May 9, 2012

Economic relationships require some sort of control over labor and means and methods of production and distribution. What is important in any economic understanding is the motivation behind the economic activity. Why do people work is of primary concern. The motivation of labor is as important as the way labor is organized to carry out the jobs allocated to individuals within a society. Physical survival of the individuals and their community is basic. Also, wide ranges of motivations are for economic activities are possible. These incentives vary a great deal from society to society and from individual to individual within any one society. These incentives form a complicated interactive multifaceted set of intricate reciprocal action, effects and influences not only on the economy, but the economy it self is entrenched in a complex of social and cultural associations. Some possible motivations for economic activities include self-interest, desire for accumulation of wealth and power, social responsibility, ethical concern for family, community, ones country, humanity world wide, the planet, and even the love drawn from the pleasure of the craft itself. Not only do these motivations differ from society to society, they never were mutually exclusive and are constantly changing.

Social relationships are reciprocal therefore communal in their organization. This forms the bases for Weberian Sociology. Substantivist economic studies, the followers of Polanyi, examines closely how economic relations are embedded in a larger social environment, with built in regulations to protect the community. Only capitalism attempts to free the economic actors from social responsibility and social regulations. Capitalism really was and is a dual movement free trade and protectionism. The latter was necessary to protect capitalist society from capitalism.

Marx added historical studies of a continually evolving economy and social environment that transforms itself because all societies exhaust themselves are replaced by something new. Beyond this not much more can be said about any specific social organization outside of its cultural and historical setting. There are about as many different explanations as there are specific examples. Both Weber and Polanyi are descriptive and empirical. While Marx’s method is more of a scientific approach to historical sociology. All three taken in concert become the foundation of historical sociology and economic anthropology.

With any social organization identification is important. Often this denote feeling like one is part of a supportive and group. Though this is not always the case. These relations include established economic and political relations, and the challenges to the exchange and industrial organization, as well as political relations