Capitalism Among the Me?

Abstract

Purpose – The chapter examines Leopold Pospisil’s claim that the precolonial way of life of the Me, who live in the central highlands of west New Guinea, in many ways resembled capitalism. Pospisil based his claim on his field work among a group of Me, from 1954.Approach – Formulating a characterization of “capitalism” and using it as a yardstick while scrutinizing the available, early ethnographic literature discussing the Me.Findings – The late precolonial life of the Me appears to have been a hybrid one. It contained capitalist elements: such as a currency, accumulation, and unequal division of capital. But in other respects social reproduction, a noncapitalist element, was primary.Research limitations – An important source of information on the Me are the extensive writings of Sibbele Hylkema who worked among the Me from 1969 to 1994. They are for the most unpublished and consist in part of notes. The Me live in an inaccessible area so there is no other contemporary ethnography by which to update or compare and contrast Hylkema’s findings.Originality/value – This chapter is a Literature Review.