Politics Chapter.8 Test Bank Answers

1.

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

A)

political systems

B)

holistic systems

C)

kinship systems

D)

economic systems

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.

A)

political anthropologists

B)

economic anthropologists

C)

biolinguistic anthropologists

D)

deterministic anthropologists

3.

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

A)

fiat money

B)

commodity money

C)

general purpose money

D)

sphere money

4.

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

A)

neoclassical economics

B)

Marxism

C)

Substantivism

D)

cultural economics

5.

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

A)

exchange

B)

production

C)

redistribution

D)

capitalism

6.

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

A)

the domestic mode of production

B)

capitalism

C)

neoclassical economics

D)

less valued

7.

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

A)

neoclassical economics

B)

substantivism

C)

Marxism

D)

cultural economics

8.

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

A)

capitalist

B)

surplus value

C)

market exchange

D)

prestige economies

9.

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

A)

surplus value

B)

general-purpose money

C)

limited-purpose money

D)

exchange value

10.

Gift exchange for Marcel Mauss is based in

A)

Prestige

B)

Profit

C)

obligation

D)

Equality

11.

In Malaysia capitalist entrepreneurship is

A)

about economic action

B)

about profit accumulation

C)

usually successful

D)

respectful of Islamic and Malay obligations and values

12.

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

A)

gift exchange

B)

surplus value

C)

appropriation

D)

exchange value

13.

The relative worth of an object or service is its value.

14.

The cooperative organization of work into specialized tasks and roles is the division of labor.

15.

The market is a social institution in which people come together to buy and sell goods.

16.

Capitalism is the economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, in which prices are set and goods distributed through a market.

17.

Formalists criticized substantivists for lack of attention to individual action and behavior and focused on scientific investigation into individual economic behavior and rationality.

18.

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

19.

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

A)

True

B)

False

20.

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

A)

True

B)

False

21.

The use of money is a human universal.

A)

True

B)

False

22.

Exchange is a human universal.

A)

True

B)

False

23.

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

A)

True

B)

False

24.

The main difference between economists and economic anthropologists is that economists

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

25.

Which word is most closely linked to the Marxist perspective

A)

inequality

B)

equality

C)

rationality

D)

relativism

26.

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

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

27.

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

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

28.

A good illustration of the Marxist concept of surplus value is

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

29.

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

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

30.

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

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

31.

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

A)

delayed reciprocity

B)

generalized reciprocity

C)

balanced reciprocity

D)

negative reciprocity

32.

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

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

33.

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

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

34.

Anthropologist Ashraf Ghani's successes as a finance minister and presidential candidate in Afghanistan can be attributed to what?

A)

his attentiveness to local social norms and priorities

B)

his strong anticapitalist credentials as a Marxist

C)

the retraining he went through as a development economist

D)

his close ties to anti-Taliban sectors of the population

35.

Which of the following is not true of economic anthropology?

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

36.

A mafia gangster passing money to his wife to spend on household expenses is a good illustration of the concept of transactional orders.

37.

An example of delayed reciprocity is the Sagali rite in the Trobriand Islands, in which women make and give away banana leaf bundles when somebody dies.

38.

A key feature of any economy is that it organizes people into social roles. In the case of capitalism, these roles include the state, consumer, laborers, and entrepreneurs.

39.

Barter, or the direct swapping of goods, is different from generalized reciprocity in that a giver has no expectation of return.

40.

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

A)

True

B)

False

41.

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

A)

True

B)

False

42.

The Russian concept of blat, in which people give and receive favors, interests anthropologists because it appears to be preventing the emergence of capitalist markets.

A)

True

B)

False

43.

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

A)

True

B)

False

44.

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

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

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

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

46.

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

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

47.

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

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

48.

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

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

49.

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

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

50.

If you wanted to study how Russians get what they need to survive today, several decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, which theoretical approach would be most valuable? Why?

51.

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

52.

How might an economic anthropologist, such as Ashraf Ghani, approach rebuilding a war-torn country differently from a traditional economist?

53.

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.

54.

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

55.

What role do you think cultural economics could play in a real-world application, such as an economic development program headed by anthropologist Ashraf Ghani?

56.

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

57.

Are there distinct cultures of capitalism?

58.

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

59.

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