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This article challenges the prevailing assumption in economic anthropology that "primitive" societies lack the concept of economic maximization due to their embeddedness in social structures. Dalton argues that while social relations are important, individuals in these societies do make rational economic choices based on scarcity and their own self-interest. He examines various ethnographic cases to demonstrate how concepts like supply and demand, and cost-benefit analysis, can be applied to understand economic behavior in non-market societies. Dalton suggests that the focus should be on the specific institutional context within which economic decisions are made, rather than assuming a fundamental difference between "primitive" and "modern" economic rationality.

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