To Conrad Arensberg (31 January 1957)

Text in English to type

[19] Dear Connie:

Miss Lowe will have … […]

Such a three level organization has been evolved by us, I believe. […]

(1) the 'pealing off' of economic transactions from the status transactions with which the appropriational movement was originally merged and (2) the appearance of quantitativity as a characteristic of operations relating to livelihood. The question is: How to investigate the conditions under which in the one case economic transactions would 'peel off' definite status transactions; in the other case, 'quantitativity' would enter into an operation closely relevant to livelihood.

[20] (A) Status is a concept common to primitive and early state society. Transactions relate to things that are their object. […]

(B) Quantitativity is here obviously an operational term, since it refers to the manner in which goods are handled. Weights and measures are the spearhead of quantitativity. But anything that can be counted possesses that operational attribute. Here the staple character of things -- foodstuffs, sheep, goats, etc. -- comes to the fore. Again, our data are ample and may be correlated to primitive and non-primitive ecological conditions.

The point in (A) and (B) is to show the implication of institutional analysis as a method.

[…]

Letter Informations

Reference:
KPA: 50/01, 19-20