Economics Flashcards
What is Economics?
It is how goods and services are produced, distributed and consumed.
What are the parts of an economic system?
An economic system contains access, production, exchange and consumption.
Access to what?
It is access to raw material.
Most raw materials are land.
Define land tenure
It is how the rights to the use of land are held.
H&G: land tenure by use
Hr: by family group (extensive family)
Ints agr & I agr: individual ownership
What is production?
It is conversion of raw material into usable forms.
What is division of labor?
It is how the tasks of society are divided up. There is simple and complex division of labor.
What is simple division of labor?
The tasks are divided on the basis of sex and age only.
Everybody is involved in the food procurement.
Relative equality: H&G, Hr
What is complex division of labor?
The tasks are divided on the basis of sex, age and any other criteria (ex: training, family…)
Not everybody is involved in food procurement.
There is food surplus;
There is inequality: Ints agr, I agr
What is exchange?
It is how goods and services are distributed to members of society.
What is reciprocity?
It is giving and taking of more or less equal value. There are generalized reciprocity, balanced reciprocity and negative reciprocity.
What is generalized reciprocity?
It is reciprocity without the expectation of immediate returns (ex: birthday presents)
It is main form of exchange in every family, close friends and H&G.
What is balanced reciprocity?
It is reciprocity with expected return within time limit.
Only exchange when you have extra.
Trade with someone of social distance or physical distance.
Hr
What is negative reciprocity?
It is cheating in reciprocity.
Overcome with trade partners.
What is redistribution?
It is goods going through a central authority and then out again.
Taxation: One is not having direct economic relationship with everyone in the exchange. The relationship is with the authority.
Intensive Agriculture
What is market exchange?
It is buying and selling using a medium of exchange (ex: money)
Industrialism
What is consumption?
It is using the goods and services.
What is Potlatch?
It is a gift giving contest among the Northwest Coast Indians (salmon fishing, H&G but with complex division of labor)
It is a kind of redistribution between villages.
What is Kula ring?
It it ceremonial trading accompanies regular trading in the Trobriand Islands (Hrcltr, simple division of labor).
It is a way to combat negative reciprocity.
What is Capitalism?
It is an economic system where the means of production and labor for production are treated as commodities to be bought and sold.
The ultimate goal is to make more money.
What is Corporation?
It is a legal person formed to do business, owned by many but run by a board of director.
What are the characters of a standard corporate?
limited liability, unlimited lifetime and profit maximization
What is Protestant Ethic?
It is the idea that work is good in itself.
What is Calvinism?
It is a type of Christianity characterized by unknowable election.
What is Unknowable Election?
It is the idea that one cannot know for certain if one is going to heaven or not.
What is Conspicuous consumption?
It is a display of wealth to preserve or increase status.
What is Colonialism?
It is extraterritorial control of major cultural institutions.
