Maurice Godlier has developed economic anthropology from Marxian perspective. His emphasis is on the social relations which emerge out of modes of production. He argues that ultimately anthropology is concerned with the structure of society.
The structure comes out of the social processes which emerge from modes of production. Economic anthropology, therefore, is related to the problem of the relationship between economics, society and history. Raymond Firth has intensively studied the Tikopia-a Polynesian tribal group. He has made certain generalizations which have economic bearings on the tribal life. He writes:
After publishing an account of the social structure, in particular, the kinship structure (We, the Tikopia, London, 1936), I analyzed the economic structure of the society, because so many social relationships were made most manifest in their economic content.
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Indeed, the social structure, in particular, the political structure, was clearly dependent on specific economic relationships arising out of the system of control of resources. With these relationships in turn were linked the religious activities and institutions of the society.
Godlier says that the economic structure of a tribe gives rise to a large number of social relationships. The economic structure is basically a structure resulting from modes of production.
It is because of this that Godlier relates economics with society and history. In the case of Firth, state itself was the product of social relationships emerging from economic relationship.