Marshall Sahlins

American cultural anthropologist who argued that hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society — and whose work consistently privileged cultural meaning over economic or biological determinism.

Stone Age Economics: hunter-gatherers work fewer hours than modern workers and have all their needs met — they are affluent by one standard (minimal desires, not maximal production). The original affluent society debunks the assumption that hunter-gatherers lived in miserable scarcity. Culture and Practical Reason: culture cannot be reduced to practical economic logic — symbolic orders are autonomous.