Law and Economic Organization: A Comparative Study of Preindustrial StudiesThe question why certain kinds of legal institutions are found in certain kinds of societies has been little explored by anthropologists. In this book Katherine Newman examines a sample of some sixty different preindustrial societies, distributed across the world, in an attempt to explain why their legal systems vary. The key to understanding this variation, Professor Newman argues, is to be found in economic organization. Adopting a Marxian, or materialist, approach, she draws on original ethnographic sources for each culture in order to investigate how legal processes and institutions regulate basic aspects of economic life in societies with differing types of economic organization. She also examines the commonalities of law within various preindustrial 'modes of production' and shows that the patterning of legal institutions arises from underlying tensions in production systems. In offering an explanation of the distribution of legal institutions across preindustrial societies, as well as for the sources of conflict in such societies, the book makes an important contribution to the comparative study of legal systems. It will interest anthropologists and other readers concerned with the operation and development of legal institutions. |
Contents
Theories of legal evolution | 6 |
A typology of legal institutions | 50 |
Modes of production and the distribution of legal | 104 |
Modes of production and the functions of legal | 137 |
Pastoral societies | 153 |
extensive agriculture | 163 |
intensive agriculture | 183 |
Other editions - View all
Law and Economic Organization: A Comparative Study of Preindustrial Societies Katherine S. Newman No preview available - 1983 |
Common terms and phrases
adjudication advisor anthropology argued Ashanti authority Basseri Bohannan bottom the column central chief Class stratification codes column percent Column total common conflict cultures decision dispute settlement Durkheim economic egalitarian elders elite Engels ethnographic foragers forces of production Gluckman herds hereditary Hoebel household hunting-and-gathering Hypothesis Ifugao Inca individuals intensive agriculture Irrigated Jivaro Kaingang Kapauku Kendall's Tau kin groups labor labor power land legal complexity legal development legal institutions legal systems lineage Marx materialist means of production mediation middle the row mode of production nomadic normative organization paramount chieftainships pastoral political Pospisil preindustrial societies primitive relations of production relationship represents restricted councils row percent rules Sahlins self-redress social relations social stratification sources Spearman's Rho Standard Cross-Cultural Sample status subsample subsistence substantive law theory of legal top figure types of legal typology University Press variables village wealth distinctions Weber women Yokut Yurok