What Is A Traditional Economy? Characteristics, Examples, Pros & Cons
What Is A Traditional Economy? Characteristics, Examples, Pros & Cons. With a traditional economy system, goods production and distribution are driven by time-honored beliefs, customs, culture, and traditions. Most traditional economies operate in emerging markets and developing countries throughout the world.
In conventional economies, natives make a living out of skills acquired from family and community. Over centuries, these communities have become highly skilled in a particular niche. In traditional countries, most of the population is employed in the economic activity of their ancestors.
Anthropologists and economists believe all other economies got their start as traditional economies which usually evolve into a market, command, or mixed economies over time.
What Does Traditional Economy Mean?
The traditional economy is the most basic form of an economic system. A community engage in different activities individually to produce goods or services that are required by the rest of the community. The activities are typically centralized around agriculture or hunting. This system is considered underdeveloped since it lacks certain elements that increase the quality of the life of the community participants.
What Are The Characteristics Of A Traditional Economy?
The traits of a traditional Economy are:
- Most traditional economies produce only what they need. There is rarely surplus or leftovers. That makes it unnecessary to trade or create money.
- Traditional economies start to evolve once they start farming and settle down. They are more likely to have a surplus, such as a bumper crop, that they use for trade.
- Traditional economies center around a family or tribe. They use traditions gained from the elders’ experiences to guide day-to-day life and economic decisions.
- When traditional economies do trade, they rely on bartering. It can only occur between groups that don’t compete. For example, a tribe that relies on hunting exchanges food with a group that relies on fishing.
- A traditional economy exists in a hunter-gatherer and nomadic society. These societies cover vast areas to find enough food to support them. They follow the herds of animals that sustain them, migrating with the seasons. These nomadic hunter-gatherers compete with other groups for scarce natural resources.
What Are Advantages Of Traditional Economy?
- Have Scope for Evolution: This economic structure has the potential to adapt—imbibing traits of different economic structures. In fact, all modern economic systems have evolved out of the traditional system.
- Role Clarity and Satisfaction: Individuals who run family trades are successors—they inherit both responsibilities and skills.
- They are introduced into the business from a very young age. Also, they are satisfied with whatever they do and earn out of it.
- Environmentally Friendly: Due to the limited use of technology, the conventional methods of conducting economic activities are less harmful to nature and the environment.
- Keeps the Traditions and Customs Alive: In traditional countries, people preserve skills and art within respective communities, tribes, and families.
- Safe from Global Problems: Self-sustained economies often remain disconnected from the outside world—they can avoid various infectious diseases spread globally.
- No Wastage of Goods: Since the goods are produced only to meet the requirements of the community, tribe, or family, there is no surplus.
- Skilled and Talented People: Natives make a living out of skills acquired from family and community. Over centuries, these communities have become highly skilled in a particular niche.
Where is a traditional economy used?
Traditional economies are typically found in rural areas of developing second and third-world nations, often in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. Traditional economies center around a family or tribe.
Disadvantages Of Traditional Economy
1. Vulnerable to market or command economies that use up their natural resources.
They are also vulnerable to market or command economies. Those societies often consume the natural resources traditional economies depend on or they wage war.
2. Exposed to changes in nature and weather patterns:
Traditional economies are exposed to changes in nature, especially the weather. Traditional economies therefore limit population growth. When the harvest or hunting is poor, people may starve.
Examples of a Traditional Economy
Haiti is a good example. Haiti’s economy is largely dependent on small family farms. It also uses wood fuel as a primary energy source. Unfortunately, many people live in poverty in Haiti and the nation’s reliance on wood has also made it vulnerable to natural disasters, such as the earthquake that struck in 2010.
Brazil is a mixed economy driven by state regulations and market demand. However, a large population of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil still makes a living by producing the same goods which their ancestors did. They even exchange these goods for other commodities with their neighbors.
Another example is before the Great Depression when the United States had many aspects of a traditional economy. At the beginning of the 20th century, more than half of Americans lived in farming communities. Agriculture employed at least 41% of the workforce. But they used poor farming techniques to meet high demand following World War I. That resulted in droughts that ultimately led to the Dust Bowl.
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