Johannes Lenhard 
Hunter-Gatherer: Why have hunting and gathering societies been described as ‘affluent’ and ‘egalitarian’? Are they? 

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Pedagogy — Science, Theory, Anthropology, grade: 64, University of Cambridge, language: English, abstract: Why have hunting and gathering societies been described as ‘affluent’ and ‘egalitarian’? Are they?

To start with a rather polemic answer to the explicit question whether hunter-gatherers are affluent, it seems to be the case that many of them nowadays are suffering from poverty. A few, on the other hand, accumulate riches that are impressive – even judged with a Western standard. This is what Gell (1988) shows for the Muria in India. Those people are predominantly not hunting and gathering anymore, however, but under the influence of a modern economy. They are capitalists without capitalist notions of boastful and lavish consumption.