Een economische kijk op een antropologische studie

Samenvatting

Communication and coordination between anthropologists and economists is almost nonexistent, but could be a great value. This is one of the problems discussed by Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist, in Peddlers and Princes (1963). His proposal to unite the eclectic method of anthropology and the formal method of economics in one analytic study is not sufficient; the methods should converge. The exact contribution of detailed anthropological studies to the understanding of economic development is uncertain. From an economist's point of view Geertz' book has some value. His theories on economics are not very strong and he has too many presuppositions. W. Rostow's theory of the "decisive breakthrough" (Stages of economic growth) becomes in Geertz' study a "sudden burst of income and investment." While Rostow mentions agriculture and transportation as a precondition for the economic "take-off," Geertz mentions trade and industry as preconditions for the "take-off" in the two Indonesian villages he discusses. This deviation of Rostow's theory is undoubtedly related to Geertz' presupposition that the economy in Indonesia will develop as a capitalistic order following the European and American examples. He takes the corporation as the norm of the development. The existence of shops and corporations is taken as proof for his presupposition. He thus passes over the specific problems of these corporations. By applying the accepted model he even fails to see the importance of other groups of the society, as for example the Chinese. K. Dillman.