Question 1

• What is the kula trade?

Question 2

• In what direction do the armshells move?

Question 3

• In what direction do the necklaces move?

Question 4

• What two qualities does the kula have which contradicted economists’ theories about non-capitalist trade?

Question 5

• According to Mauss, what are the three obligations of the gift?

Question 6

• What is the hau?

Question 7

• What language is hau from?

Question 8

• What is the potlatch?

Question 9

• Explain two anthropological interpretations of the potlatch.

Question 10

• Why did authorities in British Columbia ban the potlatch?

Question 11

• What is Mauss’s critique of capitalism? Why is at odds with morality?

Question 12

• Why does Mauss advocate for a social security plan? Would his plan work?

Question 13

• What is a total social fact?

Question 14

• Is the analysis of a total social fact an effective anthropological method? Explain why or why not.

Question 15

• According to Marx, what is use value?

Question 16

• According to Marx, what is exchange value?

Question 17

• How do use value and exchange value help us to understand the social and cultural changes that accompany capitalism?

Question 18

• What is Marx’s labor theory of value?

Question 19

• Why is labor alienated under capitalism, according to Marx?

Question 20

• Why is money a radical leveler?

Question 21

• What might Marx say about feminist economists’ calculations of the dollar value of women’s household labor?

Question 22

• How does Marx’s critique of capitalism compare to that of Mauss?

Question 23

• Which critique of capitalism do you find more compelling, and why?

Question 24

• Why should we care about banana leaf bundles in the Trobriand Islands?

Question 25

• Why do people in the movie Pig Tusks and Paper Money see paper money as “like the wind”?

Question 26

• Why does Henry Tokubak want to establish a traditional money bank?

Question 27

• What has this discussion exercise suggested about gift exchange?