Deck 11: Economics

Question 1

Ester Boserup argues that the intensification of agriculture is __________.

A) not likely to develop naturally out of horticulture
B) associated with greater social equality
C) not linked to population growth
D) dependent upon a slow progression from animal husbandry and horticulture

Answer 1

not likely to develop naturally out of horticulture

Question 2

Many have suggested that the United States and other developed countries are now transitioning from __________ to __________.

A) industrialism; postindustrialism
B) domestic production; industrialism
C) communalism; domestic production
D) postindustrialism; postmodernism

Answer 2

industrialism; postindustrialism

Question 3

Why must we be cautious about drawing inferences about our past from the lifestyles of modern foraging societies?

A) Like all societies, foraging societies have evolved and are still evolving.
B) Our ancestors had regular interactions with other societies, while modern foragers remain isolated.
C) Contemporary foragers live in environments that ancient foragers never used.
D) Modern foraging societies represent an artificial return to what people believe were the "old" ways.

Answer 3

Like all societies, foraging societies have evolved and are still evolving.

Question 4

What is one of the major consequences of horticulture?

A) more sedentary way of life
B) lower population density
C) strict egalitarianism
D) reliance on hunted game for protein

Question 5

Anthropologists have concluded that the physical environment by itself has a __________,rather than a __________,effect on the major types of subsistence.

A) restraining; determining
B) definitive; determining
C) definitive; restraining
D) positive; negative

Question 6

In a(n)__________ production system,most people produce their own food,but an aristocracy controls a portion of the production.

A) tributary
B) domestic
C) industrial
D) communal

Question 7

By "food collection," anthropologists mean the obtaining of food from __________.

A) wild plants and animals
B) wild plants only
C) domesticated plants and animals
D) plants, wild and domesticated

Question 8

Which of these is a common task for young children?

A) tending animals
B) cooking food
C) clearing fields
D) making tools

Question 9

Which type of subsistence strategy has been practiced at one time in almost all areas of the earth?

A) foraging
B) pastoralism
C) horticulture
D) intensive agriculture

Question 10

Societies that engage in pastoralism are characterized by __________.

A) small, highly mobile groups
B) a dependence on small animals like chickens or pigs
C) living in densely forested environments
D) a very high birth rate

Question 11

What herding strategies do contemporary Saami use?

A) The Norwegian government now regulates reindeer herding.
B) They still herd animals, but have switched to sheep and goats.
C) They maintain their traditional nomadic lifestyle.
D) There are no longer any reindeer herders among the Saami.

Question 12

Which of these trends is associated with the increasing commercialization of agriculture?

A) A smaller proportion of society is involved in food production.
B) People are choosing to eat more locally produced foods.
C) Technology is being used to grow a wider variety of crops on a single field.
D) More food production is controlled by family-run operations.

Question 13

Which of the following is characteristic of foraging societies?

A) small group size consisting of related families
B) semipermanent settled villages
C) social hierarchies reflected in ownership of land and wealthy possessions
D) high levels of social differentiation

Question 14

From where do most traditional pastoralists get their animal protein?

A) the milk and blood of the animals they raise
B) trading wool for cheese and yogurt in cities
C) the meat of the animals they raise
D) buying meat with cash earned through wage labor

Question 15

Complex foraging societies like the Tlingit and the Nimpkish tend to have more __________ than most other foraging societies.

A) social inequality
B) elaborate folklore
C) reliance on hunting
D) balanced gender roles

Question 16

The term "transnationals" refers to migrants who __________.

A) move back and forth between their homelands and their adopted countries
B) move from one country to another, living in three or more nations throughout their lives
C) permanently move from their homelands to a new country
D) move temporarily to another country for work, sending money back home

Question 17

What form of horticulture involves working the land for a short time,then leaving it idle for a few years?

A) shifting cultivation
B) monocropping
C) cash cropping
D) permanent cultivation

Question 18

Among pastoral nomads,wealth is usually measured in __________.

A) animals
B) the amount of land people own
C) the number of children people have
D) the number of wives a man has

Question 19

In what activity do Yanomamö participate as part of their subsistence strategy?

A) hunting monkeys with bow and arrow
B) raising cattle and sheep
C) using irrigation to control farmland
D) planting coconut and banana trees

Question 20

Researchers have found that cooperation is __________.

A) common across cultures and seems to evoke pleasure for people
B) generally considered a good quality but rarely shown by individual people
C) unnatural for humans but socially developed by most societies
D) found in human societies but no other animal communities

Question 21

Which of these subsistence strategies finds the individual ownership of land most important?

A) intensive agriculture
B) horticulture
C) pastoralism
D) food collecting

Question 22

Which of the following animals are least likely to be a source of food in a horticultural society?

A) camels
B) sheep
C) chicken
D) pigs

Question 23

Which of the following is an important social consequence of commercial agriculture?

A) laborers migrate to urban centers in search of employment
B) social inequality decreases
C) there is less risk of famine due to crop failure
D) the ethic of generalized reciprocity increases

Question 24

When the federal government collects a portion of our wages as taxes and then returns that money in the form of national security,roads,education,and other goods and services to its citizens,it is demonstrating which type of economic exchange?

A) redistribution
B) market exchange
C) generalized reciprocity
D) voluntary labor

Question 25

Systems regulating the way goods and services are distributed are closely associated with the society's __________.

A) food-getting technology
B) gendered division of labor
C) dependence on seafood
D) incentives for labor

Question 26

How might we best describe the subsistence strategies of contemporary cultures?

A) Most people today are food producers.
B) Most people today are foragers, supplemented with small-scale animal husbandry.
C) There is a roughly equal balance between foraging and food-producing cultures.
D) Most people today are foragers.

Question 27

The spread of agriculture may be linked to the need for __________.

A) territorial expansion
B) more food
C) permanent housing
D) saving animals

Question 28

Why do members of food-collecting societies not have private ownership of land?

A) Land has no intrinsic value to foragers; only the animals and plants on the land have value.
B) Land is too expensive to own, so most foragers are forced to rent land.
C) Private ownership has historically led to too much conflict, so they abandoned the practice.
D) Foragers do not usually have a measuring system to equitably distribute the land.

Question 29

For most horticulturalists,people __________.

A) do not own the land, but own the foods obtained from it
B) own the land, but not the foods obtained from it
C) own neither the land nor the foods obtained from it
D) own both the land and the foods obtained from it

Question 30

Individual families in pastoral societies are most likely to own __________.

A) animals
B) grazing lands
C) permanent dwelling places
D) land for cultivating crops

Question 31

Which of these groups of foragers are more likely to have individual or family ownership of land?

A) those dependent upon fishing in rivers
B) foragers living in particularly bountiful environments
C) savanna foragers, who live in very low population densities
D) those that rely on women's gathered foods for most of their calories

Question 32

All societies divide labor by what two factors?

A) gender and age
B) productivity and gender
C) class and productivity
D) age and class

Question 33

In which societies can there be no profit motive for work?

A) subsistence economies
B) postindustrial societies
C) capitalist nations
D) socialist systems

Question 34

In which areas is intensive agriculture unlikely to supplant horticulture?

A) tropical forests
B) the Arctic
C) plains
D) temperate climates

Question 35

Taxation is an indirect form of __________.

A) forced labor
B) reciprocity
C) redistribution
D) voluntary labor

Question 36

Using the anthropological definition,which of the following is an example of horticulture?

A) shifting cultivation
B) decorative flower gardening
C) large fields of cash crops
D) greenhouses for growing plants

Question 37

If you were to trade a pair of shoes you no longer want for a friend's discarded jacket,you would be participating in __________.

A) balanced reciprocity
B) generalized reciprocity
C) redistribution
D) market exchange

Question 38

What happens to generalized reciprocity in times of scarcity?

A) Sharing tends to increase during times of food shortage, but not famine.
B) Sharing tends to increase during times of famine, but not food shortage.
C) Sharing tends to increase during both food shortage and famine.
D) Sharing tends to decrease during both food shortage and famine.

Question 39

Commercialization through which means is associated with the formation of a peasantry?

A) supplementary cash crops
B) migrant labor
C) redistribution
D) subsistence agriculture

Question 40

The different forms of reciprocity are connected by the fact that they all __________.

A) exist without the use of money
B) involve exchanges of relatively equal value
C) are centered on gift-giving
D) are tied directly to food resources

Question 41

Compared to food collectors,horticulturalists generally __________.

A) get more food from a given area
B) are more nomadic
C) are more sparsely populated
D) have fewer differences in prestige between people

Question 42

Distinguish between the three major types of food production: horticulture,intensive agriculture,and pastoralism.Provide examples of modern cultures practicing each type of subsistence.

Question 43

Why should we not assume that food collectors would automatically switch to food production once they understood the process of domestication?

A) Food production involves more work and less security than food collection.
B) Food production cannot support as many people as food collection.
C) Food production is associated with a more complex diet than food collection.
D) Food production requires less specialized skills than food collection.

Question 44

Give specific examples of how you,personally,have recently participated in generalized reciprocity,balanced reciprocity,redistribution,and market exchange.

Question 45

What development was necessary before foragers could live in tropical forest environments?

A) trade with agriculturalists to obtain carbohydrates
B) animal husbandry of small animals for protein
C) market economy to trade with neighbors for metal tools
D) an irrigation system to deal with heavy tropical rains

Question 46

Explain the relationship between the allocation of resources and food production.Show how foragers,horticulturalists,pastoralists,and intensive agriculturalists denote ownership of land,food,and tools.

Question 47

What social characteristics are associated with foragers and complex foragers?

Question 48

Which horticulturalists are likely to be the most sedentary?

A) those who rely on food from trees that produce for a long time
B) a group that uses slash-and-burn agriculture
C) villages that raise chickens or pigs
D) a group that still relies heavily on foraging

Question 49

Studies have shown that many foraging and small-scale horticultural societies work just a few hours a day on subsistence and have much more leisure time than workers in complex societies.Which of the following statements explains this model?

A) Any surplus food these societies collect or produce cannot be stored for long and will rot.
B) These societies value leisure activities as more appropriate pursuits than labor.
C) Members of these societies are lazy and have no interest in work.
D) These groups have political authorities that would collect surpluses for their own use.

Question 50

What is the key feature that distinguishes intensive agriculture from horticulture?

A) Intensive agriculture uses techniques that allow people to cultivate fields permanently.
B) Intensive agriculture begins only after a population reaches a critical density.
C) Only intensive agriculture incorporates any sort of technology.
D) Horticulture produces foods for village use, while intensive agriculture focuses on crops to sell.

Question 51

Redistribution is found in all societies but only becomes an important mechanism in __________.

A) societies with a political hierarchy
B) very small permanent villages
C) horticultural communities
D) societies that emphasize social equality

Question 52

What is the difference between foraging and food production?

A) Foraging uses only wild plants and animals, while food production cultivates and domesticates them.
B) Food production depends only on plant foods, while foraging involves both plants and animals.
C) Foraging allows for more control over processes like animal breeding and plant seeding.
D) Food production requires a strict division of labor by gender, while foraging is rarely split by gender.

Question 53

What is the difference between market exchange (when money is not involved)and balanced reciprocity?

A) In market exchange, supply and demand determine the price.
B) In balanced reciprocity, supply and demand determine the price.
C) In market exchange, the person giving is of a higher social status than the person receiving.
D) In balanced reciprocity, the person giving is of higher social status than the person receiving.

Question 54

Why are intensive agriculturalists more likely to face food shortages than horticultural societies?

A) Intensive agriculturalists often produce crops for market.
B) Horticulture is usually more productive than intensive agriculture.
C) Horticulture involves more complex and reliable technology.
D) Intensive agriculturalists usually live in more challenging environments than horticulturalists.

Question 55

Critically discuss the costs and benefits of having a market exchange economy.What advancements can be gained from this economic system? What social institutions are lost?