The Organization of Land and Labor in a Marginal Economy

In 1963-64 the Havasupai Indians of northwestern Arizona were living in extreme poverty. While they felt their hunger and overall privation, the Havasupai failed to use 160 acres of irrigable land and a large amount of idle labor. This paper shows that their apparent irrationality was a function of the structure of incentives which was conditioned by the organization of production and consumption.The analysis reveals that because there was no market for garden produce its value was as a substitute for purchased food. But for a man to realize the cash savings resulting from such substitutions, he had to control a consumption unit which was dependent upon controlling, among other things, cash. Cash was required to purchase food, soft goods, the materials for a house, and gear for one's horses. The individuals who did not control consumption units thus had no incentive to garden since they needed cash but had no way of transforming produce into cash. Men who did control consumption units were fully employed during the agricultural season so that the labor they could allocate to gardening was restricted by their numbers and the demands of other more lucrative activities

Agricultural economics · Business · Cash · Cash crop · Consumption (sociology) · Control (management) · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Incentive · Irrationality · Labour economics · Market economy · Microeconomics · Political science · Poverty · Production (economics) · Unit (ring theory) · Finance · Latin American rural development

• Economic Development and Anthropology

  Harold K Schneider•Annual Review of Anthropology•1975

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• A Reconsideration of Havasupai Land Tenure

  Open Access•John F Martins, John Martins et al.•Ethnology•1968

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