subsistence ethic

is adaptive flexibility, the capacity to cope in a risky environment,: Three dimensions: A general proclivity toward risk aversion in agriculture ('safety first'), a tendency toward mutual support ('the norm of reciprocity'), and an expectation of minimal state support ('the moral economy').

Scott has suggested that this adaptive flexibility, the capacity to cope in a risky environment, is intrinsic to peasant communities generally and that pre-capitalist societies were to a large degree organized around the problem of risk and the guarantee of a minimal subsistence, a margin of security (Popkin, 1979... Scott, 1976). Scott calls this margin a subsistence ethic whch can be decomposed into three dimensionss: a general proclivity toward risk aversion in agriculture ('safety first'), a tendency toward mutual support ('the norm of reciprocity'), and an expectation of minimal State support ('the moral economy') ( 'hazards and crisis: A political economy of drought and famine in northern nigeria in critical geographies 356) )

subsistence ethic, n.All

subsistence ethic