Sahlin's Concept Of State

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Sahlins opposes the economic bias used in analyzing social relations, a principle which in his opinion is inaccurate and not independent. He demonstrates his stance by proving the Marxian relationship between money and commodities wrong in various examples from anthropology. Basically he is saying that the cycle has not always been similar to the theoretical one, rather, in some cultures, there used to be a stronger atmosphere of social welfare, where profits were shared rather than selfishly used for personal benefits. Our concept of social welfare might differ from that of the societies taken into consideration in this manifesto. However, the main idea remains that, no matter the principle, establishment of power is what makes the creation of a social order possible.

Following the previous argument, Sahlins states that “power” has always been used as a means of domination, largely expressed in different forms of leadership. Historically, leading figures seem to always ...

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