3 Quotes & Sayings By Marshall Sahlins

Marshall Sahlins is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Born in Dothan, Alabama, he received his B.A. from the University of Alabama and his Ph.D from Stanford University. His research interests are in the cross-cultural study of food and food preparation, and he has published on a wide variety of topics related to these topics, including the domesticating of wild pigs in China and Peru; human relationships with wild pigs in Japan; and household tasks among the Dogon people of Mali Read more

1
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
2
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. Marshall Sahlins