Marshall Sahlins Quotes

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One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture.

Marshall Sahlins

The world's most 'primitive' people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. It has grown with civilization, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation.

Marshall Sahlins

Marshall Sahlins

Marshall Sahlins

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Born: December 27, 1930

Died: April 5, 2021 (aged 90)

Bio: Marshall David Sahlins was an American anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory.

Known for:

Stone age economics (1972)
Islands of history (1985)
Culture and practical reason (1976)
What Kinship Is-And Is Not (2013)

Marshall Sahlins on Wikipedia

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