The Cultural Materialist Research Strategy
by Dr. Frank W. Elwell
Rogers State University
While he did not make up the theoretical perspective from whole cloth,
Marvin Harris, a cultural anthropologist, is responsible for the most systematic
statements of the cultural materialist research strategy. Through
numerous books, chief among them The Rise of Anthropological Theory
(1968),
Cultural Materialism (1979), and Theories of Culture in Postmodern
Times (1999),
he has also been the major proselytizer for the
perspective. The reaction of anthropologists can be gleaned from the subtitle
of the book Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture.
The struggle within anthropology much resembles the "paradigmatic revolutions"
of Thomas Kuhn (1970), and has become hard-fought on both sides.
In Cultural Materialism professor Harris not only systematically
presents the research strategy of cultural materialism, but vigorously
critiques other competing strategies (and non strategies) in anthropology
and sociology. While Harris has gained some adherents within anthropology,
it remains an embattled perspective that has been attacked vigorously by
critics within the discipline. In sociology the perspective has been
largely ignored.
If sociologists know the perspective of cultural materialism at all
it is often knowledge of a more simplistic version of the strategy that
is summarized and then torn apart by critics. The fact that Harris's
cultural materialism is so little known within sociology is surprising
in some respects. Although coming from a different discipline, the
perspective shares several themes (functionalism, a concern with demography,
and positivism to name a few) and theoretical traditions (Marx, Spencer,
and Malthus) with sociology. Like sociology (perhaps more so than
anthropology), the perspective is firmly based in both science and empiricism.
Through cultural materialism, Harris claims to have developed a systematic
research strategy for investigating all human societies, a research strategy
that is as sorely lacking in sociology as in anthropology. Still, the perspective
is rarely mentioned in sociology texts and scholarship, scarcely given
passing mention in our courses.
But given the breadth of sociology and the explosion of books, articles
and data about all aspects of social life, it is perhaps understandable
that sociologists can barely keep up with their own more narrow specialization
let alone be well versed in the general epistemological and theoretical
debates in a related field. Also, as an anthropologist, Harris has
mainly been concerned with applying the perspective to the traditional
societies of hunters and gatherers, horticulturists and pastoralists--societal
types that are not considered central in the sociological tradition.
Harris, however, claims to have developed a universal analytical strategy--a
theoretical strategy of equal relevance to hunting and gathering, industrial
or even hyper industrial societies. You would think that such a claim,
particularly when made by a social scientist of the stature and obvious
heft of Marvin Harris (numerous books and monographs, including major texts
in anthropological theory, general, and cultural anthropology as well as
a past president of the American Anthropological Association) would attract
more attention and investigation within sociology (and attract its share
adherents, as it has in anthropology). This paper, then, is intended
as a comprehensive summary of Marvin Harris's research strategy of cultural
materialism. On this occasion of the reissue (2001) of his two primary
texts detailing the roots and branches of the perspective, The Rise
of Anthropological Theory and Cultural Materialism, this paper
is especially intended to interest sociologists and their students in this
comprehensive research strategy.
Assumptions
Cultural materialism (CM) is based on two key assumptions about human
societies. First, like most macro social theory, CM is based on the
assumption that society is made up of component parts that are functionally
interrelated. When one of these component parts change, other parts
must adjust to that change. An institution such as the family cannot
be looked at in isolation from other parts of the sociocultural system--from
other institutions (say economic, political or religious) nor from cultural
beliefs and ideologies. For example, in order to fully comprehend
the recent changes in the American family, the rise in divorce, single-headed
households, the decline in family size and the increase in daycare, you
must relate these changes to changes in the economy (say the rising cost
of living), as well as changing cultural beliefs (such as the rise of consumerism).
When one part of the sociocultural system changes it often has effect on
many other parts of the system. While viewing society as a system
of interrelated parts is at the core of most macro social theory, theories
differ in terms of what components are considered to be most important
or central in determining the rest of the sociocultural system. Theories
also differ on the weight to assign these central components--some going
so far as claiming that these central components "completely determine"
other parts of the system (various forms of Marxism), others settling more
for a strong influence expressed in terms of probabilities.
The second major assumption upon which CM is based is that the foundation
of sociocultural systems is the environment. Like all life forms,
human beings must take energy from their environment in order to survive.
All life, including humans, must therefore live within the constraints
of their immediate environment. The two major environmental constraints
are the continued availability of natural resources and the tolerance of
the environment (including people) for pollution. While human action
can modify these constraints--say by devising new technologies to produce
more food, or engaging in social practices to limit further population
growth--these environmental constraints can never be eliminated or completely
overcome. Human technology can never create resources, just tap into
those resources that exist in nature. Technologies can modify the
type and quantities of resources needed for survival, and increases and
decreases in human reproduction can modify the amount of resources required,
but no combination of the two can eliminate our ultimate dependence on
our environment. Since our relationships to the environment are essential
to human life itself, social practices that serve to modify environmental
constraints must have great impact on the rest of the sociocultural system,
must be central to understanding any widespread social practice, ideology,
or belief in that system.
Universal Pattern of Sociocultural Systems
According to CM, all human societies are patterned along similar lines.
Based on the physical environment, all components of sociocultural systems
can be organized into:
-
Infrastructure
-
Structure
-
Superstructure
The material infrastructure consists of the technology and social practices
by which a society fits into its environment. It is through the infrastructure
that a society manipulates its environment by modifying the amount and
type of resources needed for the survival of its population. Harris
divides the infrastructure into two parts: the Mode of Production,
and the Mode of Reproduction. These components of the infrastructure
are attempts to strike a balance between population level and the consumption
of energy from a finite environment.
The Mode of Production consists of "(t)he technology and the practices
employed for expanding or limiting basic subsistence production, especially
the production of food and other forms of energy, given the restrictions
and opportunities provided by a specific technology interacting with a
specific habitat" (1979, p. 52). Within the mode of production Harris
includes such variables as the technology of subsistence, work patterns,
and technological-environmental relationships. In accordance with standard
practice among anthropologists and sociologists, there have been several
different modes of production throughout human history, beginning with
hunter and gatherer, and then to horticulture, pastoral, agrarian and industrial.
This classification scheme of different modes of production (which can
be further broken down into "simple" and "advanced") is based on the technology
and social practices used to draw subsistence from the environment, as
well as the type of resources used by a society to exploit that environment.
For example, Lenski and Lenski (1994) classify societies on the basis of
such factors as metallurgy, use of the plow, iron, and the use of fossil
fuel.
The Mode of Reproduction consists of the technologies and social practices
employed for expanding, maintaining or limiting population size.
In this category Harris lists such social technologies and practices as
mating patterns, medical influence on fertility, natality and mortality,
contraception, abortion, infanticide, and the nurturance of infants. The
technologies and social practices within the mode of reproduction are prime
determinants of the population size of a sociocultural system.
Like all life on earth, human beings must obtain sustenance from their
environments. All human action is therefore necessarily limited by
environmental constraints, chiefly the availability of food. The
amount of food that a particular environment can provide is limited by
natural factors (such as land fertility, potential domesticates, climate,
rainfall patterns) and human technologies and social practices (such as
the domestication of plants and animals, fertilizers, irrigation, plow,
insecticides). The amount of food that a particular sociocultural system
needs is also determined by its population size. It is through modifications
of the technologies and practices within the infrastructure (both the modes
of production and reproduction) that societies increase or decrease the
type and amount of resources required from their environment.
One can see how the infrastructure interacts with the environment by
considering a hypothetical hunting and gathering band that, because of
the depletion of game species, is experiencing some hard times. Assuming
the band is rooted by tradition to their forest (or hemmed in by powerful
neighbors), they have only a few options. They can intensify their
mode of production, using better technology to more efficiently hunt animals,
broaden their subsistence base to harvest plants and animals that they
previously spurned, or reduce their population size immediately through
such practices as infanticide or geronticide, or more long-term through
changes in mating patterns to better space out births. After making
these adjustments they will again be existing within their environmental
constraints until either a change in the natural environment (say a change
in climate), or a change in their subsistence technology (say the adoption
of the bow and arrow), or population level (say an increase in births)
again upsets the balance. Whatever technologies and practices people
employ to adjust to these environmental constraints will necessarily have
great impact on other parts of the sociocultural system. All sociocultural
systems, not just hunting and gathering societies, must live within their
environmental limits. These constraints must necessarily be passed
on to other parts of the sociocultural system.
Harris terms the second major component of sociocultural systems as
the Structure. This component consists of the organized patterns
of social life carried out among the members of a society. One of
the necessary survival functions that each society must fulfill is to maintain
orderly and secure relationships among individuals, groups, and neighboring
societies. The threat of disorder, Harris asserts, comes primarily
from the economic process which allocate labor and products to individuals
and groups. Thus Harris divides the structure of sociocultural systems
into two parts: the Political Economy and the Domestic Economy.
The political economy consists of groups and organizations that perform
the functions of regulating exchange, consumption and reproduction between
and within groups and other sociocultural systems. This component
consists of such elements as political organizations, military, corporations,
division of labor, police, service and welfare organizations, as well as
professional and labor organizations. The Domestic Economy represents
the organization of reproduction, production, exchange and consumption
within domestic settings (such as households, camps). This part of
the structure consists of family, the domestic division of labor, age and
sex roles, and friendship networks.
Given the importance of symbolic processes for human health and happiness,
Harris also posits the universal existence of a superstructure. Again,
Harris divides this component into two parts: the Behavioral Superstructure
and the Mental Superstructure. The behavioral superstructure includes
recreation activities, art, sports, rituals, games, science, folklore,
and other aesthetic products. The mental superstructure involves
the patterned ways in which the members of a society think, conceptualize,
and evaluate their behavior. Harris actually posits that these mental
categories run parallel to the universal behavioral components of sociocultural
systems. Running parallel to the infrastructure, for example, are
such mental components as subsistence lore, magic, religious beliefs, and
taboos that serve to justify, encourage, and evaluate productive and reproductive
behavior. Similar mental superstructural ideologies, beliefs, and
taboos serve to justify, encourage, and evaluate behavior occurring in
the domestic and political economies and in the behavioral superstructure
as well. However, for the sake of simplicity, Harris designates all
of these elements as the "mental superstructure" by which he means: "...the
conscious and unconscious cognitive goals, categories, rules, plans, values,
philosophies, and beliefs about behavior elicited from the participants
or inferred by the observers" (1979, p. 54).
All sociocultural systems, according to Harris, have these three major
components: Infrastructure, Structure, and Superstructure. The major
principles of cultural materialism concern the interdependent relationships
among these component parts.
The Strategy
Harris advocates a specific strategy for analyzing sociocultural systems.
When trying to understand or explain a widespread social practice or belief,
he urges, always begin with an examination of infrastructural-environmental
relations. This, he calls, the Principle of Infrastructural Determinism
(a
somewhat unfortunate choice of terminology since Harris explicitly recognizes
the probabilistic nature of the relationships). The mode of production
and reproduction (infrastructure) will "probabilistically determine" (strongly
effect) the political and domestic structure, which in turn will probabilistically
determine (strongly effect) the behavioral and mental superstructure.
This, Harris believes, should be the guiding strategy in any analysis of
a social phenomenon. Look to the infrastructure first.
The rationale behind giving the infrastructure such priority rests upon
the fact that it is through infrastructural practices that society adapts
to its environment by modifying the amount and type of resources required
for life.
"Infrastructure, in other words, is the principal
interface between culture and nature, the boundary across which the ecological,
chemical, and physical restraints to which human action is subject interact
with the principal sociocultural practices aimed at overcoming or modifying
those restraints. The order of cultural materialist priorities from
infrastructure to the remaining behavioral components and finally to the
mental superstructure reflects the increasing remoteness of these components
from the culture/nature interface. Since the aim of cultural materialism,
in keeping with the orientation of science in general, is the discovery
of the maximum amount of order in its field of inquiry, priority for theory
building logically settles upon those sectors under the greatest direct
restraints form the givens of nature. To endow the mental superstructure
with strategic priority, as the cultural idealists advocate, is a bad bet.
Nature is indifferent whether God is a loving father or a bloodthirsty
cannibal. But nature is not indifferent to whether the fallow period in
a swidden field is one year or ten. We know that powerful restraints exist
on the infrastructural level; hence it is a good bet that these restraints
are passed on to the structural and superstructural components" (1979,
p. 57).
It is through the infrastructure that society survives. Since these infrastructural
practices are essential for life itself, all widespread structural and
superstructural patterns must be compatible with these practices.
Harris, of course, did not simply make up this principal but bases it
on the insights of social theorists and observations of social scientists
in the past. The principle of infrastructural determinism is specifically
based on a reformulation of the insights of Karl Marx (production) and
T. Robert Malthus (reproduction). Harris's unique contribution is
in clearly defining both population and production variables (eliminating
the obscuring "dialectic" from Marx and the moral angst from Malthus) and
in combining and interrelating these two powerful forces in the infrastructure.
A society's infrastructure is the primary cause of stability and change
in its structure, and the structure, in turn, is the primary cause of stability
and change in its superstructure. Through the principle of infrastructural
determinism, cultural materialism provides a logical set of research priorities
for the study of sociocultural life. But while the infrastructure
is considered to be of primary importance, the structure and superstructures
are not mere reflections of infrastructural processes, but are in interaction
with the infrastructure.
CM considers societies to be very stable systems. The most likely
outcome of any change in the system, whether this change originates in
the infrastructure, structure, or superstructure, is resistance in the
other sectors of society. This system maintaining negative feedback
is capable of deflecting, dampening, or extinguishing most system changes.
The result is either the extinction of the innovation or slight compensatory
changes that preserve the fundamental character of the whole system.
But structures and superstructures can provide positive feedback to
innovations as well, and when this occurs, change is rapid and fundamental--revolutionary
in character. In general, sociocultural change that releases more
energy from the environment is likely to be swiftly adapted and stimulate
accommodating change within the structure and superstructure.
Individual Behavior
In the great debate between materialists and ideationalists, Harris
is firmly in the materialist camp. To assertions that human values
or reason are the foundation of society, Harris counters with the claim
that mind is formed by challenges presented by environment, and these challenges
will always shape human behavior and thought. For Harris, there is
a basic imbalance between our ability to have children and our ability
to obtain energy for their survival. This basic imbalance between
nature and nurture is expressed in individual lives through cost/benefit
decisions regarding sexual behavior, children, work, and standard of living.
According to Harris, mankind is relatively free from biological drives
and predispositions. As a species, Harris asserts, we have been selected
for our ability to learn most of our social behavior rather than for any
specific instinctual behavior. (To claim that most human behavior
is learned rather than instinctual does not mean that it is not deeply
rooted. Food taboos are an example. They are clearly learned.
But the violation of many food taboos can cause physiological reactions.)
Nonetheless, there are several "selective principles" operating at the
individual level. These selective principles are the bio-psychological
cost/benefit calculus that serve to guide human behavior. It is through
these individual cost benefit decisions that Harris is able to explain
how infrastructure mediates between culture and nature. Harris enumerates
four selective principles:
-
People need to eat and will generally opt for diets that offer more rather
than fewer calories and proteins and other nutrients.
-
People cannot be totally inactive, but when confronted with a given task,
they prefer to carry it out by expending less rather than more human energy.
-
People are highly sexed and generally find reinforcing pleasure from sexual
intercourse--more often from heterosexual intercourse.
-
People need love and affection in order to feel secure and happy, and other
things being equal, they will act to increase the love and affection that
others give them (1979, p. 63).
Harris makes several observations that serve to justify his selective principles.
First, humans share these bio-psychological preferences with other primates.
When confronted with a choice between more rather than fewer calories or
expending less rather than more energy, primates all tend to opt for the
richer diets or the expenditure of less energy. Thus, its generality
is virtually assured. Second, the list should be judged not on its
inclusiveness but on the adequacies of the theories it helps to generate.
The more parsimonious the list of selective principles, the more powerful
the theories based upon them (1979, p. 63).
The fact that humans have a bio-psychological predisposition to maximize
their diets or maximize the love given them does not mean that there are
not widespread antithetical behaviors and thoughts in many societies.
Many Americans, for example, have taken the option of diets that offer
more rather than fewer calories and proteins to a high art, and now must
opt for fewer calories and proteins to maintain their health (though such
denial is a discipline, one that many of us have yet to master).
Similarly, many in hyper industrial societies have opted for expending
less energy so often that now we must consciously look for ways of exercising
the body (though again, this is a discipline). Similarly, there are
vegetarians in the world, there are those who practice sexual abstinence,
there are those who murder their children. "Nothing in the statement
of pan-specific bio-psychological principles indicates that selection acting
through the preferences of individuals will in the long term contributed
to the maximization of anticipated results. On the contrary, the
selection of maximizing traits recurrently leads to ecological depletions.
Thus the pursuit of more proteins frequently ends up with people getting
fewer proteins; the adoption of labor-saving devices ends up with people
working harder; the escalation of male sexual activity leads to a systematic
shortage of women; and greater affective bonding transmuted by politics
leads to greater exploitation of one class by another" (1979, pp. 63-64).
The selective principles that guide individual cost/benefit decisions often
lead to social paradoxes, puzzles that cultural materialism is particularly
well suited to solve.
The Role of Elites
While the selective principles are universal, the ways in which societies
meet individual needs for food, energy conservation, sex, and love, as
well as the extent to which these needs are met throughout the population
of a society, are highly variable. The entire sociocultural system rests
on the cost/benefit calculus individuals use to exploit their environments
to meet their biopsychological needs. But it is not the simple
calculation of the greatest good for the greatest number of people that
accounts for sociocultural change. Many changes are more satisfying
to some members of society than to others. Changes that enhance the
position of elites are likely to be those that receive positive feedback
from structural institutions, positive feedback from the dominant ideologies
within the society. Infrastructural change that enhance the position
of elites are likely to be amplified and propagated throughout the system.
Changes that hurt elite interests are likely to be resisted.
CM is in agreement with Marx when he states: "The ideas of the ruling
class in each epoch are the ruling ideas." The elite are able to
impose direct and indirect economic and political sanctions to get their
way. Elite also encourage ideas and ideologies favorable to their
position. However, CM does not claim absolute rule by an elite.
The amount of power and control exercised by elite is an empirical question,
it varies across societies and through time. One of the first tasks
of a Cultural Materialist analysis is to attempt to identify the elite
within a sociocultural system, gauge the amount of power that they wield,
and uncover their interests, biases, and assumptions when analyzing the
sociocultural system.
Intensification
Like all life on earth, human beings must expend energy to obtain energy
from their environment. Harris notes that the amount of energy that
social systems expend to obtain energy have expanded significantly throughout
social evolution. Hunting and gathering bands, Harris notes, expended less
than 100,000 kilocalories per day. This energy expenditure increases
to about one million per day for slash-and-burn farming villages, 25 billion
per day for irrigation states (Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica), and over 50 trillion
per day for hyper industrial societies. This expansion in energy budgets
has been accompanied by an increase in both human productivity and population,
all of which has had dramatic consequences for the rest of the sociocultural
system.
"Anthropologists have long recognized that in broadest perspective cultural
evolution has had three main characteristics: escalating energy budgets,
increased productivity, and accelerating population growth" (1979, p. 67).
Harris asserts that there is a direct relationship between increases in
productivity and population growth. Increases in production cause
population to grow, which then further stimulates greater productivity.
This is Malthus's application of the law of supply and demand applied to
the relationships between food production and population growth.
As the food supply increases, food becomes cheaper, and more children survive
(or are allowed to survive). As there are more mouths to feed, food
becomes more expensive, thus causing more land to be put under the plow,
or greater investment in time and energy, and technology to increase food
production. While Malthus (and Harris) recognize that the relationships
among the fertility of people and land are a good deal more complex than
this simplified assertion, they insist that there is a recurrent reciprocal
relationship among the two.
Recall that, according to Malthus (and Harris), our ability to produce
children is always greater than our ability to produce energy for their
survival. Because necessary checks to population growth are always
present, and because until relatively recent times, these checks tend to
be violent toward women, fetus, and children, sociocultural systems use
increases in productivity to allow population to expand. Because
of this reciprocal relationship between population and production, over
the course of sociocultural evolution, both population and food production
have grown. Periods of increase in food productivity, whether it
be because of the application of new technology or the expansion of cultivated
land, have been met with expansions of population. Periods of stability
in food production, or contraction in productivity, have been marked by
the same phenomena in population level. Over the course of sociocultural
evolution, however, the long-term tendency has been for both productivity
and population to intensify. This intensification, according to CM,
has great impact on other parts of the sociocultural system.
The effects of our vast numbers and powerful technology (including the
technology of reproduction) have made it increasingly obvious that infrastructural
factors play a key role in sociocultural stability and change. World
population and industrial technology, both infrastructural factors, are
now massive. Both are presently growing at an exponential rate.
It is a sociocultural system. You cant do one thing.
This tremendous size as well as its recent exponential growth (or intensification)
has had tremendous impact on the environment (depletion and pollution)
and has caused tremendous change in human organizations, beliefs and values.
Cultural materialism is a research strategy uniquely suited to exploring
both short-term sociocultural stability and change, or the long-term social
evolutionary process itself.
Harris's Cultural Materialism
.
|