Talk:Traditional economy

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[edit] Traditional economy

Such economies are found where the agents of production, distibution and consumption are the same.

I do not like the use of "primitive". All societies have technologies. Small scale society technologies are different from large complex ones... but they are not "primitive"... they are simply different. They can be highly specialized in knowledge base. Most people in our "modern society", if dumped out into a traditional one would not have the skills or techniques to survive. Knowledge of plants and their uses may be extensive. While there may be "mystical" aspects tied to them... the same process can be found in our large scale industrial societies.

The technologies are appropriate for their time and place. In hundreds or thousands of years people may look back on us and say we are "primitive". The term tends to have a negative connotation. Traditional societies have a technology of production, a technology of distribution, a technology of storage (for self-maintenance and growth) and a technology of consumption. Traditional societies tend to not have as physically complex techological solutions as larger specialized soicio-economic systems, but they are appropriate for the needs to maintain access to, control over (and exploitation of) the resources nessessary and sufficient for that social group.

Kinship tends to be important, but it is not the only way for traditional economic groups to organize themselves.

71.214.104.114 (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)lelandgilsen@msn.com