1 Subsistence and Economic Organization
Explore how people meet basic needs and how production, distribution, exchange, and consumption organize economic life in social and cultural contexts.
Livelihood and
concerns how people meet necessities such as food, water, clothing, shelter, and care. People secure these necessities through knowledge, labor, tools, and other resources. A society’s predominant livelihood is its , which also reflects how people interact with their environment and organize work.
A does not mean that people produce everything they use themselves. Livelihood activities can include trade, wage labor, and other connections to wider economies.
Economic life in social context
examines how people produce, distribute, , and consume goods and services. It also considers how economic activities are shaped by social relationships, cultural meanings, institutions, and power.
Economic life extends beyond markets. It can include work organized through households, gifts shared among relatives, and goods collected and redistributed by a government.
, , and
is the work of making or obtaining useful things and services. It includes gathering, farming, herding, fishing, manufacturing, and care work. depends on resources, technology, knowledge, and how labor is organized.
describes how goods and services move among people and groups. It can happen through sharing, gifts, payments, trade, or centralized collection and allocation. is one way of distributing goods, and it may take the form of reciprocal giving, , or .
is the use of goods and services to meet needs and pursue valued ways of life. Choices about what is consumed—and who gets access—are influenced by income, social obligations, customs, and unequal power.
Ways of distributing resources
involves giving and receiving between people or groups. In , people give without setting an immediate or precisely measured return, as in many forms of family sharing. Other reciprocal exchanges may involve an expected return.
takes place when goods or resources are gathered at a central point and then allocated again. Community stores and public resources funded through taxes are examples.
involves transfers between buyers and sellers, commonly using money and prices. These forms of are useful analytical categories, not mutually exclusive kinds of society. A household, community, or nation may rely on all three in different settings and combinations.
How economic activities connect
A household that grows vegetables illustrates how economic activities connect. Growing vegetables is ; sharing some with relatives or selling them at a market is ; preparing the rest for meals is . The example also shows that multiple ways of distributing goods can operate side by side.