relative, that the two types of exchange fade into one another,5 others affirm or imply that the distinction is categorical, that barter is of an entirely different nature than ceremonial gift exchange because, precisely, it involves no extra-economic factors.6

I. — A Model of Pure Barter

(i) The objects traded are directly exchanged. Let "A" represent one of the goods exchanged and "Z" the other. Barter is direct exchange in that no intermediate object is introduced in the transaction. Only objects are exchanged in this model.7

(2) Operationally the two actors are also identical in that both play the roles of buyer and seller. Barter is again direct exchange as no third person participates in the transaction. "B" stands for the buyer and "S" for the seller.

(3) Barter is a purely economic transaction. It is neutral in that no coercion nor mutual obligation exists between the two parties, except the initial agreement to barter and either party is free to desist from carrying out the transaction if either so desires. The only motivation in barter is the acquisition of the other party's goods. No third (or extraneous) circumstance affects it and in this sense also it is direct exchange.8

5. For example, Einzig 1949: 348. 6. Usually Polanyi distinguishes barter with respect to his reciprocity and redistribution

models and includes it in his exchange model, though not as a factor in the genesis of the price-making market. See pp. 58-60, 70-71 of this text.

7. I only discuss barter of material objects in this paper. I have excluded intangible things as well as services or work. The justification for this option is the rendering of the subject as clearly denned as possible. However if my analyses are valid, they should apply to services as well as all types of "goods".

8. The model corresponds to that defined by Hagen (1961: 144) as follows: "An analytical model is a mental construct consisting of a set of elements in interrelation, the elements and their interrelations being precisely defined." The following comments by Kaplan (1968: 244) are also relevant. "But models are essentially analogies [. . .] and although

36 ANNE CHAPMAN

This study postulates "pure barter" (cf. model) as a logical category, which as such "exists" only in theory, only abstractly. The model is not directly applicable to, or representative of, any given case of real ("impure") barter. In the world, barter is a transaction between two living social human beings, or groups; it always occurs in a social and psychological situation.

The context however never (or rarely) distorts the prime motivation of the act of barter, which is the exchange of objects. The contexts, too numerous to define, presuppose two individuals, or two groups, who need or desire to acquire each other's objects. This meaning is signified in the term "motivation". But otherwise the model leaves the psychological as well as the social contexts undefined. They are considered non-pertinent in the model.

This lack of definition is expressed by the phrase "barter is neutral". In reality it is never neutral. The bartering partners always recognize each other on some level of consciousness. If this recognition expresses itself as a mirror, each seeing in the partner an "other" self, then the transaction may be carried out without the insertion of any disturbing or extraneous factor. But if, for example, the recognition is that of aggressor /aggressed, then the action acquires an entirely different dimension; the offer to barter becomes a threat. Barter excludes physical violence because thus it would be transformed into a tactic, whose aim might be, for instance, robbery.

Threat may express itself through language, gesture or some other symbolic act. It might become an intimidating factor and alter the essential quality of barter in terms of the model. Looking at motivation for exchange from a different angle, the desire of the other's possession may become, in psychoanalytic terms, a desire for the possession of the other. But even when intimidation is totally absent, no exchange in the real world, however neutral apparently, is ever entirely so.

In a situation of intimidation the aggressed partner may well refuse to exchange with his aggressor. Marshall Thomas's account of barter between the "harmless" Bushmen and the not-so-harmless Bantus and Europeans is a case in point.

"Besides this, the Bantus badly cheat the Bushmen who come in from the veld to trade cured antelope hides for metal and tobacco, sometimes asking several hides, worth several pounds apiece, for enough tobacco to fill the palm of the Bushman's hand, or for a piece of wire long enough

they may constitute an important and perhaps even indispensable aid in arriving at explanations, they do not themselves explain anything. A model can have explanatory power only if the various axioms or postulates of the model are assigned a specific empirical content. But then the model would have ceased to be a model and would have become a theory. It is a matter of elementary logic that no true empirical statement can be deduced from a set of premises unless these premises are also empirically true. "

BARTER 37

to make an arrowhead. All in all, it does not benefit the Bushmen to live anywhere near Bantu or European settlements, and that is why the Bushmen of the veld run and hide when they see Europeans coming, believing that they may be taken by force (as they sometimes are), and why they avoid going to a Bantu settlement except to trade for tobacco when they must smoke, or when they are dying of thirst and must come to beg for water" (Marshall Thomas 1965: 15-16).

Concerning the Indians of North America, Driver and Massey (1957: 375) write, "... gift and ceremonial exchange is morally accompanied by a feeling of friendliness (the Kwakiutl being an exception), while the atmosphere of trade tends to be more competitive or even hostile."

Trade is desired but often feared. Lévi-Strauss describes such a context among different Nambikuara bands of Brazil.

"Ces bandes ont, les unes à l'égard des autres, une attitude équivoque. Elles se redoutent, et en même temps elles se sentent nécessaires les unes aux autres. C'est en efïet à l'occasion d'une rencontre qu'elles pourront se procurer des articles désirables qu'une seule d'entre elles possède ou est capable de produire ou de fabriquer" (Lévi-Strauss 1943: 131).

Trade which actually terminated in combat is reported by Thurnwald for Central Sudan.

"Passarge, writing of the upper Benue (Adamawa, Central Sudan*) describes a scene on that river, [. . .] where the Munchi had brought skins and meat for sale, while the Jukum appeared at the appointed place, on the opposite bank, with fish and grain, only the men being present. Every man [. . .] stood prepared for battle, with bow and arrow in his left hand and the knife in his right, in front of his treasures. In every canoe sat a Jukum ready to push off. Trading in these parts usually ends in bloodshed" (Thurnwald 1932: 164).

But despite the hostility barter may go on year around. In this context, with reference to Australia, McCarthy quotes Mrs. Daisy Bates, as follows:

"A great aboriginal trade route encircles the continent. As already I had found evidence of stone-age barter, pearl-shell of the north treasured as magic in the deserts of the south, red ochre and flint knives traded across many hundreds of miles, I now learned that this barter includes all exchangeable articles, and is continent wide. Notwithstanding the hostility of groups and tribes, barter went on all the year round along this great highway, which abutted directly on the north and south coasts, and branched off to the eastern and western by roads and branch-roads" (McCarthy 1938-39: 437-438; underlined by A. C).

* In fact in Cameroun. [Editor's note; J. P.]

38 ANNE CHAPMAN

Sahlins summarizes this situation in the following words:

"It has to be understood that trade between primitive communities or tribes is a most delicate, potentially a most explosive, undertaking. Anthropological accounts document the risks of trading ventures in foreign territory, the uneasiness and suspiciousness, the facility of a translation from trading goods to trading blows" (Sahlins 1972: 302).

Silent trade, which in some cases involves barter transactions, was also often conducted in an atmosphere of hostility. The lack of physical contact between the traders was a means of eliminating the danger of violence.9

It is then to be questioned whether external trade (and barter) may be characterized as requiring peace, as affirmed by Dalton:

"External trade of nonceremonial sorts, a practice that was very widespread in aboriginal times, transacted anything movable that was not locally available to some group; but even commercial trade required an alliance relationship because it required peace" (Dalton 1978: 154).

According to the model presented here, barter is not only direct exchange of goods. It is a pattern of inter-related elements. Malinowski's description of gimwali among the Trobrianders, conforms very closely to the model except that bargaining (haggling), which is done in gimwali, is not, as will be shown later, the only means of establishing an agreement between the partners and therefore it is not included in the model.

"Trade Pure and Simple. The main characteristic of this form of exchange is found in the element of mutual advantage: each side acquires what is needed and gives away a less useful article [. . .]

This bartering, pure and simple, takes place mainly between the industrial communities of the interior [. . .] and the sailing and trading communities of the South [. . .]

Thus the conception of pure barter (gimwali) stands out very clearly,

9. When Herskovits (1952: 185) considered silent trade to be a "specialized form of barter", he was perfectly justified in doing so in his own terms. However, as will be explained later, Polanyi's work on barter and exchange requires that the entire phenomenon of barter be re-studied. According to my model so-called silent trade is not necessarily barter, though it may be. According to Price (1980) it was often state-organized institutionalized long-distance trade on the part of one of the parties. It may also take the form of gift exchange. An instance of non-barter silent trade, is that of the officials of the Brazilian government depositing gifts for the forest Indians. Later the Indians would often reciprocate and thus become gradually led into contact with the "foreigners" and, if they survive (or those who survive as the process is still going on) they ultimately lose their culture and become assimilated to the Brazilian rural working class. Thus for the offering party the silent trade in this case was eminently political and not economical, and therefore is not barter as defined in the above model.

BARTER 39

and the natives make a definite distinction between this and other forms of exchange [. . .] When scornfully criticising bad conduct in Kula, or an improper manner of giving gifts, a native will say that 'it was done like a gimwali' [. . .] In the course of ethnographic investigation, they give clear descriptions, almost definitions of gimwali, its lack of ceremony, the permissibility of haggling, the free manner in which it can be done between any two strangers. They state correctly and clearly its general conditions, and they tell readily which articles may be exchanged by gimwali" (Malinowski 1922: 189-190).

Although in a given culture, as the Trobriand, certain objects may not be bartered, the nature of the goods exchanged is theoretically irrelevant, not pertinent to the model. The only exception to this statement is the direct exchange of identical objects because this occurs often in a ritual context, usually to cement alliances, and therefore is not barter. Identical goods may also be exchanged as borrowing and giving back, when there is a lapse of time between the two-way movement of the goods.

Barter is distinguished from other types of direct exchange, because it is a purely economic transaction, involving no mutual obligation between the partners. It excludes the direct exchange of goods which are considered gifts or symbols of the fulfillment of social and ceremonial duties, of the reaffirmation of political and kin ties, etc. For example in the Kula, the trading of armshells, necklaces and other valuables (the waygu'a) is not barter because the objects were regarded as symbols of prestige and because the partners were committed politically and ceremonially to one another. Thus in so far as the Kula was motivated by non-economic considerations, it cannot be considered barter. However it did include barter as "secondary trade".

"Another important pursuit inextricably bound up with the Kula, is that of the secondary trade. Voyaging to far-off countries, endowed with natural resources unknown in their own homes, the Kula sailors return each time richly laden with these, the spoils of their enterprise. Again, in order to be able to offer presents to his partner, every outward bound canoe carries a cargo of such things as are known to be most desirable to the overseas district. Some of this is given away in presents to the partners, but a good deal is carried in order to pay for the objects desired at home" {ibid. : 99-100, see also 103-104; underlined by A. C.).

Uberoi points out:

"This degree of political consociation suffices for the important business of inter-district trade to be conducted peaceably under the umbrella of a kula expedition. Each oversea expedition which goes out to solicit Armshells or Necklaces sets up a kind of temporary market for the inter- district exchange of more utilitarian goods" (Uberoi 1962: 158; underlined by A. C).

40 ANNE CHAPMAN

And Polanyi:

"Actual barter and trade among the Trobrianders is distinct from any other type of gift giving. Whereas in the ceremonial exchange of fish and yams a mutual sense of equivalence prevails between the two sides, in barter of fish for yams there is haggling. Such barter of useful articles is characterized by the absence of ceremonial forms and special exchange partners. In regard to manufactured goods, barter is restricted to new objects, second-hand goods, which may have a personal value, being excluded" (Polanyi 1977: 54-55).

It is the specific nature of the transaction, of the relation between the partners, which defines barter with respect to other types of exchange. Barter may occur in contexts in which other modes of exchange prevail. Although the main objective of the Kula was the exchange of valuables between partners in view of establishing political associations, during the Kula, purely economic transactions, in the form of barter, did occur. Barter transactions may also occur sporadically while other types of trading are being carried on. If a mutual economic interest creates the relationship between the two parties which are trading and if no third factor intervenes, then the transaction may be considered barter. Barth, writing of people who inhabit the Fly river headwaters in New Guinea, describes such a case of barter in the context of traditional reciprocal trading between friends.

"Trade takes place by direct exchange within communities. Between communities, it mainly passes between special trading friends. Such partners stand in a life long relationship to each other [. . .] Trade between friends takes the form of delayed exchange; a man also acts as his friend's agent. If the latter desires something in exchange which the former does not have, he offers his friend's wealth object for barter within his community, haggling over the exchange as if it were his own, and saving the fruits of the exchange for his friend to receive on his next visit" (Barth 1971: 178; underlined by A. C.).10

The man who barters for his friend does not constitute a "third factor" in this case because he simply substitutes for his friend, does not receive a compensation for this service and has no specific ties with his barter partner.

Barter may be either inserted in a ceremonial or political context (as secondary trade during the Kula), be an adjunct to a traditional social pattern of exchange

10. Panoff (1969: 6-7) writes of the Bush Maenge of the interior eastern, central zone of New Britain, acting as middlemen in the trade of obsidian and stone tools. For instance they exchanged salt for axe blades with their Nakanai partners and subsequently bartered a portion of these axe blades with certain coastal Maenge in exchange for coconuts, areca nuts and sea-food.

BARTER 41

(as the trading partner's secondary trade on the Fly river cited above), etc. Or barter may exist by itself.

Barter may be carried out by a third person if the person is simply acting for one of the parties and if otherwise the transaction complies to the model in that it be direct, purely economic exchange. For instance McCarthy writes, (citing Taplin) with respect to a trading pattern in southern Australia, of exchange between tribes on the Murray river and those near the sea, that their respective tribes select a trustworthy agent to carry on the inter-tribal barter. The agents were bound together as ngia-ngampe, by a ritual carried out by their fathers when they were children and because of which they could neither speak to one another nor approach one another. These ritual partners were the agents through which their respective groups carried on barter.

"Thus a blackfellow, Jack Hamilton [. . .] once had a ngia-ngampe in the Mundoo tribe. While he lived on the Murray he sent spears and plongges, i.e. clubs, down to his agent of the Mundoo blacks, who was also supplied with mats and nets and rugs to send up to him, for the purpose of giving them in exchange to the tribe to which he belonged.

The estrangement of the ngia-ngampe seems to answer two purposes. It gives security to the tribes that there will be no collusion between their agents for their own private advantage, and also compels the two always to conduct the business through third parties" (McCarthy 1938-39: 427; see also 1939-40: 177).

As exemplified in the above citation, the trading partners may be ritually bound to one another and also a certain ritual or gift-giving may precede the transaction as often occurs in Australia. If these are simply a function of the economic interests of the parties, the transaction may still be considered barter.

These modalities do not alter the basic model. Barter partakes of, but does not dissolve into other types of exchange. It may also involve certain rituals whose purpose is to guarantee that the sole objective of the transaction be respected, that is, the direct exchange of goods.

Many of the references in the literature to so-called barter between trading partners and direct exchanges which are expressions of kin, rank, ceremonial or political concerns and as such, are not considered barter as defined in this article.11 I do not intend to imply that the parties involved in such types of ceremonial and social exchanges lack interest in acquiring the objects traded, but rather that the economic is not the sole or primary motivation for the exchanges. The

11. Although D Alton's definition of barter differs from the one presented in this paper, he (1975: 113) was confronted with the same problem. "Barter, when meant as 'moneyless transaction' nevertheless conveys to the reader the economists' meaning of 'moneyless market exchange', and so kula and potlatch, when called barter, become transmogrified into ordinary commercial exchange."

42 ANNE CHAPMAN

model of barter is not concerned with the general problem of the economic utility of all types of trade.

Einzig (1949: 362) writing of African communities describes the opposition of professional traders to the introduction of money "on the ground that under a barter system they stood to make a profit both ways". This example evokes the problem of profit in barter transactions. The problem is not treated as such in this paper though it may be advanced from the outset that barter invariably involves mutual gain or advantage for both parties as otherwise no original agreement to barter would be reached. However this situation should not be confused with gain or profit that one party may obtain at the expense of the other, for the context necessarily implies that an estimation of the relative value of the two objects exchanged can be made. (The difficult subject of value will be approached later, pp. 60-70.)

II. — Barter as a Culture Pattern

Barter is probably practiced in any type of society.12 Given its great simplicity it is adaptable to a large variety of circumstances, from the exchange of belongings between neighbors or the swapping of objects between strangers, to government- organized fairs.13 Two national states also occasionally barter certain products. It may occur almost at any place where people live together or meet: in the home, in schools, in hospitals, prisons,14 or the army, on the street, in the country, in market places, along trading routes, at quarry sites, at crossroads along borders, during ceremonies, etc. It may be preceded or followed by the exchange of gifts between the partners.15 Again it is sometimes carried out as "silent trade", the parties never encountering each other. It may be spontaneous, take place without previous contact of the actors, or be traditionally performed in certain localities where the interested parties journey to meet.16 It may be internal

12. This does not imply that it was practiced in every society. Mauss (1950: 194) writes that it was unknown on the northwest coast of North America.

13. For instance barter fairs have been organized by the government, in Paris, for the last five years during the month of September.

14. Commenting on Radford's (1945) account of POW* barter, Robinson (1971: 5) writes, "Each swaps only to get something that he likes better than what he has. Thus trade makes everyone subjectively better off [. . .] In the prison-camp market, cigarettes are used as a unit of account and, perhaps, as a medium of exchange in three-cornered transactions, but there is no store of value, no 'link between the present and the future'" (underlined by A. C). If, however, cigarettes were employed as a medium of exchange, the transaction cannot be considered barter as defined in this paper.

* Prisoner(s) of war. 15. McCarthy 1938-39: 408; 1939-40: 177. 16. Id. 1938-39: 408.

BARTER 43

(domestic) or external (foreign) trade. It can occur between tribes, nations, states, kin, friends, children, strangers or even enemies.

Barter may well be one of the most archaic and universal means by which people acquired needed or desired objects they lacked as well as products they had never seen before. It undoubtedly played a vital role in early hunting- gathering societies by establishing contact with peoples beyond their cultural and linguistic horizons. There is reason to believe that in prehistoric times, barter was one of the principal means of cultural diffusion. It stimulated the insertion of foreign goods into local groups and with the objects often went new concepts and alternative ways of dealing with all sorts of problems both practical and ideological.

I quote here in extenso the excellent study of McCarthy on trade in native Australia.

"While it is possible for a community to live without the benefits to be derived from trade with neighbouring communities, in the majority of group contacts advantage is taken of the opportunity to barter and exchange goods. There is so much to be gained in this manner that we find barter and exchange to be important institutions, often necessitated by a lack of essential requirements, among both nomadic and sedentary peoples throughout the world, and by which their material wealth and social life are enriched. The evidence brought forward in this paper demonstrates that in Australia local groups and tribes barter with their neighbours on all sides and also receive articles from far-distant localities" (McCarthy 1939-40: 171).

"An important result of this study is the identification of a number of trade routes along which various traits travel astounding distances. These routes I have called trunk trade routes[. . .] and it is with the barter of these traits that we are now concerned" {ibid.: 98).

"The trunk routes are the avenues along which important culture elements — material, social and religious — have diffused. When known for the whole of Australia, and studied in conjunction with the geographical distribution of all traits, and with the journeys of the spiritual ancestors and culture heroes[. . .] we will have a sound basis upon which to work out such problems of how Australia was peopled from the point of entry of the first-comers, the directions in which diffusion of traits have taken place, and how discontinuous distributions have developed" {ibid. : 104). 17

Barter may well have been vitally important in the acceleration of the early diffusion of mankind over the globe. Early Homo Sapiens S. virtually exploded over most of the planet, far more so than other comparable species. Perhaps barter played an essential role in the realization of this great initial "diaspora".

17. For trade routes in east-central New Britain see Pan off 1969, map p. 15.

44 ANNE CHAPMAN

The human animal cannot survive without objects selected from nature or manufactured by him, and this biological limitation, as is well known, he turns to his cultural advantage. Again with reference to Australia, I quote McCarthy:

"Trade has facilitated the peopling of Australia by making it possible for adventurers settling in new country to obtain from their homeland essential articles, and also others which they may otherwise have to abandon, while ascertaining the resources of the new territory" {ibid. : 175).

For North America, Driver and Massey observe:

"Data on trade demonstrate the process of diffusion, which is so powerful a determiner of cultural growth [. . .] We need not speculate how customs or ideas traveled from one tribe to another when we realize that every locality had some contact with the outside through trade" (Driver & Massey 1957: 375).

And in South America, according to Roth:

"The migratory movements of the Akawai were all conducted with profound forethought and according to a regular system [. . .] There are certain friendly villages where these roving traders are sure of getting cassava bread on their long j ourneys. Their expeditions sometimes occupy months, sometimes years [. . .] They have been called, from their roving propensities, the peddlers and news carriers of the northeast coast, and are in constant communication with the inhabitants of Venezuela and the Brazils as well as with the colonists of Demerara, Surinam, and Cayenne [. . .] Of course, it is somewhat difficult now to estimate how far these lengthy expeditions were limited by the huckstering or by the fighting which usually accompanied them. Certain it is in some cases that the organized system of traffic has opened up new trade routes in the strict sense of the word" (Roth 1924: 634-635).

Barter was likewise common in regions with diverse ecospheres, whose inhabitants produced complementary rather than competitive goods. Such was the non-Kula trade described by Malinowski (1922: 282-289) between the Amphlett tribe which exchanged pottery for food such as sago, pork, coconuts, betel nuts, taro, yams and stone implements with the Trobrianders and the Dobuans.

This was also true where neighboring tribes specialized in the manufacture of certain articles as in the upper Xingii region of Brazil where, according to Oberg:

"The Camayurâ are the expert bow makers, the Waurâ are practically the only tribe which makes pottery, the Mehinâcu make the best flutes, the Trumai are considered the best arrow makers, and the Nahukwâ, Cuicuru, and the Calapâlo are the expert necklace makers. The Camayurâ say this division of skills was determined by Mavutsiné, for he gave the original people these articles and taught them how to make them [. ■ . .]

BARTER 45

A Camayurâ in normal circumstances will give two bows for a necklace of good quality. Canoes, on the other hand, although of great utility, are cheap, no doubt due to the plentiful supply of jatobâ trees and the speed and ease with which they can be made. In exactly what quantities objects will be exchanged will, in the final analysis, also depend upon the individual wealth and desire of the two individuals involved in barter" (Oberg 1953: 42). 18

Chagnon presents an interesting sociological analysis of the economic specialization which prevails among the Yanomanô villages of Venezuela. An excellent illustration of the "embeddedness" of the economy in a society where barter, if existent, is very marginal.

"The third significant trade feature is the peculiar specialization in the production of trade items. Each village has one or more special products that it provides to its allies [. . .] This specialization in production cannot be explained in terms of the distribution of natural resources. Each village is, economically speaking, capable of self-sufficiency. (The steel tools and other products from civilization constitute the major exceptions.) The explanation of the specialization must be sought, rather, in the sociological aspects of alliance formation. Trade functions as the social catalyst, the 'starting mechanism', through which mutually suspicious allies are repeatedly brought together in direct confrontation. Without these frequent contacts with neighbors, alliances would be much slower in formation and would be even more unstable once formed: A prerequisite to stable alliance is repetitive visiting and feasting, and the trading mechanism serves to bring about these visits" (Chagnon 1968: 100).

In some societies barter was forbidden or simply not practiced among people who related in certain ways. And there were also restrictions on the type of goods that might be bartered. For instance Malinowski (1922: 362-363) observed that among the Trobrianders the Kula partners did not barter. He states that second-hand goods were never bartered [ibid.: 190) . Among the inhabitants of the Huon Gulf, in northeastern New Guinea, barter was not carried out between kin groups because, as Herskovits reports (1952: 193-194), "it was considered to be incompatible with blood ties". Einzig (1949: 347) mentions that under the rule of the Incas, the subjects were not allowed to barter their clothes, even though they were permitted to exchange foodstuffs. According to Polanyi (1966: 81) no barter at all was permitted in the Dahomey markets.

Pospisil (1958: 123), writing of the Kapauku Papuans, states that pigs, planks and canoes were never used in barter. This does not imply however that any

18. Another such example, among many, is that described by Gkwertz (1978) for the middle Sepik region of New Guinea where, in markets held every six days, people of the Sepik hills barter their sago for the fish of a group named Chambri. The author notices the aggressiveness of the "fishwives" during the transactions.

46 ANNE CHAPMAN

taboo prevented it. As approximately only one tenth of the trade was carried out through barter, the exclusion of these items may simply have resulted from their great importance as commercial goods. In Abyssinia, such a situation is clearly described by Thurnwald:

"Among the Kaffocho or Gonga, in Abyssinia, all purchases and sales were conducted for immediate payment in money, i.e. Maria Theresa dollars, bars of salt, beads or skeins of yarn. Genuine barter only took place in trading food-stuffs" (Thurnwald 1932: 174).

"Cultural conservatism" to use McCarthy's term, also restricts bartering. Quoting Warner, he writes (1939-40: 176) that tribes of Arnhem Land resisted Malayan cultural influence and that the people of Cape York absorbed only those traits from New Guinea and Melanesia which fitted into their patterns of culture. "Conservatism" and its relation to trade is a fundamental problem of process. [It will be mentioned later [on pp. 49-50] in relation to the alienation of objects.]

Barter was practiced by European explorers when they first encountered the "natives" of different lands. If the explorers coveted an exotic object, sometimes they obtained it in peaceful exchange for some trifle. The local people might willingly swap their much esteemed goods for knick-knacks because the latter appealed to them also as exotic, because of their usefulness or for some other reason.19 If each party desired the other's possession, barter would ensue — no matter how discrepant the objective "value" of the goods. . . For example, Robert-Lamblin (1980) referring to the Bering expedition of 1741 states that a rusty kettle, five needles and string were bartered with people of the Aleutian islands for an elaborate head-dress worn only by men of high rank. The Aleutians normally exchanged these hats with other Eskimos for one or even three slaves, and slaves were scarce.

Often there is a sexual division of labour in bartering, each sex being the proprietor of the artifacts which are manufactured and bartered. The Eskimos of northern Alaska as reported by Spencer, are a case in point.

"In trading each man was independent. Men traded with men, women with women. Each person was free to make his own decisions and to trade the products of his labor as he saw fit. Husbands and wives did not consult each other in the trading arrangements they made. Family groups separated, in fact, each going his own way to drive the best bargains possible" (Spencer 1959: 207).

Of a modern Aymara village market of Bolivia, Tschopik wrote:

"In general each sex barters the articles it produces although women usually market food products. Communities also specialize [. . .] in some

19. See De Coppet 1973.

BARTER 47

regions ayllus tend to specialize [. . .] Trade is conducted only by barter, the exchange depending upon the relative abundance of the products" (Tschopik 1946: 536-538).

Barter is often described as trade between communities rather than exchange within a given group. Many authors assume that barter did not exist within the primitive community. Einzig contests this generalization on two levels; conceptually and empirically. Given the absence of division of labor (except sexual) in most hunting-gathering cultures, barter is said not to have been practiced within the group simply because all the products were available to everyone. I here quote Einzig extensively because of the coherence of his argument.

"According to the popular conception of barter, it is first supposed to have developed between various communities before it existed within the communities concerned [. . .] This contention, according to which foreign trade preceded home trade, is based on a mistaken notion of the division of labour, and on the idea that division of labour, in the sense of specialization in particular branches of production, must necessarily precede barter. It is a concept accepted uncritically by many economists and economic historians as well as anthropologists. Yet it stands to reason that although a community may be entirely pastoral there may be individuals within it who specialize in breeding cattle or goats or sheep or horses [. . .] Even if the whole community were engaged in cattle- breeding, there is scope for bartering one kind of cattle against another [. . .] And [. . .] one fisherman might catch one type of fish and another fisherman another type ..." (Einzig 1949: 346-347).

Secondly Einzig [ibid. : 356-357, 362) contends that the assumption of the lack of internal barter is based on the sparsity of information on the subject. Internal barter may very well have flourished, even though there is little data concerning it. Einzig argues that the outsider (the data collector) rarely had any opportunity to observe barter within a group. He also points out that, archeologically, trade or barter is assumed to be largely external because it is more easily documented than internal trade. He concludes that it cannot be taken for granted that barter was more frequent between groups than within a given community and that to the contrary, local barter was in all probabilities more common than foreign barter or trade.

There is in effect some data on internal barter. Other than that cited by Einzig (1949: 357), for instance Herskovits (1952: 195) mentions it for Africa, McCarthy (1938-39: 417, 435) for Australia, Barth (1971: 178) and Godelier (1969: 16-17) f°r New Guinea, and Gusinde (1931: 436) for the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego.

The great "beauty" of barter lies in its permissiveness. It allows for exchange of objects to take place irrespective of the social or cultural definition of the partners. Certain societies deliberately restrain this freedom. But left to

48 ANNE CHAPMAN

itself, barter liberates the individuals or groups from societal obligations and institutions and allows them to procure goods they need or desire. When the goods are vital for survival this freedom is essential to the society as a whole, as it might as well be for any two individuals at a given moment of their existence.

Barter is motivated by the mutual advantages it affords to both parties, not by profit seeking though profit, or gain, may be made, under some circumstances, by one of the parties.20

Given the virtual impossibility of complete autarchy for any community, large or small,21 barter comprises a manner of exchanging objects without compromising the actors. In this sense it is neutral. As noted previously, it can even be carried out between people on the verge of conflict as well as between traditional enemies. It requires no engagement for future relations though some groups do barter by agreement, over long periods of time.

Barter affords the simplest common denominator for the exchange of goods. Barter is a universal means of communication. It necessitates neither the

use of a common language nor mutually intelligible signs nor even the physical presence of the interested parties. In this sense it has far greater " efficiency

"

than any other means of communication. This is true primarily because the objects which man makes or appropriates from nature are alienable.22 Symbols are not. Nor is any given language. In some cultures a person makes a ritual gesture when he detaches himself from a possession to trade it or when he receives an object in exchange.23 However objects are not necessarily confined to the

20. This problem will be considered in another study. 21. For example Dalton (1978: 154) clearly states, "It is quite rare — I know of no

cases — for groups to be totally self-contained, to be absolutely self-sufficient, to live in isolation, not to trade (or make war). Marriage alone required relationships with groups external to lineages or lineage-clusters." And with respect to North America, Driver & Massey (1957: 375) write, "Every tribe but one possessed at least some objects which could not be obtained locally but which had to be obtained in trade from the outside."

22. For example, Marx (1976: 182), "Things are in themselves external to man and therefore alienable."

23. The Eskimos had a ritual gesture by means of which they detached themselves from their personal goods destined to be sold or bartered, which Mauss describes as follows: "En tout cas, la chose [goods belonging to the individual] fait partie de l'individu qui ne s'en sépare, en cas de vente ou de troc, qu'après en avoir gardé un morceau ou l'avoir léchée. Grâce à cette précaution, ils peuvent s'en séparer, sans avoir à craindre que l'acheteur n'exerce sur eux par l'intermédiaire de la chose, une puissance malfaisante" (Mauss 1904-05: 117; underlined by A. C).

And Captain W. C. Parry describes (for 1819-20) another such gesture made by the Eskimos of Baffin Bay upon receiving goods through barter, or as a gift: "Si, par exemple, on leur offrait un couteau pour quelqu'un des objets dont ils pouvaient disposer, ils hésitaient quelque temps, et quand ils voyaient que nous étions déterminés à ne pas en donner un plus haut prix, ils consentaient à l'échange. Dans ce cas, de même que lorsqu'on leur faisait quelque présent, ils touchaient deux fois avec la langue ce qu'ils recevaient, et semblaient alors regarder le marché comme définitivement conclu" (Parry 1822: 248; underlined by A. C).

See also Mauss (1950: 259) for examples of this sort from France.

BARTER 49

social and psychological instances of the society which produces them. Nor are they always unique to just one culture. Often they may be exchanged with a people who need or desire them regardless of other considerations. This applies even to items which are seen for the first time by a group ignoring completely the means by which they were produced and their purpose. Newly acquired objects are sometimes rapidly integrated into a receiving culture, fulfilling functions for which they were never intended.

Barter is distinguished from various types of institutionalized trade which involve simultaneous or delayed (cyclical) exchanges on non-economic levels, be they social and kin, ritual, symbolic, sexual, religious, political, juridical or a combination thereof. Barter is not embedded in society. It stands out by itself as a purely economic transaction. What then is its role in history, in process? If barter is not an institution it might be termed a cultural or behavioral pattern. It is distinguished from other patterns or traits in that it can be invented on the spur of the moment, it needs no tradition nor specific learning. Even if we belong to different cultures you may have something I desire and vice versa. If we agree to exchange our objects and if no norm counters our intention and no one prevents us from doing so, we barter. Barter is latent in any exchange situation, accessible, as it were, if the need arises. This is true, I propose, partly because objects are not necessarily embedded in the society which produces them. Those that are not, may be exchanged among very different cultures, though "cultural conservatism" may set limits on their acceptance. Moreover objects made for one purpose may be used for another or simply kept as curiosities, prestige items, museum pieces, etc.

The object may be loving as a Teddy Bear, ambivalent as a sharply edged slice of steel, beautiful as an arc, mysterious as the Mona Lisa, etc. It often becomes imbued with an immense variety of connotations, both personal and public; symbols of all sorts. There exists a general feeling, an awareness, that somehow our society let the object escape human control and that it now has turned on us dictatorially ordering our lives, now sweetly, now menacingly. Decades ago, Thurnwald commented:

"However technique may differ in individual cultures no primitive societies are dominated by the modern machine, which reduces man to dependence" (Thurnwald 1932: 281).

Baudrillard specifies:

". . .le projet [. . .] se satisfait de sa réalisation comme signe dans l'objet [. . .] Ceci explique qu'il n'y ait pas de limites à la consommation [. . .] C'est qu'elle est dynamisée par le projet toujours déçu et sous-entendu dans l'objet [. . .] Celle-ci ne peut dès lors que se dépasser, ou se réitérer continuellement pour rester ce qu'elle est: une raison de vivre. Le projet

50 ANNE CHAPMAN

même de vivre, morcelé, déçu, signifié, se reprend, et s'abolit dans les objets successifs [. . .] C'est finalement parce que la consommation se fonde sur un manque, qu'elle est irrépressible" (Baudrillard 1968: 282-283).

Since Mary Goodwin's Frankenstein, "the object" has become a power which must be "harnessed", domesticated. Without the object we would have remained animals, with it we may cease to be.

No human institution could be invented that did not bring into play some universal propensities or characteristics of the human being as a cultural animal and as a psyche. If this were not so, we today would have no means of comparing cultures or societies which are very different from our own and from one another. Anthropology would not exist. Distinct cultures would be studied as discrete categories or as auto-regulating systems, unrelated to each other, each exemplifying its special, particular and unique "laws" of operation and process. These "laws" would be subjectively incomprehensible to us were there no common experience which renders them intelligible. Animals do not have culture, so the study of their behavior does not pose this problem. Though our sensibility to animals reveals our common ancestry with them.

George Dalton writes of Karl Polanyi, in his introduction to Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies :

"However, in the very range of economies he analyzes and draws from, lies one of his principal contributions: that a theory of economic anthropology becomes possible only when primitive and archaic economies are regarded as part of comparative economic systems. To understand what is special to the economies anthropologists deal with and what they share with all other economies requires comparative analysis of the kind Polanyi provides. In order for anthropologists to see what is analytically important in Trobriands'

economy they must first understand the structure of industrial capitalism. . ." (Dalton, éd., 1968: x; underlined by A. C.)

Now I shall briefly describe five mechanisms of exchange by means of which barter may operate. These are: (1) bargaining; (2) use of set or customary rates; (3) exchange without bargaining or set rates; (4) delayed exchange or credit; (5) use of money as a measure or standard of value (see pp. 53-54). They do not aspire to represent the totality of mechanisms to be found in the literature as my research was by no means exhaustive. They are not confined to barter nor are they all mutually exclusive. Barter "uses" them as a means to its end, that is, to exchange objects. The first three form a paradigmatic set but the remaining two are not part of the set because they may be combined with any of the first three operations, as well as with each other.

(1) Bargaining is such a well-known technique that it needs no definition nor examples. Adam Smith was one of the first scholars to propose a labor theory

BARTER 51

of value. His statement concerning bargaining as a means of establishing approximate equivalencies, is important.

"But though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated. It is often difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different quantities of labour. The time spent in two different sorts of work will not always alone determine this proportion [. . .] it is not easy to find any accurate measure either of hardship or ingenuity. In exchanging indeed the different productions of different sorts of labour for one another, some allowance is commonly made for both. It is adjusted, however, not by any accurate measure, but by the higgling and bargaining of the market, according to that sort of rough equality which, though not exact, is sufficient for carrying on the business of common life" (Smith 1976, I: 48-49; underlined by A. C).

Bargaining is a key factor for any theory of barter. Some scholars assumed that barter was typically carried out by means of bargaining.24 However this is an error, as will be shown presently. Any theory of barter must take account of the range of its exchange operations. This is one of the most puzzling and difficult attributes to analyze.

(2) Set rates are established or recognized as norms for stipulating equivalencies between certain paired items. Among the Selk'nam in Tierra del Fuego, Gusinde (1931: 436) enumerates the following:

3 or 4 arrows = 1 good bow, 2 arrows = 1 quiver, 1 walnut-sized piece of pitch (from ships, found on the beach) = 3 fox skins.

Einzig writes (1949: 115) of the Naga tribes of India, that a fixed ratio existed between cattle and rice, fifty baskets of rice being equal to one cow. Blackwood details some set rates in the context of bartering among tribes of northwestern Solomon Islands:

"A well-organized and to some extent standardized system of barter takes place regularly between various villages [. . .] The most important arrangement of this kind is the exchange of fish and taro between coastal and inland villages [. . .] The land near the coast is not very good for growing taro; the inland peoples have only the small amount of fish they can take from the rivers. There are, therefore, at short intervals, prearranged meetings of the women of one village with the women of another

24. See in this text, p. 59, with reference to Polanyi. See also Polanyi 1957: 74. Firth (1929: 403) states, "Barter essentially implies some agreement as to the rates

of exchange, a practice quite foreign to the Maori mode of conducting matters. No stipulation was made by the donor as to the amount of the commodity which must be given in exchange, and no bargaining or haggling of any kind took place."

52 ANNE CHAPMAN

for the exchange of these commodities at fixed rates [. . .] The whole affair was got over as quickly as possible, there was very little gossip, and it was clearly regarded as a business, not a social occasion [. . .] There is no ceremonial attached to these journeys [. . .] (the fishing Saposa people exchange) [. . .] with the mountain people, 10 fish for 10 taros. With the Selo people, 2 fish for 6 taros. These rates are said to have been fixed for them by Morena, the 'culture heroine' from whom they trace their origin. . ." (Blackwood 1935: 439-441; underlined by A. C.)

Einzig counters the theory of Schurtz and Thurnwald that barter by fixed rates leads to money economy with the comment:

"On the contrary, in so far as the existence of fixed barter ratios facilitates barter it contributed towards the survival of the moneyless system of trading"

(Einzig 1949: 356).

Bartering by fixed rates does not necessitate a standard of value. The rates may be determined simply by usage and tactical agreement as among the Selk'nam, by tradition and attributed to mythology as cited above in the Solomon Islands, by a community or a political authority, etc.

(3) Outright exchange without bargaining nor set rates. The items are exchanged without discussion of their quantity or quality nor reference to norms of equivalencies. Einzig describes such a circumstance of bartering between people of fishing and gardening villages in the Loyalty Islands.

"... when a member of the fishing village enquires of the price of yam, the answer is: 'Ho, just give me as much fish as you would think it is worth' — and the bargain is closed. At the end of the day, each party hands over the unsold products to the other party" (ibid.: 47-48).

And Aiston for Australia:

"Intrinsic value had nothing to do with the sales; it was quite likely that a big bag of pitcheri would be exchanged for a single boomerang, but it was just as likely to be exchanged for a half a dozen boomerangs and perhaps a shield and a pirra; it always depended on what the buyer and seller wanted. . ." (Aiston 1937: 376-377).

(4) Delayed exchange or differed delivery of the goods bartered by one of the parties may be considered credit, if a certain time elapses before the promised goods are handed over. Einzig's comments on credit in this context are important.

"Barter, by its nature, gave rise to a credit system before the adoption of money. This was not realized by some economists, who, however distinguished in their own lines, were unacquainted with the elements of anthropology [...]■ To some extent the development of primitive money

BARTER 53

actually does away with the necessity for credit system that was indispensable in a barter economy owing to the discrepancies between the value of the objects exchanged and the time-lag between their delivery" (Einzig 1948: 4-5).

(5) Measure or standard of value is defined by Einzig as follows:

"If an object or an abstract unit serves as a unit of account to facilitate barter, it may be regarded as money but the system cannot be considered to be monetary economy. It is described sometimes as 'money barter'"

(Einzig 1949: 327; also: 335, 356, 364-367)-

And by Polanyi:

"The standard use of money is the employment of a physical unit of a definite type as a referent in situations where arithmetical operations in regard to objects of different kinds are called for, such as 'adding up apples and pears'. The 'handling' of the unit consists in the operation of 'tagging on' a numerical value to at least one of the units with the effect that 'apples and pears' can now be summed up in a meaningful way by relating them to the 'standard'. The effect is that barter is facilitated [. . .] staple finance too. . ." (Polanyi 1977: 102-103; also: 253, 257-258).

These and other scholars such as Marx (1973: 142), Schneider (1974: 255) and Melitz (1970: 1027) concerned with the prehistory of money have noted that the standard usage occurs quite independently from money as a universal equivalent, also termed all-purpose money. Referring to Menger, Einzig (1949: 367) even suggests that standards for evaluating stored wealth may historically have preceded barter. This seems unlikely if only because most known hunters, gatherers and fishers did not accumulate much "wealth" but many did barter. The standard is not necessarily represented by a material object. For example, it may consist of imaginary units or of a mathematical device for calculating relative worth of goods against a given symbol or entity.

The use of standards in barter is known among such diverse cultures as those of the Philippines, Mongolia, Nicobar Islands, southern India of the 14th century A. D. and post World War I Germany.25

III. — Barter and Money

The dichotomy barter /money has been frequently advanced by students of economy from Aristotle to the present day. The position of scholars in recent times is directly related to the definition of money they employ.26 I favor a

25. Einzig 1949: 93, 109, 112, 282, 309. 26. For epistemological analyses and comments on money as a concept, I consulted

CODERE I968; DALTON 1961: I2-I7; ElNZIG 1948, I949: 353-4I9; GrIERSON I978; HERS-

54 ANNE CHAPMAN

concept of money which stresses functions, and 1 follow other researchers in defining it as objects or numerical symbols used in exchange as: (i) payment (for services, fines, privileges, etc.); (2) store of wealth (particular objects socially recognized as equivalent to a certain amount of wealth); (3) measure or standard value (abstract symbols used in accounting or references to objects used as equivalents); (4) special purpose equivalent (used only for specific "goods" which may be wives and slaves); (5) general equivalent (used for all or most goods except land and labor); (6) universal or all purpose equivalent (for all or most goods including land and labor).27

Without aspiring to contribute to the very complex problem of the origin of money (or monies), it is necessary to situate the barter phenomenon with respect to it.

Barter as well as reciprocal and redistributive exchange forms (Polanyi's terms) prevailed in certain nearly contemporary hunting-gathering societies which did not employ money of any sort in so far as is known (see below) . It may be surmised that such was the case in at least some early paleolithic societies. It can therefore be postulated that historically barter preceded money.

Even though money may have developed from a generalized use of a favorite object of barter, as many authorities have proposed, it is now believed by some students of primitive economies that money uses did not arise from the so-called inconveniences of barter.28 It is well known that barter continues to be practiced in societies which also employ money. Moreover barter sometimes utilizes a standard of value to calculate equivalents which, according to the definition presented above, can be considered money. In our type of society barter is quite frequent and the equivalents are usually established by reference to our universal, all-purpose money which also acts as a standard. So while barter may have preceded money historically, the two can be integrated. They are however incompatible when money functions as an "intermediate factor" (see "A Model of Pure Barter", p. 35). Obviously goods that are exchanged for money are not bartered.

In many societies barter and money coexist even at the same time and place as for instance in the Aztec market (tianguis) where money was apparently

KOViTS 1952: 238-253; Marx 1973, 1976; Mauss 1969; Neal 1971; Melitz 1970; Panoff 1970; 66-68; Polanyi 1957, cn- 13; 1966: 17; 1968, ch. 8; 1977, c^- 9', Samuelson 1973, ch. 15: Schneider 1974, cn- 5-

27. This enumeration is based on Polanyi as cited above; Dalton 1965: 51-52; Gode- lier 1969: 25-34; Mauss 1950: 178-179, n. 1; Schumpeter (1972: 1087) writes, "First, the practice continued to prevail of developing the theory of money from its old four functions — medium of exchange, measure of value, store of value, standard of deferred payment — many authors insisting both on the separability of these functions and on the practical reasons why we actually find them combined."

28. For example Einzig 1949: 350-351; Melitz 1970: 1031.

BARTER 55

employed as a general equivalent (number 5, on page 53 above). An authority on the subject, Carrasco, writes:

"The mass of the local and regional population brought products which they themselves produced to the tianguis (market place) [. . .] The majority of the transactions consisted of a simple exchange of goods between producers of different goods of general use and of small value: the various products of agriculture, of the hunt and of fishing as well as those of the artisans. These exchanges were made in the form of barter, or through the use of quasi-money objects — principally cacao and cloth — which as general means of payment also served as a medium of exchange [. . .] in any event, these exchanges had as their objective the satisfaction of necessities, that is, that of consumption and not profit" (Carrasco 1978: 56-57; translated and underlined by A. C).

Dalton proposes a conceptual framework, the "peripheral" market, as a context in which both barter and money (though not universal modern money) were used in the transactions.

"... market-place sites exist in which a narrow range of produce is bought and sold, either with some money-stuff used as a medium of (commercial) exchange, or via barter in the economist's sense (moneyless market exchange). We call these market exchanges 'peripheral' because land and labor are not bought and sold and because most people do not get the bulk of their income from market sales" (Dalton 1965: 52; underlined by A. C).

Money does not negate barter. It does not render it obsolete nor replace it. Barter may never have been the unique form of exchange in any type of

society. This problem remains open. I favor the hypothesis that there were no "barter societies". But money does predominate, rendering nearly all goods (and most services or labor) convertible into money, in at least one type of society, namely capitalism.29 In this sense there is a "money society". There are also numerous societies which employ some kind of money. And there are "moneyless societies".

Moneyless societies are typically though not universally nor exclusively hunting-gathering societies. I shall not attempt here to draw up an inventory of such societies but rather simply illustrate the gamut covered by citations from the writings of various scholars.

"Primitive hunters and fishers the world over are nonusers of money. Thus the Australians, the Pygmies, the Veddoids of Asia and Indonesia, the Great Basin Shoshoneans, the Plains tribes and the Eskimo are all

29. Some feminist movements now advocate that Avives be paid a salary for their work in the home.

56 ANNE CHAPMAN

moneyless and conduct trade by barter alone. The Indians of the west coast of North America, however, are exceptions to this general rule [. . .] The Northwest Indians furnish a splendid example of the social rather than economic importance of money in primitive civilization [. . .] Among horticulturists, the distribution of money is extremely sporadic depending as it usually does on historical diffusion. Thus money is entirely unknown in South America, even among the semicivilized Incas" (Loeb 1936: 155- 156). "Let 'money' refer to those objects in primitive societies that have token value rather than use value and that serve as means of exchange [. . .] If all this is agreeable, it further appears that pristine developments of primitive money are not broadly spread through the ethnographic scene, but are restricted to certain areas: especially western and central Melanesia, aboriginal California, and certain parts of the South American tropical forest [. . .] This is also to say that primitive money is associated with an historically specific type of primitive economy, an economy with a marked incidence of balanced exchange in peripheral social sectors. It is not a phenomenon of simple hunting cultures — if I may be permitted, cultures of a band level. Neither is primitive money characteristic of the more advanced chief doms, where wealth tokens though certainly encountered tend to bear little exchange load" (Sahlins 1972: 227). "Although we have applied the word money to a few media of exchange in Indian North America, it is important to bear in mind that nearly all of the trade goods in pre-Columbian times were exchanged by barter. It was used mainly to purchase wives, or as a treasure to be displayed in ceremonies or as compensation for personal loss or injury. Wampum in the East was associated with an even greater amount of formality and ritual. The chocolate bean was a much more commercial money, but run-of-the-mill trade goods were not necessarily priced in terms of these beans; money, therefore, had barely obtained a foothold in North America by the time of European discovery" (Driver & Massey 1957: 383).

Einzig (1949: 341-345) cites the following groups "in which no money whatsoever is known to have existed, at any rate for internal purposes":

— natives of Tierra del Fuego — Australian aborigines — Negrito tribes in Malaya — Indian tribes in backward parts of South America — Anamanese — ancient Peru (Incas)30

30. With respect to the problem of whether or not money existed among the Incas, an Andean authority, Murra (1978: 204), states, "All the chroniclers agree that money was unknown." He qualifies this statement by the mention of two chroniclers who affirmed the contrary (Cobo and Acosta) but he considers that "given the date of these reports, the context and the nature of the articles, such a use (of money) appears to me to be post- columbian". On the other hand, another Andean scholar, Valcarcel (1946: 482), writes,

BARTER 57

— 17th-century Jesuit Republic of Paraguay — certain monasteries and baronial estates of feudal Europe — certain large estates, as the hacienda, in Latin America — certain religious communities, especially in the United States.

The outstanding characteristic of most of the societies, cultures, or groups cited above is their communal "mode of production", lack of hierarchies based on the economy. However other societies having this mode of production did use some form of money, such as certain indigenous groups in South America, in California, not to say Melanesia. This problem should be studied with great care. Here we might find answers to some of the most puzzling problems concerning the origins and functions of money and of the different modalities of exchange. Certain forms of money may act as catalyzers. The various categories of money are not simply culture traits, they are privileged areas of research.31

I want to pause now in order to emphasize a factor, even at the risk of excessive reiteration, which will prove crucial for the discussion of process at the end of this paper.

Barter exists with or without money (money — in the broad sense of the term as defined on page 53); in societies having institutionalized ceremonial gift trade as well as in those in which the state (palace, temple) or high ranking clan, lineage, caste, feudality or "strata" administer most of the trade. Under capitalism where money is a universal equivalent and standard medium of exchange, barter is marginal, having little effect on the dominant system, except in periods of

"Evidently the Indians never had a monetary system, although they had certain products which served as money, such as salt, sea shells, copper axes, chili, coca, etc. which were at the same time offered for sale." And yet another, Rostworowski {*977'- 128-129), referring to trade between the Andean region proper and the Valley of Chincha to the north, writes that copper had "assumed a monetary value and served as the basis of barter of concha shells of northern origin".

31. The functions of money is a too many-sided problem to be approached here. That it had and has symbolic "power" is undeniable (see for instance Marx 1976: 163-177, 1003, 1046, on the fetishism of the commodity and Codere 1968); that it had religious origins is postulated (Einzig 1949: 379-386; Durkheim 1912: 598; Mauss 1969). But it also may act as a "prime mover" in certain contexts, as implied by an example found at random in Herskovits (1952: 256-257) who quotes Tueting's Melanesian data, "So dogs' teeth and shell money often go begging in the market, and only the rich man who controls the labor of many young people can afford to take advantage of opportunities to acquire the money, which the unsuccessful fisherman or bad gardener brings to the market. "

Schumpeter (1972: 1088-1089) is quoted here with respect to Walras's model of barter: ". . . then the problem arises of defining how money would have to behave in order to leave the real processes of the barter model uninfluenced. Wicksell was the first to see the problem clearly and to coin the appropriate concept, Neutral Money [. . .] And this point eventually led to the discovery that no such conditions can be formulated, that is, that there is no such thing as neutral money or money that is a mere veil spread over the phenomena that really matter — an interesting case of a concept's rendering valuable service by proving unworkable" (underlined by A. C).

58 ANNE CHAPMAN

crises. But despite its marginality or perhaps because of it, barter apparently occurs in all types of societies.

Not only does barter persist "through the ages" as I wrote metaphorically at the beginning of this paper, but reciprocal and redistributive patterns do also, in one form or another. Whatever categories are employed to analyze the different economies or privileged parts of them, economies, it would seem, are consistently "pluralistic", even though perhaps in almost any society, one "type" of economy tends to predominate.

To illustrate concretely what I have in mind, I first turn to Thurnwald writing of the New Guinea Buin:

"Reviewing briefly what has been written above, we can distinguish three kinds of 'economies' running side by side: (i) the husbandry within the family, in which the part played by the women in the garden, in the house and in the feeding of the pigs predominates; (2) the inter-individual and inter-familial help among the near relatives and among the members of a settlement united under a chief; (3) the inter-communal relations manifested by barter between individuals belonging to different communities or strata of society" (Thurnwald 1934: 124).

And now to Dalton who conceptualizes this point as follows:

"It should be emphasized that no economic 'system' is of one piece. Rather, that in any society — including our own, and most certainly the primitive — there exist spheres of economy with different principles of organization, different sanctions to induce conformity, different institu- tionalization of economic mechanisms, indeed, different moral values for judging worth and performance. . ." (Dalton 1961: 20).

Polanyi as well as Marx and many other scholars were aware of this configuration.

IV. — Barter according to Polanyi

Polanyi considered barter to be a pattern or principle of exchange,32 though unfortunately he never developed his research along this line. As a principle of exchange, barter was simply a market element, linked conceptually to the price-making market (to capitalism).33 But in contrast to the classical economists, he insisted that the modern market economy did not evolve from primitive barter. He conceived of barter as a behavioral pattern which as such could

32. Polanyi 1944: 68 (also in 1968, ch. 2); 1957: 268-269 (also in 1959: 183; 1968, ch. 7: 139-174); 1977: 42.

33. Polanyi 1944: 56-63, 68 (also in 1968, ch. 2: 26-36).

BARTER 59

not give rise to an instituted system (to the price-making market). Lacking the necessary institutional conditions, behavorial patterns could never evolve into socially integrated structures.34

By classing barter as an exchange principle, he implied that he viewed it as a sui generis economic phenomenon.35 Exchange as a form of integration (as the price-making market, i.e. liberal capitalism) developed into a powerful system virtually cancelling out the previous forms of exchange and trade by radically imposing a qualitative transformation of the feudal society and ultimately giving rise to a society dominated by economic interests. Heretofore, in all previous societies, the economy had been "embedded"36 in the social-kin, religious, aesthetic or political domains of culture.

Polanyi did not insist that barter can occur without bargaining or gain as well as without the use of money in any form. He usually referred to barter as a transaction involving bargaining (higgling and haggling). He makes this point when he defines exchange and barter in the following terms.

"Exchange is a two-way movement of goods between persons oriented toward the gain ensuing for each from the resulting terms. In simpler terms, barter is the behavior of persons who exchange goods on the assumption that each makes the most of it. Higgling and haggling are the essence here, since there is no other way each person can make sure he is gaining as much as possible from the bargain. Haggling, in this case, it not the result of some human frailty, but a behavior pattern logically required by the mechanisms of the market" (Polanyi 1977: 42; underlined by A. C).

Though he was aware that money was inexistent in some societies,37 he considered certain money uses to be "as old as mankind".38 He often referred to barter as entailing the standard or accounting use of money.39 In one instance he illustrated such bartering with an example from ancient Babylonia.

34. Ibid.; 1957: 251-252, 254, 265 (also in 1959: 170-171, 172, 179; 1968, ch. 7: 139-174); 1968: 190; 1977: 37, 42.

35. After commenting Malinowski's treatment of barter among the Trobrianders, he characterizes primitive societies in the following terms (Polanyi 1977: 55), "In general, in all the forms of exchange excepting barter, the amounts and kinds of things given and taken in return are specifically related to the type of social relationship involved, whether that of family, clan, subclan, village community, district, or tribe. Each is distinct and separate in both terminology and native thought. Under such conditions, the aggregative concepts of fund or balance, of loss and gain, were obviously inapplicable" (underlined by A. C.).

36. According to Panoff (1970: 64), this concept of Polanyi "amounts to no more than the Maussian notion of totality in the same context". I do not think that the two concepts (Polanyi's "embeddedness" and Mauss' "faits sociaux totaux") are structurally similar. Mauss, for example, relied far more on induction than did Polanyi.

37. Polanyi 1944: 57-58. 38. Polanyi et al., eds., 1957: 257 (also in 1968, ch. 7). 39. Ibid. : 14, 264 (the latter also in 1968, ch. 7); 1968: 192, 194; 1977: 102-103, 117.

60 ANNE CHAPMAN

"Without the help of computation assisted by money of account, how, for instance, could a piece of land be bartered against a chariot, horse harness, asses, ass harness, oxen, oil, clothes, and other minor items?" {Ibid. : 108; also in 1968, ch. 8.)

Polanyi is obviously correct; this sort of barter could not be carried out in the absence of a standard equivalent.

Just as he did not stress that barter does occur without bargaining or gain and without the use of money as a standard of value, he underestimated or ignored the fact that barter can take place at set rates (see p. 51, above).

Though he usually considered barter as an exchange pattern, in an early text he stated that barter not only assumed a reciprocal form but also that it was usual, "in the vast ancient systems of redistribution".40

Polanyi's failure to stress that, as barter does prevail in almost any type of society, it cannot logically be attributed a causal role in the genesis of any particular economic system, deprived him of a powerful argument with which to challenge the formalists. If in Adam Smith's words, there be a propensity in human nature "to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another",41 this does not imply that a propensity to barter necessarily generates the phenomenon of profit seeking, nor for that matter that barter be directly relevant to the development of capitalism.

Like Marx, Polanyi considered barter to be a subordinate form of exchange, though for him, this term had different connotations than it did for Marx.

I now turn to Marx.

V. — Barter according to Marx

According to my reading of Marx,42 he fails to distinguish adequately between two axes of his analyses: the initial part of the demonstration of his value theory and the exposition of his theory of direct exchange (barter) . His demonstration dissects, so to speak, the phenomenon of value; composing various forms in a

40. Polanyi 1944: 61. A propos of Aristotle's analyses of contemporary Greek economy with reference to barter among "householders", Polanyi commented (1957: 88, 90; also in 1968: 107, no) that "reciprocity in sharing was accomplished through acts of barter. Hence exchange [. . .] Thus barter derived from the institution of sharing of the necessities of life; the purpose of barter was to supply all the householders with those necessities up to the level of sufficiency [. . .] the exchange was made at the established rate (equivalency) against other staples of which the householder happened to have a supply". See Polanyi (1968: 307-308) for his concept of "householding" as redistribution on a small scale, and Humphrey's (1969: 204-207) comments on this concept.

41. Smith 1976, I: 25. 42. Marx & Engkls 1968; Marx 1969, 1973, 1976, 1977a, 1977b. Also the selected

works on pre-capitalistic formations by Godelier (1970) and Hobsbawm (1975).

BARTER 6 I

logical sequence, beginning with the simple equation "x commodity A = y commodity B " and arriving at the simple formula of circulation c m c (commodity- money-commodity) and eventually at m c m (money-commodity-money), the "general formula of capital", in a rigorous dialectic sequence. On the other hand, as a social evolutionist, he generally conceived of Society as proceeding from simple primitiveness to complex modernity.43 Hence exchange followed the same route; from barter of two products in the primitive community to the unending circulation of great masses of commodities (including money), that is m c m, under capitalism.

Marx describes this aspect of his methodology with respect to money in the following paragraph:

"Money may exist, and did exist historically, before capital existed, before banks existed, before wage labour existed, etc. Thus in this respect it may be said that the simpler category can express the dominant relations of a less developed whole, or else those subordinate relations of a more developed whole which already had a historic existence before the whole developed in the direction expressed by a more concrete category. To that extent the path of abstract thought, rising from the simple to the combined, would correspond to the real historical process" (Marx 1973: 102; underlined by A. C).

He immediately qualifies his statement on historical process with the observation:

"It may be said on the other hand that there are very developed but nevertheless historically less mature forms of society, in which the highest forms of economy, e.g. cooperation, a developed division of labour, etc., are found even though there is no kind of money, e.g. Peru" (ibid.).

Given the close coincidence of the rules of logical demonstration (for the initial development of his value theory) with the premise of simple to complex process (for his direct exchange theory) , Marx had no obvious reason to question the validity of his method. However in the former (the demonstration), the movement is purely psychological (concerns "abstract thought" in his words cited above), while the latter is purely historical or societal. So on this level, the coincidence is non-operative. The respective subjects are formally entirely distinct. A demonstration requires no factor of causality because causality is inherent in the dialectics of the opposing elements by means of which, or through which, reasoning advances from one premise to another, from the simple to the complex, in theory building. History and Society on the contrary, are concepts by means of which we seek to comprehend a certain exterior reality. They are not inherent in the mind but rather an expression of it, a striving to relate intel-

43. Marx 1973: 102; 1976: 182; 1977a: 170-173.

62 ANNE CHAPMAN

lectually to phenomena which are both outside of us (as individuals) and englobe us (as individuals). The development of a logical construct cannot be simply assimilated to an endeavour which aims at explaining an objective process, even though they may appear to be identical and in some cases follow the same route. They may be analogous but they pertain to distinct categories of reasoning.

According to my analyses, Marx assimilated the initial demonstration of his value theory44 to his theory of the origin of exchange (direct exchange or barter) at the conjunction of the following three principal steps in the initial part of the demonstration of his theory of value: (a) the simple, isolated or accidental form of value;45 (^) the total or expanded form of value;46 (y) the general form of value.47

When he arrives at c m c and finally the capitalist system with m c m, the analogy ceases: circulation expels two-way exchange, so to speak.

"The circulation of commodities differs from the direct exchange of products not only in form, but in its essence [. . .] We see here, on the one hand, how the exchange of commodities breaks through all the individual and local limitations of the direct exchange of products, and develops the metabolic process of human labour. On the other hand, there develops a whole network of social connections of natural origin, entirely beyond the control of human agents [. . .] The process of circulation, therefore, unlike the direct exchange of products, does not disappear from view once the use-values have changed places and changed hands [. . .] When one commodity replaces another, the money always sticks to the hands of some third person" (Marx 1976: 207-208; underlined by A. C).

The economy, now geared entirely to the production of commodities, drops a curtain on previous economies wherein such production and circulation were subordinate factors, if at all. Capitalist production now establishes itself as a mode of production sui generis. 48

Marx deals extensively with the dual nature of the commodity: its use-value and value (form of value, magnitude of exchange-value ,etc.).49 An analysis of use-value introduces the concept of value and the dialectic relation between them is evoked again and again in his descriptions and analyses of circulation.

He begins his analysis of direct exchange or barter with the use-value concept, the exchange of a given quantity of two products having only use-values, not

44. Marx 1976: 125-220. 45. Ibid.: 139, 152-163, 181-182. 46. Ibid.: 154-163. 47. Ibid.: 157-163. 48. Ibid.: 1035. 49. Ibid.: 152, "Our analysis has shown that the form of value, that is, the expression of

the value of a commodity, arises from the nature of commodity- value, as opposed to value and its magnitude arising from their mode of expression as exchange- value. "

BARTER 63

value, as "x use- value A = y use-value B". In the lines to which I have just referred in Capital, volume I, he states:

"The direct exchange of products has the form of the simple expression of value in one respect, but not as yet in another. That form was X commodity A = y commodity B. The form of the direct exchange of products is X use-value A = y use-value B. The articles A and B in this case are not yet commodities but become so only through the act of exchange" {ibid. : 181).

The latter equation (x use-value A = y use-value B) signifies direct exchange of products having use-values. So they cannot become something else (commodities) "through the act of exchange", unless a new factor is introduced. Therefore as they read, the last two sentences cited above are illogical. However in other parts of his work, Marx proposes that the transition between exchange of use- value products to that of commodities occurred through gradual change caused by an increase of trade of surplus products along borders between primitive communities. As the products become converted into commodities, or when they do, a rupture is provoked in the communal mode of production by the insertion of the new relations involved in the production of communities, of "values" destined for exchange.50 Thus the exchange of use-value products is an axiom, a pre-condition to the genesis of direct commodity exchange.

From a stage of accidental and occasional bartering of surplus use-products, Marx proceeds to his first value theory formula, x commodity A = y commodity B which corresponds to "a" referred to above (p. 62). 51 Here the commodity appears carrying with it Marx's much debated value concept. In this context, he states:

"In the direct exchange of products, each commodity is a direct means of exchange to its owner, and an equivalent to those who do not possess it, although only in so far as it has use-value for them. At this stage,

50. Ibid.: 182, "The exchange of commodities begins where communities have their boundaries, at their points of contact with other communities, or with members of the latter. However, as soon as products have become commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reaction, become commodities in the internal life of the community. Their quantitative exchange-relation is at first determined purely by chance. They become exchangeable through the mutual desire of their owners to alienate them. In the meantime, the need for others' objects of utility gradually establishes itself. The constant repetition of exchange makes it a normal social process. In the course of time, therefore, at least some part of the products must be produced intentionally for the purpose of exchange. From that moment the distinction between the usefulness of things for direct consumption and their usefulness in exchange becomes firmly established. Their use-value becomes distinguished from their exchange-value" (underlined by A. C). (See also Marx 1973: 102-103, I49-I5°» I65, 173, 256, 882; 1976: 183, 186-187, 1059.)

51. See note 50.

64 ANNE CHAPMAN

therefore, the articles exchanged do not acquire a value-form independent of their own use-value, or of the individual needs of the exchangers. The need for this form first develops with the increase in the number and variety of the commodities entering into the process of exchange. The problem and means for its solution arise simultaneously" {ibid. : 182; underlined by A. C).

Had he extended his analysis of the product (or article) as containing use-value and "direct labor" expressed in his formula, x use-value A = y use-value B,52 he might have avoided the pitfall created by the analogy of direct exchange with the initial demonstration of his value theory. But he didn't. His analysis of barter is mainly focused on the commodity (not the product) . With the commodity the concept of value is introduced as objectified or abstract labor time, separated from the use-value. "Direct labor" has become converted into abstract or average labor time. This is a crucial point in the development of his theory of value.

As has been pointed out, Marx states that exchange originated in the context of trade of products having use-values between two communities on their shared border, and that as the volume of trade increased, the products were transformed from objects having use-value (concept which here includes direct labor) into objects having value (abstract labor time) as well as use- value. The labor necessary to produce the object has now passed from the use- value concept to the value concept.53 In this process of the transformation of products into commodities, money first emerges, as the measure of the exchange value of the commodities. The causal incidence of this momentous development is the result of exchange between communities, that is, not of an internal transformation in the mode of production within the community or communities involved. I shall return to this point presently.

In the following text, however, Marx by-passes his original "product" formula (x use-value A = y use- value B).

"In the crudest barter, when two commodities are exchanged for one another, each is first equated with a symbol which expresses their exchange value, e.g. among certain Negroes on the West African coast, = x bars. One commodity is = 1 bar; the other, = 2 bars. They are exchanged in this relation. The commodities are first transformed into bars in the head and in speech before they are exchanged for one another. They are appraised before being exchanged, and in order to appraise them they must be brought into a given numerical relation to one another. In order to bring them into such a numerical relation, in order to make them commensurable,

52. Marx 1973: 149-150, 165, 199, 204-205, 256, 267, 709; 1976: 179-180, 183. 53. See Marx 1976: 186-187. It may be questioned whether the "simplest expression of

value" lies in the commodity as Marx states (p. 187) or in the direct labor of the product.

BARTER 65

they must obtain the same denomination (unit). (The bar has a merely imaginary existence, just as, in general, a relation can obtain a particular embodiment and become individualized only by means of abstraction.) In order to cover the excess of one value over another in exchange, in order to liquidate the balance, the crudest barter, just as with international trade today, requires payment in money" (Marx 1973: 142-43; underlined by A. C).

Marx never considered or postulated a moneyless society to correspond to his axiom x use-value A = y use-value B, that is the direct exchange of products, not of commodities. And when he did encounter primitive barter of this sort, he discounted it as not relevant. I am referring to the following note in Capital I:

"So long as a chaotic mass of articles is offered as the equivalent for a single article (as is often the case among savages), instead of two distinct objects of utility being exchanged, we are only at the threshold of even the direct exchange or products" (Marx 1976: 181, n. 5).

This statement, like one in Grundrisse (1973: 107), "... mere hunting and fishing peoples lie outside the point where real development begins", is unacceptable though they may reveal a lack of knowledge concerning such societies rather than a blind spot or prejudice. His dismissal of the "chaotic mass" case cited above is doubly unjustified because it also refers to a primitive population engaged in barter and as such is pertinent to a theory of the origin of exchange.

Marx challenged Ricardo, chiding him for his "Robinson Crusoe stories", for converting the

"primitive fisherman and primitive hunter into owners of commodities who immediately exchange their fish and game in proportion to the labour- time which is materialized in these exchange-values. On this occasion he slips into the anachronism of allowing the primitive fisherman and hunter to calculate the value of their implements in accordance with the annuity tables used on the London Stock Exchange in 1817" (Marx 1976: 169, n. 31).

Despite his irony, Marx himself was confronted with this same problem, i.e. how could exchange value (hence value: abstract labor time) prevail in primitive society where conditions for its existence were ostensibly lacking? Marx advanced the equation, x use- value A = y use- value B, as a basic postulate of the origin of exchange but immediately inserted the commodity and money. He too looked at the development of barter in the mirror or through the prism of his own theory of value, as expressed in the commodity. Such an endeavour should not be disqualified a priori if the analysis is elaborated on a theoretical as well as an empirical level.64 Marx was aware of such problems and went to great length

54. See for example Kaplan 1968; Schumpeter 1972: 36-38.

66 ANNE CHAPMAN

to explicitate his historical method particularly with respect to production, distribution, circulation, consumption as well as exchange.55 But despite his clarity on many methodological problems, some confusion remains in his writings which is not accountable only to the context and limitations of scientific development of his epoch.56

The value issue as expressed in the commodity is then the central focus of his barter (direct exchange) theory. But Marx's commodity is a discrete concept. The commodity cannot crystallize or objectify labor time partially, nor can the commodity exist in an embryonic state. A commodity has value as abstract labor time, otherwise it is not a commodity. Herein lies the difficulty of the formula, y commodity A = x commodity B ("a" the simple form of value, see p. 62) as it is incorporated into his direct exchange theory. In this context the value of the commodity can be neither "simple" nor complex, although value may acquire other characteristics and be treated as an independent variable, as Marx does in his initial demonstration and subsequent analyses. But in terms of process (historically) the commodity must have "appeared" full blown. As a discrete category it cannot be treated developmentally. Here we are face to face with a fundamental problem.

This does not imply however that the commodity necessarily dominates a given system. Marx is correct, I believe, in postulating the production and circulation of commodities as a subordinate form in certain non-capitalist societies, for which only certain restricted types of goods, given categories of labor, specific kind of land, etc., are commodities. If so, it would follow (in Marx's terms) that money as revenue and as a general (not universal) equivalent plays a decisive role in these contexts, which are represented as c m c. Money as capital and as the universal equivalent emerges only with capitalism (m c m) .

His cmc model represents the exchange of use-values between independent producers and money as a means of circulation and revenue (not capital). But, as he emphasizes, the money which one person receives in exchange for his commod-

55. In his later works and particularly in 1977a. 56. There is, I believe, another fundamental discrepancy in Marx's analysis of circulation.

In C M C (simple circulation) Marx says that the exchange value of the commodity is not or may not be realized, much less the surplus value (Marx 1973: 260; 1976: 966) . He states that in CMC the aim of exchange is the transfer of use- values (1976: 249-250). And in another text, "La formule M-A-M, ce courant de la circulation où l'argent ne figure que comme mesure et monnaie, n'apparaît donc que comme la forme médiatisée du troc, sans que rien ne soit modifié ni dans sa base ni dans son contenu" (1977b: 235). There is a great ambiguity here. Perhaps because of his concept of C M C as the exchange of use-values he was led to compare it to barter. But this comparison negates his analysis of C M C in Capital I (pp. 198-220). What is more, the main problem remains: if the value (and exchange value) of the commodities in C M C are not manifested in exchange, where are they revealed? Where is there any evidence of "objectified abstract labor time" in the commodities of simple circulation? (See 1976: 953-955-) - .

BARTER 67

ity, for example, the tailor who makes and sells clothes, is devaluated "from the form of value to that of use-value", thus the more the tailor sells, "the poorer does he become" (Marx 1973: 466). This reference should suffice to simply point up the role of money in c m c.

Under capitalism (m c m) Marx insists time and again that the commodity contains both paid and unpaid labor time, though it is sold at its value. Without attempting to deal here with the less obvious distinctions between CMC and mcm, it may be affirmed that both models, as representations of circulation of the commodity, differ radically in their social and economic implications, from his models of direct exchange or barter.

The commodity plays no part in direct exchange or barter, contrary to Marx's affirmations, if my analyses are correct. The labor of each article of barter is obviously contained in the article itself but it is not objectified, nor quantified nor averaged as social labor time, that is "value", as abstract labor time does not exist in this context. "A" exchanges the labor of his/her product for the use- value of "B's" product and vice versa. In this social situation, barter is simply (exclusively) an exchange act. With reference now to the model presented in the beginning of this paper; when (or if) the exchange situation involves a third person (a merchant for example)57 and /or a third object (money as a general or universal equivalent),68 the commodity appears earring with it (to follow Marx) its causes and consequences. But this occurs only when c m c "appears", when cmc has become a subordinate or the dominant mode of exchange, and of course under capitalism (mcm).

When money is utilized only as a standard or measure of equivalents in a transaction, the exchange still does not implicate commodities because this money has no value (no congealed labor), nor use-value; it is simply a counting device. However if a money object is employed, even if it be but a limited equivalent only utilizable in exchange for certain articles, then the transaction is no longer barter and the articles exchanged may be considered commodities. When a money object intervenes in exchange, the formulas c m c or m cm should theoretically apply.

When the circulation of commodities (c m c) exists in one form or another

57. There are a number of references in Marx on the decisive role of merchants and commerce in the history of western civilization. See for example Marx 1973: 148-149, 483- 514; 1976: 479, 486, 915; 1977a: 173-

58. Marx (1973: 145) writes, "The exchange value which is separated from commodities and exists alongside them as itself a commodity, this is — money. In the form of money, all properties of the commodity as exchange value appear as an object distinct from it, as a form of social existence separated from the natural existence of the commodity." And, on p. 200, "The splitting of exchange into purchase and sale makes it possible for me to buy without selling (stockpiling of commodities) or to sell without buying (accumulation of money). It makes speculation possible. It turns exchange into a special business; i.e. it founds the merchant estate."

68 ANNE CHAPMAN

in a given society, the direct exchange of products may well continue to occur. Under capitalism the products bartered are commodities in their usual context (in mcm) and the money used in this barter serves only to establish the equivalency between the products being bartered, though normally (in m c m) a money object intervenes in the transactions.

No causal link is assumed between the exchange of products and that of commodities. The problem, in terms of this paper, remains open.

I return now to Marx's initial demonstration of his value theory. When he inserts commodity production (postulate "a", x commodity A = y commodity B, see page 62) into a primitive communal mode of production, the latter model either becomes radically altered or a new mode of production is created independently of the former one. No matter how "simple" the value may be, if it is contained in the commodity it must by definition consist of abstract labor time. How could commodities (this sort of value) be produced as a surplus by nomadic herdsmen, hunters or the like, as Marx proposes? Moreover to maintain, as Marx does, that commodities could have originated under conditions created by inter-community trade, by chance or accident and in gradual evolution, poses virtually insolvable problems.

There are at least four causal factors in Marx's theory of direct exchange: (1) accident or chance; (2) events exterior to the community; (3) gradual increase of exchange or trade; (4) creation of surplus products.59 These factors are axiomatic; they are given, assumed as reasonable and illustrated by random examples from pre-capitalist societies . Here follow a few remarks concerning them .

(1) By proposing the genesis and early development of barter (and of exchange in general) as accidental, Marx assumes that it is not the result of any process; that it might have "happened" or not. Therefore this factor cannot be structured into a theory of this nature.

(2) By situating the origin and initial development of exchange as exterior to the community, Marx implies that in its origin the process is not the result of (or part of) forces which operate in terms of dialectic relations. This critique raises some crucial problems, the scope of which lie beyond the limits of this study.

(3) By describing the process which leads to the transformation (of primitive society, due to the insertion of commodity production in it) as gradual, further analysis is eluded in this context.

(4) What is a "surplus product"?60 Surplus over and above what? Assuming

59. For the texts consulted see notes 50 and 52. 60. For a controversy on the term "surplus", see Dalton i960, 1963; Pearson 1957;

Harris 1959.

BARTER 69

that a normal or average consumption can be determined for a given society, the surplus is the amount of products exceeding it. Among some hunting, fishing, and gathering people, for instance, food which is set aside for future consumption is not necessarily bartered or exchanged.61 Moreover exchange of any kind and barter do involve objects which are not surplus in the above- mentioned meaning, that is, rare items. Surplus can be obtained in many ways. I shall confine my example to three: (a) it may consist of a strike of luck, an unexpectedly abundant kill or the like, that is, a windfall, (b) it may be a constant factor and be due to economic specialization in an area which is bountiful in a certain item, or (c) some goods may be produced in surplus quantities for given purposes. To conclude here; the creation of surplus may be due to such various types of economic behavior, that surplus of itself cannot be assumed to represent a given causal factor.

Marx states repeatedly that under capitalism value does not arise from circulation but rather from the specific relations of production.62 He goes to great length to analyze the complex components and related functions of his value theory in terms of living labor, objectified labor, socially necessary labor, surplus labor, surplus value, use-value, exchange value, wages, profits, price, revenue, constant and variable capital, etc. If value is a major component of his analyses of capital, the commodity also is. Moreover it is the starting point of his great work. Why then did he postulate the origin of the commodity as simply an accidental occurrence of exchange? One would think that logically the origin (or origins) of the commodity in (or among) pre-capitalist societies would be postulated as a privileged subject within the framework of a given mode of production, and not on its fringes as a sort of ad hoc, residual phenomenon.

To this extent Marx's treatment of process in his direct exchange theory is at odds with the method he employs for his analysis of the development of capitalism and its mode of production. Here genesis is not accidental. It is founded on, or created by, certain specific historical conditions. Moreover its

61. For the hunters, the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego may serve as an illustration. They conserved seal oil, whale blubber and dried mushrooms for future use but did not, in so far as is known, barter or exchange such foods. The fishing communities of the northwest coast of Canada preserved great quantities of salmon as well as meat and dried berries, much of which was employed for consumption. The Indians of California went to considerable trouble to fill storage bins with acorns to be eaten during the off-seasons.

Bohannan & Dalton (1965: 13-14) observe, "Too often the term surplus is used to mean simply that which is sold, or exchanged on the simplistic assumption that if something were needed it would not be sold or exchanged [. . .] The point of these examples is to show that material gain is sometimes not considered as important as other social ends, and therefore 'surpluses' (meaning relative abundances of one item) are often not exchanged, even when it would seems to be materially advantageous to do so."

62. Marx 1973: 543, "The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labor creates value."

70 ANNE CHAPMAN

genesis is internal, within the society, that is, within feudalistic society and not on its outer fringe, exterior to the community. The process is analyzed dialecti- cally and deals with internal contradictions in the feudal mode of production. Nor does capitalism originate gradually, as simple growth. And finally, in his analysis of the commodity under capitalism (m c m), surplus value and different types of labor are not axioms, but rather, privileged postulates. They form part of the value theory and are endowed with an extraordinary explanatory power.

The causal factors Marx brings into play in his theory of direct exchange and the origin of the commodity are amazingly weak and strangely contradictory to the theory of history (historical materialism) he applied to capitalism and so resolutely defended.

This is not to say that his theory of direct exchange be without consequences. No matter how inconsistent and contradictory such a profound thinker as Marx might appear or prove to be with respect to a given problem, the very force of his analytical talent or genius raises new questions, reveals perspectives for a richer and more significant approach to the subject, despite the errors.

The phenomenon of barter may be conceptually linked to the economy of modern society, in so far as barter be a purely economic transaction. Polanyi implied this, and Marx worked on such a premise. But what does this similarity signify?

The capitalist system arises from its immediate history. But back beyond the mercantile phase, beyond the Renaissance, beyond feudalism, the Romans and the Greeks, where are its roots? Or were all primitive societies frozen on the outer rims of "history" and all archaic societies doomed to move in cycles ultimately to decline? Did the Greeks invent history only for our usufruct?

VI. — Polanyi and Marx

Among the theories and models which concern themselves with the problems evoked above, I shall again refer to those of Polanyi and Marx.

Polanyi considered capitalism sui generis, an emergence, as decisively distinct from all previous and contemporary societies or economies.63 Non-price-making markets and market elements, including barter, were however present in many societies. . . Barter was only a behavior pattern. It had no role, however remote, in the instituting of the "self -regulated system of markets", liberal capitalism, which flourished particularly in England during the 19th century.

63. See, for example, Polanyi's " 'Capitalism' in Antiquity" (1977: 273-276) for a critique of Max Weber and Rostovtzeff .

BARTER 71

The phenomena of barter and the price-making market were discontinuous, disjunctive. Structurally they were incomparable, but they shared certain characteristics, and hence they pertained to the same "principle", to exchange, as distinguished from the principles of reciprocity and redistribution. Only with capitalism did trade, money and markets fission into the "exchange system (or form) of integration". The entire society was then organized in terms of the exigencies of the price-making market, the market which priced all forms of wealth and especially land and labor. Only with capitalism did the economy emerge as an autonomous entity. In all other types of society the economy had been "embedded" in the social, kin, religious, juridical or political matrix to such an extent that any peripheral manifestation of purely economic activity, such as barter, was of little or no consequence.

Polanyi has the great merit of contributing to the complex problems of comparative economics, three powerful models (reciprocity, redistribution and exchange). These models permit a considerable portion of the vast documentation on distribution, circulation and exchange of goods to be apprehended on an empirical level.64

One of the problems which all comprehensive theories in comparative economics and economic anthropology must ultimately face concerns the place of economy in Society. If the economy is autonomous or predominant in capitalism but embedded in other spheres of culture in non-capitalist societies, this discontinuity negates the possibility of formulating any universal economic theories. If so, capitalism at least is a special case having its own "laws".

This problem was one of Polanyi's deep concerns. There are, he argued, two meanings of "economic"; the substantive and the formal. With respect to the former he stated:

"The fount of the substantive concept is the empirical economy itself. It can be briefly (if not engagingly) defined as an institutionalized process of interaction between man and his environment, which secures him want satisfaction" (Polanyi 1959: 166; see also 1957: 248).

Formal economics however deals fundamentally with the logic of rational actions. Its postulates are valid, he contended, only for the price-making market (capitalism). He denied that the dictum of the formalists (that choice is induced by scarcity situations, that economics is the study of the allocation of scarce means to alternative or graded ends) be applicable to any society but capitalism.65

64. For a critique of these models see Annales (1974), especially the articles by Godelier and Meillassoux; Dupré & Rey 1973; Garlan 1973; Humphrey 1969.

65. The sources in Polanyi are 1957 (3-1 1: "The Secular Debate on Economic Primitiv- ism"; 64-94: "Aristotle Discovers the Economy"; 239-242: "The Place of Economics in Societies", with C. M. Arensberg & H. W. Pearson; 243-269: "The Economy as Instituted

72 ANNE CHAPMAN

Polanyi's critique of the formalists is, I believe, of great significance.66 Substantive economics, in his terms, might provide possibilities for analyzing and comparing economies in their fundamental aspects, however his concept of the embeddedness of the economy in non-economic institutions in all societies, with the exception of capitalism, raises many questions. He viewed the problem as follows:

"The study of the shifting place occupied by the economy in society is the study of the manner in which the economic process is instituted at different times and places" {ibid.: 168; see also 1957: 250).

But the problem should be constantly reposed. It may be viewed in terms of any one of a variety of hypotheses, as for example the following:

a) Only capitalism is economically determined, or in capitalism alone, the market is "self -regulating" to use Polanyi's term. In other societies the economy is embedded in the cultural matrix and they are regulated by entirely different domains of culture. These domains may vary with respect to different types of societies.

b) All human societies are economically determined, "in the last instance". c) The very notion of primary economic factors is spurious. Society exists

synchronically and diachronically as a complex system of interacting forces whose structure or "laws" are revealed (for example) by a "total" comprehension of the individual, of the individual in society and of society in nature.

d) The role of the social scientist as a subject participant of his/her object of research (Society) invalidates any possibility of contracting universal models or theories. There can only be a series of contending theories, not susceptible to general agreement or consensus. But they can be critized, as theories, on the level of their inner logic and consistency, in terms of their stated or implied premises and on that of their explicit range of applicability.

Etc.

Polanyi was close to Marx in his insistence on the predominance of the economy under capitalism.

Marx saw that in pre-capitalist societies, the individual was not "free", that

Process"); 1959: "Anthropology and Economic Theory"; 1971: "Carl Menger's Two Meanings of 'Economic' "; 1977 (6-17: "The Economistic Fallacy"; 19-34: "The Two Meanings of Economic"). Several of these articles are also in Polanyi 1968.

66. Other references consulted on the formal-substantive controversy are: Burling 1962; Cancian 1966; Cook 1966, 1969; Cohen 1967; Dalton 1961, 1969; Démonio 1976; Franken- BERG 1967; GODELIER I966, I97I; KAPLAN 1968; LeClAIR 1962; MEILLASSOUX i960; ROBBINS 1935; Schneider 1974.

BARTER 73

he was subject to traditional cultural imperatives; that he was not the free agent he was to become under capitalism.67 Mercantilism had brutally torn the European peasant and artisan out of their social context. It had "freed" them while creating a world of commodities wherein their labor could be systematically exploited (and was quantified) regardless of extraneous factors, that is, an economic world based on a complementary opposition; the fear of hunger of the working class (which obliged the potential worker to sell his labor as a commodity) and the quest for profit of the capitalist class (which strongly motivated the entrepreneur to constantly increment his capital investment). The system had drastically mutilated, shattered, the social /sacred traditional community of feudal times. But while Marx considered capitalism a unique historical emergence and a necessary stage in the evolution of Society, he saw "subordinate" forms of commodity production and exchange in archaic societies and, rather summarily, in primitive society.68

Only under capitalism is the dominant mode of production commodity production. But if commodities were produced in pre-capitalist (or non-capitalist) societies, as Marx afhrms, how was the "value" of the commodities created and realized in the absence of free (wage) workers? The notions of simple surplus and foreign exchange (for direct commodity exchange) or of individual autonomous commodities and private exchange (for simple circulation) do not suffice.

Marx postulated or referred to what might be called mixed economies for pre-capitalist societies, societies having two (or more) modes of production.69 But how to define a "new" (newly analyzed) mode of production? Does "production" include "reproduction" (of human beings)? Do the contradictions operate between these various modes of production or only within the dominant one? If only in one mode of production, do they operate between the forces and relations of production or only within the latter or both between and within?

67. However he and Engels wrote (Marx & Engels 1968: 94-95), ". . .dans la représentation, les individus sont plus libres sous la domination de la bourgeoisie qu'avant parce que leurs conditions d'existence leur sont contingentes; en réalité, ils sont naturellement moins libres parce qu'ils sont beaucoup plus subordonnés à une puissance objective." But in "Formations" (1973: 496) Marx wrote, "But human beings become individuals only through the process of history. He appears originally as a species-being (Gattungswesen) , clan being, herd animal [. . .] Exchange itself is a chief means of this individuation ( Vereinzelung) . It makes the herd-like existence superfluous and dissolves it. "

68. See Frankenberg (1967: 52) for comments on this sort of comparison of Marx's and Polanyi's concepts.

69. In any discussion of this problem, Marx's concept of property is obviously all important as it ties in with his "model" of production. The latter, though clearly defined in his famous preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, is not always unambiguous in his other texts. See Marx 1973: 510 fi.; 1976: 617 (n. 29), 927, 932; 1977a: 163 ff.

74 ANNE CHAPMAN

These questions (among others) are being currently debated by certain occidental Marxists.70 While other researchers defy the entire theoretical structure.71

And there is the problem of the "product" with respect to the "commodity". Marx postulated that barter took the form of direct exchange of the product (x use-value A = y use-value B), as well as direct exchange of the commodity (x commodity A = y commodity B) . He concentrated however on the commodity in terms of his model of the simple form of circulation (c m c) and particularly of the general form of capital (mcm).

Perhaps only in our society are the exchange and circulation of goods organized or institutionalized predominantly in terms of purely economic interests. If so, does this mean that purely economic behavior is inexistent in non-capitalist societies? The economic realities in these societies may not all be "embedded" in the social, religious or political spheres of culture. Here I am not posing the problem of the relation between infra- and superstructures but rather that of economic theory as a means of comprehending certain processes. Barter is a privileged example.

I terminate for the present by recalling that the occurrence of barter is well attested in societies of extremely contrasting socio-economic structures. It would seem that its extraordinary simplicity renders it useable in a multitude of exchange situations, in a great diversity of cultural contexts. But barter is like a small fish, difficult to grasp and almost impossible to hook. Polanyi apparently considered that it pertained to his principle of exchange, though he mentioned it as partaking of reciprocity and redistribution. Marx employed a concept of barter in the initial demonstration of his value theory as well as in his theory on the origin of exchange. If Barter is the Economic Man, what does this signify?

70. I mention here only the articles I consulted which are partly polemic concerning these problems; an intra-Marxist debate, as it were. Bonte 1976; Deluz & Godelier 1967; Friedman 1974, I976; Godelier 1973; Keenan 1977; Goodfriend 1978; Moore 1977; O'Laughlin 1975, 1977; Meillassoux i960, 1967, 1977; Rapp 1977; Terray 1969, 1978. Sahlins's "domestic mode of production" (1972: 41-148) though not addressed to these problems, is partially based on Marx. Bartra (1974) and Palerm (s. d.) published Spanish translations of non-Western Marxists on this subject, especially the "Asiatic mode of production".

71. The authors I read for this paper who radically criticize certain, or all, the Marxists' principles are: Adler 1976; Baudrillard 1973; Clastres 1978; Dalton 1974; Schneider 1974; Sahlins's (1976) critique, though circumscribed, is also radical. Rabinow (1975: 96) in a different vein writes, "Marxism has been in search of a method in the twentieth century. Sartre makes a profound attempt to build a critical, self-reflective and liberating science of humanity [. . .] In a word, Marxism lacks a theory of culture, which is glaringly apparent when it extends its horizons to other civilizations and societies."

BARTER 75

REFERENCES

Adler, A. 1976 "L'Ethnologie marxiste: vers un nouvel obscurantisme?", L'Homme XVI (4):

118-128.

Aiston, G. 1937 "The Aboriginal Narcotic Pitched", Oceania VII (3): 372-377.

Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 29e a. (6), n° spéc: Pour une Histoire anthropo- 1974 logique : la notion de réciprocité: 1309-1380.

Ardener, E. 1971 "The New Anthropology and its Critics", Man VI: 449-467.

Barth, F. 1971 "Tribes and Intertribal Relations in the Fly Headwaters", Oceania XLI (3):

171-191. Bartra, R., ed.

1974 El Modo de Producciôn Asidtico. Antologia de textos sobre problemas de la historia de los paises coloniales. Mexico, Ediciones Era.

Baudrillard, J. 1968 Le Système des objets. Paris, Gallimard. 1973 Le Miroir de la production. Paris, Casterman.

Blackwood, B. I935 Both Sides of Buka Passage. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

BOHANNAN, P. & G. DALTON 1965 Markets in Africa. New York, Doubleday Anchor.

Bonte, P. 1976 "Marxisme et anthropologie: les malheurs d'un empiriste", L'Homme XVI (4):

129-136. Burling, R.

1962 "Maximization Theories and the Study of Economic Anthropology", American Anthropologist LXIV: 802-821.

Cancian, F. 1966 "Maximization as Norm, Strategy, and Theory: A Comment on Programmatic

Statements in Economic Anthropology", American Anthropologist LXVIII: 465- 470.

Carrasco, P. 1978 "La Economia del Mexico prehispânico", in P. Carrasco & J. Broda, eds.,

Economia politica e ideologia en el Mexico prehispdnico. Mexico, Nueva Imagen: 13-76.

76 ANNE CHAPMAN

CHAGNON, N. 1968 Yanomanô. The Fierce People. New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Chapman, A. 1977 "Economia de los Selk'nam, Tierra del Fuego", Journal de la Société des Améri-

canistes LXIV: 135-146.

Clastres, P. 1978 "Les Marxistes et leur anthropologie", Libre 78 (3): 135-149.

Coderk, H. 1968 "Money-Exchange Systems and a Theory of Money", Man III: 557-577.

Cohen, P. S. 1967 "Economic Analysis and Economic Man", in R. Firth, éd., Themes in Economic

Anthropology. London, Tavistock.

Cook, S. 1966 "The Obsolete 'Anti-market' Mentality: A Critique of the Substantive Approach

to Economic Anthropology", American Anthropologist LXVIII: 323-345. 1969 "The 'Anti-market' Mentality Re-examined: A Further Critique of the Substant

ive Approach to Economic Anthropology", Southwestern Journal of Anthropology XXV: 379-4°6-

Coppet, D. De Ï973 "Premier troc, double illusion", L'Homme XIII (1-2): 10-22.

Dalton, G. 1960 "A Note of Classification on Economic Surplus", American Anthropologist LXII:

483-490. 1961 "Economic Theory and Primitive Society", American Anthropologist LXIII: 1-25. 1963 "Economic Surplus once again", American Anthropologist LXV: 389-394. 1965 "Primitive Money", American Anthropologist LXVII: 44-65. 1969 "Theoretical Issues in Economic Anthropology", Current Anthropology X: 63-

102. 1974 "How exactly Are Peasants 'Exploited'", American Anthropologist L.'XX.VI: 553-

561. 1975 "Karl Polanyi's Analysis of Long-distance Trade and his Wider Paradigm",

in J. A. Sabloff & C. C. Lamberg-Karlowsky, eds., Ancient Civilisation and Trade. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press.

1978 "The Impact of Colonization on Aboriginal Economies in Stateless Societies", in G. Dalton, éd., Research in Economic Anthropology. Greenwich, Conn., JAI Press, I: 131-184.

Dalton, G., ed. 1968 "Introduction" to Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies. Essays of Karl

Polanyi. New York, Doubleday: ix-liv.

DELUZ, A. & M. GODELIER 1967 "A Propos de deux textes d'anthropologie économique", L'Homme VII (3): 78-91.

BARTER 77

DÉMONIO, L. 1976 "La Problématique anglo-saxonne: économie politique et anthropologie", in

F. Pouillon, éd., L' Anthropologie économique : courants et problèmes. Paris, Maspero.

Driver, H. E. & W. C. Massey *957 "Comparative Studies of North American Indians", Transactions of the American

Philosophical Society, n.s. 47 (2).

Dupré, G. & P. P. Rey 1973 "Reflections on the Pertinence of a Theory of the History of Exchange", Economy

and Society II: 131-163.

Durkheim, E. 1912 Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris, F. Alcan.

Einzig, P. 1948 "New Light on the Origin of Money", Nature 162. 1949 Primitive Money in its Ethnological, Historical and Economic Aspects. London,

Eyre & Spottiswoode. Firth, R.

1929 Primitive Economics of the Maori. London, G. Routledge & Sons.

Firth, R., ed. 1967 Themes in Economic Anthropology. London, Tavistock.

Frankenberg, R. 1967 "Economic Anthropology", in R. Firth, éd., Themes in Economic Anthropology.

London, Tavistock. Friedman, J.

1974 "Marxism, Structuralism and Vulgar Materialism", Man IX: 444-469. 1976 "Marxist Theory and Systems of Total Reproduction. Part I", Critique of

Anthropology VII: 3-16. Garlan, Y.

1973 "La Place de l'économie dans les sociétés anciennes", La Pensée 171: 120-127.

Gewertz, D. 1978 "Tit for Tat: Barter Markets in the Middle Sepik", Anthropological Quarterly LI:

37-44- GODELIER, M.

1966 Rationalité et irrationalité en économie. Paris, Maspero. 1969 "La 'Monnaie de sel' des Baruya de Nouvelle-Guinée", L'Homme IX (2): 5-37. 1971 "Définition et champ de l'anthropologie économique", in J. Copans et al.,

L'Anthropologie: science des sociétés primitives? Paris, Denoël: 177-244. 1973 Horizon, trajets marxistes en anthropologie. Paris, Maspero.

Godelier, M., ed. 1970 Sur les Sociétés précapitalistes. Textes choisis de Marx, Engels, Lénine. Paris,

Éditions sociales.

y8 ANNE CHAPMAN

GOODFRIEND, D. E. 1978 "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose: The Dilemma of the French Structural

Marxists", Dialectical Anthropology 3 (2): 105-126.

Grierson, P. 1978 "The Origins of Money", in G. Dalton, éd., Research in Economic Anthropology.

Greenwich, Conn., JAI Press, I: 1-36.

Gusinde, M. 1931 Die Feuerland Indianer. Bd. I: Die Selk'nam. Môdling bei Wien, Anthropos.

Hagen, E. E. 1961 "Analytical Models in the Study of Social Systems", The American Journal of

Sociology 67: 144-151.

Harris, M. *959 "The Economy Has no Surplus?", American Anthropologist LXI: 185-199.

Herskovits, M. J. 1952 Economic Anthropology. New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

Hobsbawm, E. J., ed. 1975 "Introduction" to Karl Marx. Pre-capitalistic Economic Formations. New

York, International Publishers.

Humphrey, S. C. 1969 "History, Economics and Anthropology: The Work of Karl Polanyi", History

and Theory 8: 156-212.

Kaplan, D. 1968 "The Formal-Substantive Controversy in Economic Anthropology: Some Reflec

tions on its Wider Implications", Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24: 228- 247.

Keen an, J. 1977 "The Concept of the Mode of Production in Hunter-Gatherer Societies", African

Studies 36 (1): 57-69.

LeClair, E. E., Jr. 1962 "Economic Theory and Economic Anthropology", American Anthropologist

LXIV: 1179-1203.

Lévi-Strauss, C. 1943 "Guerre et commerce chez les Indiens de l'Amérique du Sud", Renaissance 1:

122-139.

Loeb, E. M. 1936 "The Distribution and Function of Money in Early Societies", in R. Lowie, éd.,

Essays in Anthropology Presented to A. L. Kroeber. Berkeley, University of California Press.

Malinowski, B. 1922 Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London, George Routledge & Sons.

BARTER 79

Marshall, A. 1961 Principles of Economics. London, Macmillan Co., 2 vol.

Marshall Thomas, E. 1965 The Harmless People. New York, Vintage Books.

Marx, K. 1969 Travail salarié et capital. Salaire, prix et profit. Paris, Éditions sociales. *973 Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. Translated with

a foreword by Martin Nicolaus. New York, Vintage Books. 1976 Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by Ben Fowkes, Intro-

ducted by Ernest Mandel. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, I. 1977a "Introduction à la Critique de l'économie politique", in K. Marx, Contribution

à la critique de l'économie politique. Traduit par Maurice Husson et Gilbert Badia. Paris, Éditions sociales: 149-177.

1977b "Fragment de la version primitive de la Contribution à la critique de l'économie politique (1858)", in K. Marx, Contribution à la critique de l'économie politique. Traduit par M. Husson et G. Badia. Paris, Éditions sociales: 177-248.

Marx, K. & F. Engels 1968 L'Idéologie allemande. Paris, Éditions sociales.

Mauss, M. 1904 "Essai sur les variations saisonnières des sociétés eskimos", L'Année sociolo

gique 39-i3°- 1950 "Essai sur le Don. Forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaïques",

in Sociologie et anthropologie. Paris, PUF. 1969 "Les Origines de la notion de monnaie", in Œuvres 2: Représentations collectives

et diversité des civilisations. Présentation de Victor Karady. Paris, Éd. de Minuit ("Le Sens commun").

McCarthy, F. D. 1 93^-39 "'Trade' in Aboriginal Australia, and 'Trade' Relationships with Torres

Strait, New Guinea and Malaya", Oceania IX (4): 405-458. 1939-40 "'Trade' in Aboriginal Australia. . .", Oceania X (1): 80-104, 171-195.

Meillassoux, C. i960 "Essai d'interprétation du phénomène économique dans les sociétés tradition

nelles d'auto-subsistance", Cahiers d'Études africaines 4 : 38-67. 1967 "Mise au Point", L'Homme VII (3): 91-97. 1977 Terrains et théories. Paris, Anthropos.

Melitz, J. 1970 "The Polanyi School of Anthropology on Money: An Economist's View", American

Anthropologist LXXII: 1020-1040. Moore, J. H.

1977 "The Evolution of Exploitation", Critique of Anthropology VIII: 33-48.

Murra, J. V. 1978 La Organizaciôn econômica del Estado Inca. Mexico, Siglo XXL

80 ANNE CHAPMAN

Neal, W. C. 1971 "Monetization, Commercialization, Market Orientation and Market Dependence",

in G. Dalton, éd., Studies in Economic Anthropology. Washington, American Anthropological Association.

Oberg, K. I953 "Indian Tribes of Northern Mato Grosso, Brazil", Smithsonian Institution,

Institute of Social Anthropology Publication 15, Washington, D. C. O'Laughlin, B.

1975 "Marxist Approaches in Anthropology", Annual Review of Anthropology 4: 34I-37O-

1977 "Critique of Meillassoux's Femmes, greniers et capitaux" , Critique of Anthropology VIII.

Palerm, A., ed. s.d. Modos de producciôn y formaciones socioeconomicas. Tlalpan, Centro de Investi-

gaciones Superiores del INAH, Ed. de La Casa Chata, offset. Panoff, M.

1969 "Inter- tribal Relations of the Maenge People of New Britain", New Guinea Research Bulletin 30.

1970 "Marcel Mauss's The Gift Revisited", Man V: 60-70. Parry, W. E.

1822 Voyage fait en 181g et 1820 sur les vaisseaux de S. M. B. l'Hécla et Le Griper pour découvrir un passage du nord-ouest de l'océan Atlantique à la mer Pacifique. . . Paris, Éd. Gide fils.

Pearson, H. W. 1957 "The Economy Has no Surplus: Critique of a Theory of Development", in

K. Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg & H. W. Pearson, eds,, Trade and Market in the Early Empires. Glencoe, 111., The Free Press and the Falcon's Wing Press.

Pearson, H. W., éd. 1977 The Livelihood of Man. New York, Academic Press.

Polanyi, K. 1944 The Great Transformation. New York, Rinehart & Co. 1957 Cf. K. P. in Polanyi, K., C. M. Arensberg & H. W. Pearson, eds. 1959 "Anthropology and Economie Theory", in M. Fried, Readings in Anthropology.

New York, T. V. Crowell Cy., II. 1966 Dahomey and the Slave Trade. An Analysis of an Archaic Economy. Seattle,

University of Washington Press. 1968 Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies. Essays of Karl Polanyi, ed. by

G. Dalton. New York, Doubleday. 1971 "Carl Menger's Two Meanings of 'Economic'", in G. Dalton, éd., Studies in

Economic Anthropology. Washington, American Anthropological Association. 1977 The Livelihood of Man, ed. by H. W. Pearson. New York, Academic Press.

[Posthumous works of K. Polanyi.] Polanyi, K., C. M. Arensberg & H. W. Pearson, eds.

1957 Trade Market in the Early Empires. Glencoe, 111., The Free Press and The

BARTER 8l

Falcon's Wing Press. [French transi.: Les Systèmes économiques dans l'histoire et dans la théorie. Paris, Larousse-Université, 1974 (série "Anthropologie, Sciences humaines et sociales").]

Pospisil, L. 1958 "Kapauku Papuans and their Law", Yale University Publications in Anthropology

LIV. Price, J. A.

1980 "On Silent Trade", to be published in G. Dalton, éd., Research in Economic Anthropology. Greenwich, Conn., JAI Press, III.

Rabinow, P. X975 "Sartre as Marxist Anthropologist", Dialectical Anthropology I (1): 96-97.

Radford, R. A. 1945 "The Economic Organization of a POW Camp", Economica.

Rapp, R. 1977 "Critique of Meillassoux, Femmes, Greniers et Capitaux" , Dialectical Anthropol

ogy 2 (4): 3I7-323-

ROBBINS, L. 1935 An Essay on the Nature & Significance of Economic Science. London and

Basingstoke, Macmillan, St. Martin's Press.

Robert-Lamblin, J. 1980 "Le Kayak aléoute — vu par son constructeur et utilisateur — et la chasse à la

loutre de mer", Objets et Mondes 20 (1). Robinson, J.

1971 Economie Heresies. Some Old-fashioned Questions in Economie Theory. London, Macmillan.

ROSTWOROWSKI, M. DE DlEZ CANSECO 1977 Etnia y Sociedad. Costa Peruana Prehispdnica, Lima, Instituto de Estudios

Peruanos. Roth, W. E.

1924 "An Introductory Study of the Arts, Crafts and Customs of the Guiana Indians", 38th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology , 1916-191J. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution.

Sahlins, M. 1972 Stone Age Economics. Chicago, Aldine. 1976 Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Samuelson, P. 1973 Economics : An Introductory Analysis. New York, McGraw-Hill.

Schneider, H. K. 1974 Economic Man: The Anthropology of Economies. New York, The Free Press.

SCHUMPETER, P. 1972 History of Economic Analysis. London.

6

82 ANNE CHAPMAN

Smith, A. 1976 A. S., in R. N. Cambeix & A. S. Skinner, eds., An Inquiry into the Nature and

Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2 vol. Spencer, R. F.

!959 "The North Alaskan Eskimo: A Study in Ecology and Society", Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 171. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution.

Terray, E. 1969 Le Marxisme devant les sociétés "primitives" . Paris, Maspero. 1978 "De l'Exploitation : éléments d'un bilan autocritique", Dialectique 21: 134-143.

Thurnwald, R. 1932 Economies in Primitive Communities. Oxford University Press. 1934 "Pigs and Currency in Buin; Observations about Primitive Standards of Value

and Economies", Oceania V (2): 119-141.

Tschopik, H. 1946 "The Aymara", in G. H. Steward, éd., Handbook of South American Indians 2:

The Andean Civilizations. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution ("Bureau of American Ethnology, bulletin" 143): 501-573.

Uberoi, J. P. Singh 1962 Politics of the Kula Ring. Manchester University Press.

Valcàrcel, L. E . 1946 "Indian Markets and Fairs in Peru", in G. H. Steward, éd., Handbook of South

American Indians 2: The Andean Civilizations. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution ("Bureau of American Ethnology, bulletin" 143): 477-482.

Walras, L. 1952 Éléments d'économie politique pure. Paris, Librairie générale de Droit et de

Jurisprudence.

Abstract

Anne Chapman, Barter as a Universal Mode of Exchange. — The author proposes that barter is a universal mode of exchange and as such was practiced by the majority of documented societies, from hunting-gathering cultures to capitalism, and probably from the Paleolithic to the present. Given its great simplicity — it involves only the direct exchange of objects between two partners (individuals, groups, institutions, states, etc.) and it does not commit the partners once the transaction has occurred — , barter may be termed the common denominator of economic exchange. Barter frees the partners form social, kin, ceremonial, political obligations, it is not "embedded" in the cultural matrix, it may partake of other types of exchange without losing its unique characteristics (as defined in the model of "Pure Barter" presented in the article).

Barter is examined with respect to K. Polanyi's "three forms of integration"

BARTER

and to Marx's basic concepts as elaborated in The Capital I and Grundrisse. Barter is viewed as motivated by the mutual advantages it affords to both parties, not by profit seeking, though profit or gain may be made, under certain circumstances, by one of the parties. The paper terminates with the question, "If Barter is the 'Economic Man' what does this signify?"

Résumé

Anne Chapman, Le Troc, mode universel d'échange. — L'auteur soutient que le troc est un mode d'échange universel et, comme tel, pratiqué par la majorité des sociétés connues, des chasseurs-cueilleurs aux sociétés capitalistes — et probablement du Paléolithique à nos jours. En raison de sa grande simplicité — il concerne seulement l'échange direct d'objets entre deux partenaires (individus, groupes, institutions, États, etc.) sans que ceux-ci soient tenus par un engagement quelconque une fois la transaction accomplie — , le troc peut être considéré comme le commun dénominateur de l'échange économique. Le troc s'effectue hors de toutes contraintes sociales, politiques ou cérémonielles, il n'est pas imbriqué dans la matrice culturelle d'une société, il peut participer d'autres types d'échange sans perdre ses caractéristiques spécifiques (définies selon le modèle de « troc pur » présenté dans cet article) .

Le troc est analysé ici en référence aux positions de K. Polanyi (ses « trois formes d'intégration ») et aux concepts de base de Marx élaborés dans Le Capital I et les Grundrisse. Le troc est considéré comme étant motivé par les avantages mutuels qu'en tirent les deux parties et non par la recherche du seul profit, bien qu'il puisse y avoir profit ou gain pour l'une ou l'autre des deux parties. L'article conclut sur cette question : « Si le troc est l'Honto Œconomicus, qu'est-ce que cela signifie ? »