ABSTRACT
As we noted in Chapter 9, “Economic Organization of Primitive Society,” there are only two basic types of economic system: (1) one in which relationships among items of property are functions of relationships among human beings, and (2) a system in which relationships among persons are functions of relationships among items of property. Or, to put it in another way, one system subordinates human social relationships to property relationships; the other subordinates property relationships to human relationships. It is unfortunate that neither economists nor anthropologists have names for these two fundamental kinds of economic system. The system which subordinates property relationships to human social relationships is the only kind that exists within primitive societies based upon kinship, although the other exists in intertribal commercial relations. The economic system that subordinates human social relations to property relations is the one that characterizes all civil societies, although vestiges of the primitive system remain among small groups of relatives, friends, or neighbors.
