Chapter 8 Economics Working, Sharing, Buying Exam Prep

Chapter 8: Economics: Working, Sharing, Buying

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 01

1) According to anthropologists, what social institution is the structured patterns and relationships through which people exchange goods and services?

Feedback: Economic systems are the structured patterns and relationships through which people exchange goods and services, and making sense of how these systems reflect and shape particular ways of life.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. Political systems

b. Holistic systems

c. Kinship systems

*d. Economic systems

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 02

2) What area of anthropology studies the decisions people make about earning a living, what types of work people choose to do, and the creation of value?

Feedback: Economic anthropology is the subfield of cultural anthropology concerned with how people make, share, and buy things and services.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. Political anthropologists

*b. Economic anthropologists

c. Biolinguistic anthropologists

d. Deterministic anthropologists

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 03

3) Which type of money is created and guaranteed by a government, such as the American dollar bill?

Feedback: Fiat money is money created and guaranteed by a government.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

*a. Fiat money

b. Commodity money

c. General purpose money

d. Sphere money

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 04

4) Which economic theory studies how people make decisions to allocate resources like time, labor, and money in order to maximize their personal satisfaction?

Feedback: Marxism emphasizes that capitalism, which is a type of economic system, is a system in which private ownership of the means of production and a division of labor produce wealth for a few, and inequality for the masses.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. Neoclassical economics

*b. Marxism

c. Substantivism

d. Cultural economics

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 05

5) What does neoclassical economic theory argue?

Feedback: Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics that studies how people make decisions to allocate resources like time, labor, and money in order to maximize their personal benefit.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. Conflicting interests of two classes are one of the outcomes of capitalism.

b. Symbols and morals are important in the understanding of a society's economy.

c. The daily transactions people actually engage in to get what they need or desire are the “substance” of the economy.

*d. People make decisions to allocate resources such as time, labor, and money in order to maximize their personal satisfaction.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 06

6) People make decisions to allocate resources such as time, labor, and money in order to maximize their personal satisfaction.

Feedback: A market is a social institution in which people come together to exchange goods and services.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. Value

b. Money

c. Currency

*d. Market

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 07

7) Value is

Feedback: Value is the relative worth of an object or service that makes it desirable.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

*a. the relative worth of an object.

b. the process of taking possession of an object.

c. the act of using and assigning meaning to a good, service, or relationship.

d. a mass-produced and impersonal good with no meaning or history.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 08

8) The collection of goods in a community and the subsequent redivision of those goods among members of a society is called

Feedback: Redistribution is the collection of goods in a community and then the further dispersal of those goods among members.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. exchange.

b. production.

*c. redistribution.

d. capitalism.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 09

9) According to Marshall Sahlins, when production is organized by families it is

Feedback: To distinguish it from the modern capitalist economy, Sahlins calls nonindustrial technologies of economic system one of “primitive exchange.” Although anthropologists no longer use terminology like “primitive,” two important elements of Sahlins’s explanation are that (1) nearly every transaction involves a social relationship, and (2) production is organized by families in what he refers to as the “domestic mode of production.”

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

*a. the domestic mode of production.

b. capitalism.

c. neoclassical economics.

d. less valued.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 10

10) Which perspective incorporates symbols and morals into the understanding of a society's economy?

Feedback: Cultural economics is an anthropological approach to economics that focuses on how symbols and morals help shape a community’s economy.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. Neoclassical economics

b. Substantivism

c. Marxism

*d. Cultural economics

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 11

11) Economies in which people seek high social rank, prestige, and power instead of money and material wealth are known as

Feedback: Prestige economies are economies in which people seek high social rank, prestige, and power in-stead of money and material wealth.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

a. capitalist.

b. surplus value.

c. market exchange.

*d. prestige economies.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 12

12) Consumption is

Feedback: Consumption is the act of using and assigning meaning to a good, service, or relationship.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

a. the process of taking possession of an object.

b. the relative worth of an object or service.

c. a mass-produced and impersonal good with no meaning or history.

*d. the act of using and assigning meaning to a good, service, or relationship.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 13

13) The exchange of brass rods for the purchase of cattle or the payment of a bride price is an example of the use of

Feedback: Limited purpose money includes objects that can be exchanged only for certain things.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

a. surplus value.

b. general-purpose money.

*c. limited-purpose money.

d. exchange value.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 14

14) Gift exchange for Marcel Mauss is based in

Feedback: It may sound strange to think of a gift exchange in economic terms. We tend to think of gifts as personal expressions of reciprocity, the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships. For Americans, the problem is that we distinguish the economy from gift giving, while in the nonindustrial societies anthropologists have traditionally studied, exchanging gifts is at the heart of the local economy.

Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. prestige.

b. profit.

*c. obligation.

d. equality.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 15

15) In Malaysia capitalist entrepreneurship is

Feedback: The southeast Asian nation of Malaysia provides an example of a different culture of capitalism. During the past several decades, Malaysia has aggressively pursued economic growth through industrialization and the creation of investment opportunities. Malaysia is an Islamic country whose majority are Muslim ethnic Malays. During British colonial times (early 1800s to the mid-1900s), the nation’s Chinese minority dominated the economy and remained considerably better off than most of the Malay majority. Since the late 1960s, the Malaysian government’s goal for economic growth has been to reduce economic inequality between the country’s ethnic Chinese and ethnic Malays by giving Malays preferential treatment and greater control over economic resources through set-aside provisions, government subsidies, special investment programs, and preferential opportunities for university education.
Page reference: Does Capitalism Have Distinct Cultures?

a. about economic action.

b. about profit accumulation.

c. usually successful.

*d. respectful of Islamic and Malay obligations and values.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 16

16) When you are consuming an object, the process of taking possession of it is called

Feedback: Appropriation is the process of taking possession of an object, idea, or relationship and making it one’s own.
Page reference: What Is the Point of Owning Things?

a. gift exchange.

b. surplus value.

*c. appropriation.

d. exchange value.

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 17

17) For anthropologists, owning something is not simply a matter of individual possession or occupation of an object or piece of land, but a matter of interactions between people.

*a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 18

18) Although Russians do use money to buy things, they also rely on bartering when money is scarce.

Feedback: Owning something is a matter of individual possession or occupation of an object or piece of land.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

*a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 19

19) Economists and economic anthropologists are not that different in the way they study how people get the things they need to survive.

Feedback: Through her fieldwork, Karen Ho was able to assess the relationship between this concept and actual social practices. She found that these investment banks had transformed the goals of American capitalism since the 1980s, by shifting companies away from traditional corporate goals: producing a quality product in a sustainable way that would provide income for corporate investors, jobs for employees, and useful products for consumers. Instead, investment firms came to stress increasing “shareholder value” as a corporation’s mission, a view that justified hundreds of mergers and acquisitions throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The consequence of most mergers and acquisitions was liquidating and breaking up less-profitable firms, selling off their assets at a profit, and firing all their employees. The acquiring hedge fund or investment bank added short-term shareholder profits, but no new production, and many newly unemployed people.
Page reference: Does Capitalism Have Distinct Cultures?

a. True

*b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 20

20) The use of money is a human universal.

Feedback: Exchange, which anthropologists understand as the transfer of things and gifts between social actors, is a universal feature of human existence and relates to all aspects of life. The use of money in that exchange is not a universal.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

a. True

*b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 21

21) Exchange is a human universal.

Feedback: Exchange, which anthropologists understand as the transfer of things and gifts between social actors, is a universal feature of human existence and relates to all aspects of life. The use of money in that exchange is not a universal.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

*a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 22

22) People who live through objects and images not of their own making are consumers.

Feedback: Consumption is the act of using and assigning meaning to a good, service, or relationship.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

*a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 23

23) In the Kula and Sagali exchanges the prestige lies in receiving items such as armbands and skirts, not in giving them.

Feedback: Balanced reciprocity occurs when a person gives something and expects the receiver to return an equivalent gift or favor at some point in the future. The Kula, Sagali, and American exchanges of birthday presents are examples.

Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. True

*b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 24

24) For the better part of the twentieth century, capitalism and socialism/communism existed as complementary forms of economic organization, a positive partnership that dominated global politics during the Cold War.

Feedback: For the better part of the twentieth century, capitalism and socialism/communism existed as opposed forms of economic organization, an opposition that dominated global politics during the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc (Warsaw Pact) regimes in 1989 and China’s shift toward “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” many economists and political leaders, especially in the United States, asserted that “Capitalism won.” But under the influence of local cultures, capitalism can take more varied forms than we might assume.
Page reference: Does Capitalism Have Distinct Cultures?

a. True

*b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 25

25) The main difference between economists and economic anthropologists is that economists

Feedback: Although both anthropologists and economists study the origins of value and how economies work, they generally have different goals. Economists typically try to understand and predict economic patterns, often with a practical goal of helping people hold onto and increase their wealth. They also study communities in terms of economic statistics, and they assume that economic transactions in one community or country are like transactions in any other. Anthropologists, on the other hand, do not assume transactions are the same everywhere, as they recognize that cultural particularities shape the character of any transaction. Furthermore, we tend to study how people lead their day-to-day economic lives by means of direct, long-term interaction with them.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

*a. try to understand and predict economic patterns.

b. do not assume economic transactions are the same everywhere.

c. tend to look at the day-to-day economic decisions of people.

d. find macrolevel economic transactions irrelevant.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 26

26) Which word is most closely linked to the Marxist perspective?

Feedback: Marxism emphasizes that capitalism, which is a type of economic system, is a system in which private ownership of the means of production and a division of labor produce wealth for a few, and inequality for the masses.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

*a. Inequality

b. Equality

c. Rationality

d. Relativism

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 27

27) Why is Karl Polanyi's distinction between formal and substantive economics important?

Feedback: Polanyi proposed that studying economies involves making a distinction between “formal” and “substantive” economics. By formal economics, he meant the underlying (“formal”) logic that shapes people’s actions when they participate in an economy, as we see in the apparently self-interested and rational decision-makers of neoclassical economic theory. By substantive economics, he referred to the daily transactions people actually engage in to get what they need or desire, or the “substance” of the economy. These transactions are embedded in and inseparable from other social institutions, such as politics, religion, and kinship. Anthropologists found this distinction useful for describing issues they were studying in other societies.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. It explains why states control economies in Europe.

b. It distinguishes between primitive and capitalist economic systems.

*c. It recognizes that economies involve both how people think and the actual transactions they engage in.

d. It laid the groundwork for the rise of Marxist theory in anthropology.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 28

28) Reciprocity

Feedback: Reciprocity is the give-and-take that builds and confirms relation- ships.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. is giving something without the expectation of return, at least not in the near term.

*b. is the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships.

c. occurs when a person gives something, expecting the receiver to return an equivalent gift or favor at some point in the future.

d. is the attempt to get something for nothing, to haggle one's way into a favorable personal outcome.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 29

29) The themes of reciprocity and gift exchange are critical to anthropologists because

Feedback: It may sound strange to think of a gift exchange in economic terms. We tend to think of gifts as personal expressions of reciprocity, the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships. For Americans, the problem is that we distinguish the economy from gift giving, while in the nonindustrial societies anthropologists have traditionally studied, exchanging gifts is at the heart of the local economy.

Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. they are economically insignificant in market-based economies.

b. the exchange of gifts is the economy in many societies.

c. reciprocity is rarely embedded in social relations.

*d. they are only found in pristine, untouched societies.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 30

30) An example of general reciprocity is

Feedback: Generalized reciprocity is a form of reciprocity in which gifts are given freely without the expectation of return.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. the Kula.

*b. when a parent gives a child a gift.

c. bartering at the market.

d. giving a birthday present.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 31

31) An example of negative reciprocity is

Feedback: Negative reciprocity is a form of reciprocity in which the giver attempts to get something for nothing, to haggle his or her way into a favorable personal outcome.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. the Kula.

b. when a parent gives a child a gift.

*c. bartering at the market.

d. giving a birthday present.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 32

32) An example of balanced reciprocity is

Feedback: Balanced reciprocity is a form of reciprocity in which the giver expects a fair return at some later time.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. the Kula.

b. when a parent gives a child a gift.

c. bartering at the market.

*d. giving a birthday present.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 33

33) Obligation is a key element of

Feedback: It may sound strange to think of a gift exchange in economic terms. We tend to think of gifts as personal expressions of reciprocity, the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships. For Americans, the problem is that we distinguish the economy from gift giving, while in the nonindustrial societies anthropologists have traditionally studied, exchanging gifts is at the heart of the local economy.

Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. market capitalism.

b. consumption.

c. balanced reciprocity.

*d. gift giving.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 34

34) A good illustration of the Marxist concept of surplus value is

Feedback: Marxism emphasizes that capitalism, which is a type of economic system, is a system in which private ownership of the means of production and a division of labor produce wealth for a few, and inequality for the masses.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. a worker shows up to work late and gets his pay reduced, generating more profit for the owner.

*b. a worker makes one $30 sweater every hour in a factory but gets paid only $15.

c. a worker improves her or his efficiency by not taking bathroom breaks.

d. a factory owner prevents labor unions from forming in the factory.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 35

35) From an anthropological point of view, people remove the price tag from gifts and wrap birthday presents because

Feedback: Balanced reciprocity is a form of reciprocity in which the giver expects a fair return at some later time.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. people like surprises.

b. people are anxious about being seen as spending too much on gifts.

c. the paper industry has convinced people it is necessary.

*d. people are ambivalent about expressing their connections with others using impersonal goods.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 36

36) The main reason men of the Malaysian Langkawi fishing community hand over their money to women is that

Feedback: The southeast Asian nation of Malaysia provides an example of a different culture of capitalism. During the past several decades, Malaysia has aggressively pursued economic growth through industrialization and the creation of investment opportunities. Malaysia is an Islamic country whose majority are Muslim ethnic Malays. During British colonial times (early 1800s to the mid-1900s), the nation’s Chinese minority dominated the economy and remained considerably better off than most of the Malay majority. Since the late 1960s, the Malaysian government’s goal for economic growth has been to reduce economic inequality between the country’s ethnic Chinese and ethnic Malays by giving Malays preferential treatment and greater control over economic resources through set-aside provisions, government subsidies, special investment programs, and preferential opportunities for university education.
Page reference: Does Capitalism Have Distinct Cultures?

a. women are better at saving money than men.

b. women are the political leaders.

c. men do not value money.

*d. women decontaminate money by using it to sustain the household.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 37

37) When a parent pays for a child's piano lessons, he or she is engaged in

Feedback: Generalized reciprocity is a form of reciprocity in which gifts are given freely without the expectation of return.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

a. delayed reciprocity.

*b. generalized reciprocity.

c. balanced reciprocity.

d. negative reciprocity.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 38

38) A key reason anthropologists study people's pursuit of cool things is that

Feedback: An important question about owning things is why people come to want certain things in the first place. Sometimes it has to do with securing access to a critical resource, and then using whatever socially acceptable tools are available to exclude others from gaining access. But it also often has a lot to do with what a community considers “cool,” that is, impressive or trendy. In our own society, marketing and advertising executives work hard to identify and create an image of coolness in ads and commercials—in the clothing we wear, the music we listen to, the foods we eat, the cars we drive, the smartphones we use, and so on—all to get us to buy more things.
Page reference: What Is the Point of Owning Things?

*a. it's an important avenue through which people express and change their social relationships.

b. it helps the economy.

c. it helps us understand the innate superiority of some people in society.

d. it helps shed light on distinct cultures of capitalism.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 39

39) From an anthropological perspective, the main reason Wall Street banks are not the bastions of individualism and cold rationalism many think they are is that

Feedback: Investment banks on Wall Street, site of the New York Stock Exchange and America’s financial capital, are popularly seen as a bastion of individual entrepreneurialism and cold rationalism in pursuit of profits. But anthropologists have found that social relationships and cultural processes shape transactions on Wall Street in far more complex ways than our image of Wall Street may suggest.
Page reference: Does Capitalism Have Distinct Cultures?

a. bankers can be quite compassionate and donate money to many worthy causes.

*b. personal relationships and local knowledge are critical to successful transactions.

c. the government heavily regulates the decisions bankers make.

d. certain bankers think more like Marxists than neoclassical economists.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 40

40) Which of the following is not true of economic anthropology?

Feedback: Economic anthropology is the subfield of cultural anthropology concerned with how people make, share, and buy things and services.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. It is skeptical of the idea that there is a universal value for anything.

b. It challenges the notion that economic transactions are the same everywhere.

*c. It assumes that free market capitalism will take over the world

d. It encompasses multiple theoretical approaches to explain how economies work.

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 41

41) Gift exchanges are important because people everywhere invest symbolic meaning in the things they give, receive, and consume.

Feedback: It may sound strange to think of a gift exchange in economic terms. We tend to think of gifts as personal expressions of reciprocity, the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships. For Americans, the problem is that we distinguish the economy from gift giving, while in the nonindustrial societies anthropologists have traditionally studied, exchanging gifts is at the heart of the local economy.

Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

*a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 42

42) Malinowski's analysis of the Kula cycle is important because it helps explain how Trobriand men get social status.

Feedback: Balanced reciprocity occurs when a person gives something and expects the receiver to return an equivalent gift or favor at some point in the future. The Kula, Sagali, and American exchanges of birthday presents are examples.

Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

*a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 08 Question 43

43) The central point of the concept of spheres of exchange is to make a distinction between general- and limited-purpose money.

Feedback: General purpose money is money that is used to buy nearly any good or service. Limited purpose money includes objects that can be exchanged only for certain things.
Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

a. True

*b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 44

44) A formalist anthropologist doing fieldwork in a supermarket would be most interested in

Feedback: To formalists, individuals in all societies are as rational as neoclassical economics says they are. People everywhere confront limited means and unlimited ends (wants); therefore, they make rational decisions that are appropriate to the satisfaction they desire.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. the geographic location and formal spatial layout of the supermarket.

*b. how shoppers decide which cat food to buy when they have fifteen varieties to choose from.

c. the ways managers appropriate the labor of checkout clerks, butchers, and other workers.

d. the diverse ways general-purpose money circulates in the store.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 45

45) If you applied the notion of transactional orders to understand a scandal in which a college professor accepts payment for a grade, you would most likely focus on the

Feedback: Transactional orders, or realms of transactions a community uses, each with its own set of symbolic meanings and moral assumptions. The transactions involved in getting an education, which are steeped in long-term obligations and expectations, are morally distinct from other short-term transactions that have no special moral obligations, such as buying a magazine at your university bookstore. Indeed, when you graduate, your college will work hard to involve you in all sorts of alumni activities and regularly ask you to contribute what you can to support it, because of those presumed moral ties between you, the institution, and its current and future students.

Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

a. poor morality of the professor.

*b. symbolic meanings Americans hold about the morality of education and student–teacher relations.

c. fact that American higher education pays its professors very little.

d. widespread corruption that runs throughout universities.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 46

46) A substantivist perspective on the economic life of a college fraternity would likely focus on the

Feedback: Substantive economics is a branch of economics, inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi, that studies the daily transactions people engage in to get what they need or desire.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. spending the fraternity does on parties.

*b. informal exchange of favors and goods among members.

c. exploitation of pledges' labor by full-fledged members.

d. prestige that accrues to members who give a lot of goods and services to other members.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 47

47) Which of the following analyses of Christmas shopping would be least likely to come from a follower of cultural economics?

Feedback: Cultural economics is an anthropological approach to economics that focuses on how symbols and morals help shape a community’s economy.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. People buy gifts to reaffirm and strengthen social relations.

b. People buy certain gifts to build their stature among friends and family.

c. People might buy some gifts in a store and trade and barter for other gifts.

*d. People always make decisions about what to buy on the basis of getting the lowest price.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 48

48) A Marxist approach to the cultural processes Karen Ho studied of Wall Street would be most focused on

Feedback: Marxism emphasizes that capitalism, which is a type of economic system, is a system in which private ownership of the means of production and a division of labor produce wealth for a few, and inequality for the masses.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

*a. the tendency to lay off employees on a regular basis as the bank suffers through financial crises caused by its own activities.

b. the rational decision-making logic of bankers.

c. the value placed on individual wealth and conspicuous consumption among bankers.

d. the way government regulations moderate the worst effects of financial crises caused by the banks.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 49

49) A substantivist would be most likely to explain the Kula cycle as

Feedback: Substantive economics is a branch of economics, inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi, that studies the daily transactions people engage in to get what they need or desire.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

a. an elaborate exercise with little useful benefits to the society.

*b. closely tied to important social institutions, such as kin networks, trading ties, and political structure.

c. an opportunity for individuals with keen negotiating skills to get a lot of goods.

d. a way of gaining personal prestige.

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 08 Question 50

50) If you wanted to study how Mayans get what they need to survive today, which theoretical approach would be most valuable? Why?

Feedback: Cultural economics is an anthropological approach to economics that focuses on how symbols and morals help shape a community’s economy.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 08 Question 51

51) Is cultural economics applicable to a study of an industrial factory? Explain and illustrate your answer.

Feedback: Cultural economics is an anthropological approach to economics that focuses on how symbols and morals help shape a community’s economy.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 52

52) If you had a goal of understanding the economic life of a typical American suburban family, which theoretical approach(es) from economic anthropology would you find most valuable? Explain your answer.

Feedback: Marxism emphasizes that capitalism, which is a type of economic system, is a system in which private ownership of the means of production and a division of labor produce wealth for a few, and inequality for the masses.
Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 53

53) Compare and contrast how two theories—formalism and substantivism—would explain how and why people consume prestige goods, like Ferrari automobiles and Gucci bags.

Feedback: To formalists, individuals in all societies are as rational as neoclassical economics says they are. People everywhere confront limited means and unlimited ends (wants); therefore, they make rational decisions that are appropriate to the satisfaction they desire. Substantive economics is a branch of economics, inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi, that studies the daily transactions people engage in to get what they need or desire.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 54

54) How do culture and social relations shape the meaning of money?

Feedback: Page reference: How Does Culture Shape the Value and Meaning of Money?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 55

55) Are there distinct cultures of capitalism?

Feedback: Yes, for example, the southeast Asian nation of Malaysia provides an example of a different culture of capitalism. During the past several decades, Malaysia has aggressively pursued economic growth through industrialization and the creation of investment opportunities. Malaysia is an Islamic country whose majority are Muslim ethnic Malays. During British colonial times (early 1800s to the mid-1900s), the nation’s Chinese minority dominated the economy and remained considerably better off than most of the Malay majority. Since the late 1960s, the Malaysian government’s goal for economic growth has been to reduce economic inequality between the country’s ethnic Chinese and ethnic Malays by giving Malays preferential treatment and greater control over economic resources through set-aside provisions, government subsidies, special investment programs, and preferential opportunities for university education.
Page reference: Does Capitalism Have Distinct Cultures?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 56

56) How are reciprocity and gift-giving related to the economy?

Feedback: Reciprocity is the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships. It may sound strange to think of a gift exchange in economic terms. We tend to think of gifts as personal expressions of reciprocity, the give-and-take that builds and confirms relationships. For Americans, the problem is that we distinguish the economy from gift giving, while in the nonindustrial societies anthropologists have traditionally studied, exchanging gifts is at the heart of the local economy.
Page reference: Why Does Gift Exchange Play Such an Important Role in All Societies?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 57

57) How are economic transactions, consumption, and exchanges related to social and individual identities?

Feedback: Although both anthropologists and economists study the origins of value and how economies work, they generally have different goals. Economists typically try to understand and predict economic patterns, often with a practical goal of helping people hold onto and increase their wealth. They also study communities in terms of economic statistics, and they assume that economic transactions in one community or country are like transactions in any other. Anthropologists, on the other hand, do not assume transactions are the same everywhere, as they recognize that cultural particularities shape the character of any transaction. Furthermore, we tend to study how people lead their day-to-day economic lives by means of direct, long-term interaction with them. As a result, we tend to focus more than economists do on understanding the world’s diverse economic systems, the structured patterns and relationships through which people exchange goods and services, and making sense of how these systems reflect and shape particular ways of life.

Page reference: Is Money Really the Measure of All Things?