Marshall David Sahlins (born December 27, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) is a prominent American anthropologist. The book 〈Stone Age Economics, 1974〉 is written from an anthropological angle and claims that stone age economies were the original affluent...
Marshall David Sahlins (born December 27, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) is a prominent American anthropologist. The book 〈Stone Age Economics, 1974〉 is written from an anthropological angle and claims that stone age economies were the original affluent society. This superb work discusses the types of economic organization which currently exist and which have existed throughout human history (and into pre-history). It then shows the effect of such economic organizations on social structure.
Sahlins’ work has focused on demonstrating the power that culture has to shape people’s perceptions and actions. He has been particularly interested to demonstrate that culture has a unique power to motivate people that is not derived from biology. His early work focused on debunking the idea of ‘economically rational man’ and to demonstrate that economic systems adapted to particular circumstances in culturally specific ways. After the publication of Culture and Practical Reason in 1976 his focus shifted to the relation between history and anthropology, and the way different cultures understand and make history. Although his focus has been the entire Pacific, Sahlins has done most of his research in Fiji and Hawaii.
The "original affluent society" is a theory postulating that hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society. This theory was first articulated by Marshall Sahlins at a symposium entitled "Man the Hunter" held in Chicago in 1966. The significance of the theory stems from its role in shifting anthropological thought away from seeing hunter-gatherer societies as primitive, to seeing them as practitioners of a refined mode of subsistence from which much can be learned.
At the time of the symposium new research by anthropologists, such as Richard B. Lee’s work on the !Kung of southern Africa, was challenging popular notions that hunter-gatherer societies were always near the brink of starvation and continuously engaged in a struggle for survival (Barnard, 197). Sahlins gathered the data from these studies and used it to support a comprehensive argument that states that hunter-gatherers did not suffer from deprivation, but instead lived in a society in which "all the people’s wants are easily satisfied" (Sahlins, Man, 85).
The book, 〈Stone Age Economics, 1974〉, is not yet translated in Korean. Furthermore, very few Korean students study anthropology because some students have misconceptions that anthropology is irrelevant and impractical compared to other social sciences. In this regard, I translated this book for my master degree thesis based on translation theories and principles. The translation will contribute to the development of Korean anthropology. I hope more Korean students choose it as a profession. It offers the unique combination of culture, biology and geographic diversity.