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The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures
Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution
In Give a Man a Fish James Ferguson examines the rise of social welfare programs in southern Africa, in which states make cash payments to their low income citizens. More than thirty percent of South Africa's population receive such payments, even as pundits elsewhere proclaim the neoliberal death of the welfare state. These programs' successes at reducing poverty under conditions of mass unemployment, Ferguson argues, provide an opportunity for rethinking contemporary capitalism and for developing new forms of political mobilization. Interested in an emerging "politics of distribution," Ferguson shows how new demands for direct income payments (including so-called "basic income") require us to reexamine the relation between production and distribution, and to ask new questions about markets, livelihoods, labor, and the future of progressive politics.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2015
30 people are currently reading
628 people want to read
About the author
James Ferguson
6 books43 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This is James^^^Ferguson.
James Ferguson was an American anthropologist. He is known for his work on the politics and anthropology of international development, specifically his critical stance (development criticism). He was chair of the Anthropology Department at Stanford University. His best-known work is his book, The Anti-Politics Machine. He delivered the most prestigious lecture in anthropology, the Morgan Lecture, in 2009, for his work on basic income.
Ferguson earned his B.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.A. and Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University.
James Ferguson was an American anthropologist. He is known for his work on the politics and anthropology of international development, specifically his critical stance (development criticism). He was chair of the Anthropology Department at Stanford University. His best-known work is his book, The Anti-Politics Machine. He delivered the most prestigious lecture in anthropology, the Morgan Lecture, in 2009, for his work on basic income.
Ferguson earned his B.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.A. and Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University.
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September 21, 2019
This is a seriously interesting book – in fact, so interesting, I’m not entirely sure I know what to make of it. The very, very short review of this is that it is about providing cash transfers to poor people in developing countries since this is the most effective way to reduce poverty and the misery that attends it. The book focuses on Southern Africa – but the conclusions appear to be applicable just about everywhere. In a sense, this is a book about a universal basic income for everyone, not even just for citizens, but rather everyone ‘present’ in a community.
Cash transfers are often criticised from both the left and the right. The right because they are ‘money for nothing’ and therefore only likely to cause ‘welfare dependency’. From the left they are criticised because they are seen as a way of buying off the poor, and thereby stopping them from demanding much more.
Most of the history of the left’s concerns with equity has focused on capitalism as a system of production. In this sense it has focused on the relationships to production that exist between wage labourers and capitalists. This has meant that the left has often seen ‘full employment’ as the most obvious means of alleviating poverty. However, as the author points out, there has never been a time when everyone in any society has been fully employed. This means that the author thinks we need to shift our attention so that rather than considering markets as systems of production, it makes more sense to consider them systems of distribution.
This is where the title of the book comes in. Surely, no one on the planet has not heard the saying that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach him how to fish he will eat for a lifetime - a clear indication of the difference between production and distribution and the dangers of 'distribution' alone. The first thing Ferguson has to say about this is that it simply isn’t true. There are many, many unemployed fishermen in the world – creating new fishermen isn’t the most obvious way to alleviate poverty. Fishing has become something that is much more likely to be done in fish farms, that is, where the need of literal ‘fishermen’ is basically zero.
Of course, people will say that this is just a metaphor, about allowing people to become self-sufficient – but Ferguson’s point is that the metaphor no longer holds even as metaphor. We don’t really live in a world of subsistence any longer, but rather production is of such a scale now that we are drowning in abundance. The problem is that if distribution is tied to one’s role in the production process, then that is going to remain a huge problem for most of the people on the planet - because we don't need more people to necessarily produce lots more stuff. The reason why being that the productivity of labour has become so large that we simply don’t need all that many people producing stuff to make lots and lots of stuff. Many of our economic theories only make sense in a kind of just-so world where there is one guy here making shoes and another guy over there making bread and some other guy across the road butchering cows and they all come together to trade and exchange their goods - but this world doesn't really exist any longer and so the all too simple to understand model actually stops us from being able to understand how the world actually does work. A friend of mine is Greek and a relative of his is a baker – his local shop simply can’t compete with the endless cheap bread that arrives from some huge factory in France. The French bread is cheaper than he can make his own bread and it is also possibly even better quality. He feels completely snookered, feeling he is asking people to buy a lower quality product at a higher price so he can go on making his living. And he isn’t just an outlier, rather this is the new norm. The law is that the closer your hand is to the point of production, the less likely your job will have a future.
Ferguson points out that there simply will never be enough jobs in Southern Africa to meet the demand for jobs. And this helps to destroy the lives of lots and lots of people who are defined as 'worthless' under such a system. But if society simply does not need the majority of people to work so as to keep the economy ticking over, what it certainly does need is the market that keeping these people alive provides. And so, that means providing some form of distribution of goods and services to these people, whether or not they 'work' in the traditional sense. The problem is that much of the left has fallen in line with a Marxist vision of production as being central here – even to the point where such a vision of productivity is a moral imperative, with Marx viewing the ‘lumptenproletariat’ (the underclass of criminals, beggars and the perpetually unemployed) as dangerous and ultimately counter-revolutionary. But with the rise of slums and what Castell’s refers to as the fourth world, it is likely these people are going to remain the majority, rather than an aberration or mere ‘reserve army’ to keep the price of labour down.
He discusses Mauss’s criticisms of the early Soviet Union around their theories of doing away with money – in fact, he says Mauss wrote his most famous work, The Gift, as a way of explaining why money and markets are essential to any society and not merely a crazy capitalist way of further exploiting people, after he visited the Soviet Union.
The other thing that Ferguson says that I think is really interesting – borrowing from Foucault – is that no policy is simply what those who implement it intend it to be. I’m not quite as convinced of this idea as he might have hoped – but I can see where he is coming from. Foucault’s point was that the left has become obsessed with the politics of ‘the anti’ – that is, opposing things, but not then providing a positive alternative to what they are opposing. I think there is something to this. He also says that policies proposed by even the most neoliberal of the neoliberals can be implemented in ways that achieve objectives quite different from those intended. This is where I begin to worry – because I think Foucault might well be right that the left needs a new policy agenda, but after watching the Hawke/Keating government in Australia or the Third Way Blair stuff in the UK, I tend to agree with Thatcher that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair. That we literally can’t think outside the There Is No Alternative that Thatcher proposed.
The book ends by comparing Marx’s production centred ideas of a utopian socialist future, with Kropotkin’s anarchist focus on distribution based on the notion that we all have a birthright to a share. Most of the book is a criticism of Marx’s view, but as he points out in the conclusion, Kropotkin’s idea of distribution, although he considers these better than Marx’s, is still impossible given he did not endorse a state that would facilitate that distribution, and so how it was going to spontaneously occur was anything but clear.
I can’t speak with certainty about anything that is about to happen in the world – however, I think it is possible that ‘producing stuff’ is going to become a smaller and smaller aspect of total human activity. We are likely to see an even greater shift towards ‘services’ – but what we are witnessing at the moment, with the Uber-isation of service jobs for example, is a rather terrifying vision of a dystopian future for an increasingly large number of people.
Some neoliberals – Milton Freidman most famously – argued for a universal basic income. I change my mind on this idea more often than the wind changes direction – but this book has added some new issues into the mix. It is well worth a read – particularly since I doubt I will ever think of the whole ‘give a man a fish’ idea in the same way ever again.
Cash transfers are often criticised from both the left and the right. The right because they are ‘money for nothing’ and therefore only likely to cause ‘welfare dependency’. From the left they are criticised because they are seen as a way of buying off the poor, and thereby stopping them from demanding much more.
Most of the history of the left’s concerns with equity has focused on capitalism as a system of production. In this sense it has focused on the relationships to production that exist between wage labourers and capitalists. This has meant that the left has often seen ‘full employment’ as the most obvious means of alleviating poverty. However, as the author points out, there has never been a time when everyone in any society has been fully employed. This means that the author thinks we need to shift our attention so that rather than considering markets as systems of production, it makes more sense to consider them systems of distribution.
This is where the title of the book comes in. Surely, no one on the planet has not heard the saying that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach him how to fish he will eat for a lifetime - a clear indication of the difference between production and distribution and the dangers of 'distribution' alone. The first thing Ferguson has to say about this is that it simply isn’t true. There are many, many unemployed fishermen in the world – creating new fishermen isn’t the most obvious way to alleviate poverty. Fishing has become something that is much more likely to be done in fish farms, that is, where the need of literal ‘fishermen’ is basically zero.
Of course, people will say that this is just a metaphor, about allowing people to become self-sufficient – but Ferguson’s point is that the metaphor no longer holds even as metaphor. We don’t really live in a world of subsistence any longer, but rather production is of such a scale now that we are drowning in abundance. The problem is that if distribution is tied to one’s role in the production process, then that is going to remain a huge problem for most of the people on the planet - because we don't need more people to necessarily produce lots more stuff. The reason why being that the productivity of labour has become so large that we simply don’t need all that many people producing stuff to make lots and lots of stuff. Many of our economic theories only make sense in a kind of just-so world where there is one guy here making shoes and another guy over there making bread and some other guy across the road butchering cows and they all come together to trade and exchange their goods - but this world doesn't really exist any longer and so the all too simple to understand model actually stops us from being able to understand how the world actually does work. A friend of mine is Greek and a relative of his is a baker – his local shop simply can’t compete with the endless cheap bread that arrives from some huge factory in France. The French bread is cheaper than he can make his own bread and it is also possibly even better quality. He feels completely snookered, feeling he is asking people to buy a lower quality product at a higher price so he can go on making his living. And he isn’t just an outlier, rather this is the new norm. The law is that the closer your hand is to the point of production, the less likely your job will have a future.
Ferguson points out that there simply will never be enough jobs in Southern Africa to meet the demand for jobs. And this helps to destroy the lives of lots and lots of people who are defined as 'worthless' under such a system. But if society simply does not need the majority of people to work so as to keep the economy ticking over, what it certainly does need is the market that keeping these people alive provides. And so, that means providing some form of distribution of goods and services to these people, whether or not they 'work' in the traditional sense. The problem is that much of the left has fallen in line with a Marxist vision of production as being central here – even to the point where such a vision of productivity is a moral imperative, with Marx viewing the ‘lumptenproletariat’ (the underclass of criminals, beggars and the perpetually unemployed) as dangerous and ultimately counter-revolutionary. But with the rise of slums and what Castell’s refers to as the fourth world, it is likely these people are going to remain the majority, rather than an aberration or mere ‘reserve army’ to keep the price of labour down.
He discusses Mauss’s criticisms of the early Soviet Union around their theories of doing away with money – in fact, he says Mauss wrote his most famous work, The Gift, as a way of explaining why money and markets are essential to any society and not merely a crazy capitalist way of further exploiting people, after he visited the Soviet Union.
The other thing that Ferguson says that I think is really interesting – borrowing from Foucault – is that no policy is simply what those who implement it intend it to be. I’m not quite as convinced of this idea as he might have hoped – but I can see where he is coming from. Foucault’s point was that the left has become obsessed with the politics of ‘the anti’ – that is, opposing things, but not then providing a positive alternative to what they are opposing. I think there is something to this. He also says that policies proposed by even the most neoliberal of the neoliberals can be implemented in ways that achieve objectives quite different from those intended. This is where I begin to worry – because I think Foucault might well be right that the left needs a new policy agenda, but after watching the Hawke/Keating government in Australia or the Third Way Blair stuff in the UK, I tend to agree with Thatcher that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair. That we literally can’t think outside the There Is No Alternative that Thatcher proposed.
The book ends by comparing Marx’s production centred ideas of a utopian socialist future, with Kropotkin’s anarchist focus on distribution based on the notion that we all have a birthright to a share. Most of the book is a criticism of Marx’s view, but as he points out in the conclusion, Kropotkin’s idea of distribution, although he considers these better than Marx’s, is still impossible given he did not endorse a state that would facilitate that distribution, and so how it was going to spontaneously occur was anything but clear.
I can’t speak with certainty about anything that is about to happen in the world – however, I think it is possible that ‘producing stuff’ is going to become a smaller and smaller aspect of total human activity. We are likely to see an even greater shift towards ‘services’ – but what we are witnessing at the moment, with the Uber-isation of service jobs for example, is a rather terrifying vision of a dystopian future for an increasingly large number of people.
Some neoliberals – Milton Freidman most famously – argued for a universal basic income. I change my mind on this idea more often than the wind changes direction – but this book has added some new issues into the mix. It is well worth a read – particularly since I doubt I will ever think of the whole ‘give a man a fish’ idea in the same way ever again.
April 29, 2025
I think a lot of this year I have felt a little lost in my reading and thinking. Kind of meandering through a set of quite disparate ideas, thoughts and theories and finding value in them but struggling to reconcile them. Reading has been satisfying but I haven’t found the thread through my reading as I sometimes have in the past. But sometimes a book comes along that finds that thread for you and this book did that for me.
Ferguson begins with the interesting phenomena of the increased presence of cash distribution grants in Southern African countries, suggesting the recent scale and universality of these grants is a new and interesting phenomenon. He highlights the way traditionally socially welfare is distributed on a means-tested basis with normative assumptions about who should receive help, who shouldn’t and how people should behave, for example one shouldn’t be unemployed for too long when receiving unemployment benefits, and highlights how these grants are different in being more universal, for example child credits available to any kid. He argues in a world where growth less and less leads to available work systems of distribution outside fo wage labour become important. And interestingly many of the most committed institutions of neo-liberal restructuring are beginning to agree like the World Bank.
In exploring these social programmes Ferguson engages with the histories of colonialism and work and how this has mainstreamed particular ideas such as the centrality of work to dignity and the centrality of labour to political economy. He instead argues labour exists as one node within wider systems of distribution which are much older, and exist across different scales such as kinship, and some conceptions of citizenship.
This engagement with the history of work and political economy moves towards a discussion of informality and precarity. Ferguson has little time for precarity or the valorization of informalized labour (the sort of labour celebrated by Hernando De Soto and others of the ilk). He argues that informalization comes from an economy that sheds jobs as it develops and that those working in informal work are engaging in ‘survivalist improvisation’ rather than some form of micro-entrepreneurship and that this often has diminishing returns over time as more people are informalized. Equally, he feels precarity overly focuses on the dynamics of labour and not on the distributionist systems that exist, further making the point that when has labour ever really been stable when thought about on a global scale.
Ferguson is critical of the left, and I would probably be included in that, for what he calls a ‘politics of the anti-‘ rather than a critical engagement with and support for political economic ideas that do work. I think this is in many ways a legitimate criticism. He further argues that leftist thought over-focuses on the institution of labour and inadequately engages with that which sits outside of labour, for example kinship, mutual aid and community entitlements.
I found his ideas about freedom and rights particularly convincing and the way in which these are grounded in a deeply western moral, cultural and social sensibility. What freedom means to different people changes, and there are many examples of people choosing what looks like relative unfreedom in history because of other advantages, for example stability, which Ferguson engages with. He questions whether in fact liberal society which aspires to be unfree from networks of obligation is the strange thing in the grand stretch of history. His discussion of rights is similar but largely engages with the fact having a right to something and having something are two different things, a right to a house is no guarantee of a house.
Within his discussion of distribution, he highlights the way across generations we all produce society. The wealth of society is not created through labour or labour-relations alone, but through different forms of relationships that exist. In a capitalist system these are distributed through ownership of capital and the profit from such capital, but the utility of this capital is co-produced by a whole range of relations in society, Ferguson suggests this could be more fairly distributed through a form of citizenship dividend. By this he means something along the lines of you make most of the profits if you own a mine, but those profits are reliant on a broader system of society working, for example the ability to rely on the state for security, the quality of road production, the reproduction of labour for your mine, and histories which have made the mine possible. For some of these services you pay for example through tax, health insurance plans, or wages, but this only partially compensates for the societal services offered to make something possible and does so in a way wrapped in the politics of power. Instead recognising that society as a whole produces what happens within it, and distributing these dividends widely would be a fairer way of managing resources in society.
While I am onboard with social protection schemes being a good idea, I am ambivalent about the state as a vehicle for that at least in it’s current form. I think Ferguson raises many interesting questions, but doesn’t necessarily broach what a state might look like in the not so near future of the poly-crises we face in this modern day. This is my only gripe with the book. I think if we look to the state to be able to fill the voids that are emerging in the business-as-usual systems we will quite quickly find it to no longer works in the way we hope and want. This is unfortunately the reality for many USians at the moment, and has progressively been the reality for most Brits to name a few places.
A short review doesn’t do justice to a book like this that has such a depth of thought and draws from such varied sources. It is a monumental intellectual achievement, and I am already recommending the book to the people who like this type of thing that I have come into contact with. Well worth a read!!!
Ferguson begins with the interesting phenomena of the increased presence of cash distribution grants in Southern African countries, suggesting the recent scale and universality of these grants is a new and interesting phenomenon. He highlights the way traditionally socially welfare is distributed on a means-tested basis with normative assumptions about who should receive help, who shouldn’t and how people should behave, for example one shouldn’t be unemployed for too long when receiving unemployment benefits, and highlights how these grants are different in being more universal, for example child credits available to any kid. He argues in a world where growth less and less leads to available work systems of distribution outside fo wage labour become important. And interestingly many of the most committed institutions of neo-liberal restructuring are beginning to agree like the World Bank.
In exploring these social programmes Ferguson engages with the histories of colonialism and work and how this has mainstreamed particular ideas such as the centrality of work to dignity and the centrality of labour to political economy. He instead argues labour exists as one node within wider systems of distribution which are much older, and exist across different scales such as kinship, and some conceptions of citizenship.
This engagement with the history of work and political economy moves towards a discussion of informality and precarity. Ferguson has little time for precarity or the valorization of informalized labour (the sort of labour celebrated by Hernando De Soto and others of the ilk). He argues that informalization comes from an economy that sheds jobs as it develops and that those working in informal work are engaging in ‘survivalist improvisation’ rather than some form of micro-entrepreneurship and that this often has diminishing returns over time as more people are informalized. Equally, he feels precarity overly focuses on the dynamics of labour and not on the distributionist systems that exist, further making the point that when has labour ever really been stable when thought about on a global scale.
Ferguson is critical of the left, and I would probably be included in that, for what he calls a ‘politics of the anti-‘ rather than a critical engagement with and support for political economic ideas that do work. I think this is in many ways a legitimate criticism. He further argues that leftist thought over-focuses on the institution of labour and inadequately engages with that which sits outside of labour, for example kinship, mutual aid and community entitlements.
I found his ideas about freedom and rights particularly convincing and the way in which these are grounded in a deeply western moral, cultural and social sensibility. What freedom means to different people changes, and there are many examples of people choosing what looks like relative unfreedom in history because of other advantages, for example stability, which Ferguson engages with. He questions whether in fact liberal society which aspires to be unfree from networks of obligation is the strange thing in the grand stretch of history. His discussion of rights is similar but largely engages with the fact having a right to something and having something are two different things, a right to a house is no guarantee of a house.
Within his discussion of distribution, he highlights the way across generations we all produce society. The wealth of society is not created through labour or labour-relations alone, but through different forms of relationships that exist. In a capitalist system these are distributed through ownership of capital and the profit from such capital, but the utility of this capital is co-produced by a whole range of relations in society, Ferguson suggests this could be more fairly distributed through a form of citizenship dividend. By this he means something along the lines of you make most of the profits if you own a mine, but those profits are reliant on a broader system of society working, for example the ability to rely on the state for security, the quality of road production, the reproduction of labour for your mine, and histories which have made the mine possible. For some of these services you pay for example through tax, health insurance plans, or wages, but this only partially compensates for the societal services offered to make something possible and does so in a way wrapped in the politics of power. Instead recognising that society as a whole produces what happens within it, and distributing these dividends widely would be a fairer way of managing resources in society.
While I am onboard with social protection schemes being a good idea, I am ambivalent about the state as a vehicle for that at least in it’s current form. I think Ferguson raises many interesting questions, but doesn’t necessarily broach what a state might look like in the not so near future of the poly-crises we face in this modern day. This is my only gripe with the book. I think if we look to the state to be able to fill the voids that are emerging in the business-as-usual systems we will quite quickly find it to no longer works in the way we hope and want. This is unfortunately the reality for many USians at the moment, and has progressively been the reality for most Brits to name a few places.
A short review doesn’t do justice to a book like this that has such a depth of thought and draws from such varied sources. It is a monumental intellectual achievement, and I am already recommending the book to the people who like this type of thing that I have come into contact with. Well worth a read!!!
November 23, 2016
Ferguson is a very accessible writer who can illuminate unfamiliar ideas quickly and easily. I got sucked into the introductory chapter and enjoyed the subsequent sections. Unfortunately the book feels repetitive, it is constantly references earlier or later chapters and often summarizes the sections the arguments of those chapters. By the end I felt like I was rereading the book. This being said, the engagement with the "Give a man a fish" idiom is very clear and the argument about the "rightful share" compelling not only in the Global South but in increasingly automated Western economies. If we rethink humans' raison d'être (must we be "productive" as social-cum-moral imperative?) we can perhaps reimagine both what a good life is and how it is provisioned.
November 7, 2020
See my review in the African Studies Quarterly:
http://asq.africa.ufl.edu/wp-content/...
http://asq.africa.ufl.edu/wp-content/...
December 31, 2022
The below review is one I wrote for a class in which we read this book.
--
What would happen if we just gave poor people cash?
Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution seeks to shed insight onto this question of distribution by an analysis of recent global cash transfer efforts, with particular attention to programs in southern Africa. This work is undertaken by Dr. James Ferguson, a professor of anthropology at Stanford University, and was published in book form in 2015. In Give a Man a Fish, Ferguson creates a framework for understanding what he calls the “new politics of distribution” rising across the world. He critiques the historic hostility on both the political Right and Left, and outlines a set of possibilities for the future of distributive politics. Ferguson is convincing in his argument for the growing popularity, impact, and feasibility of cash transfer programs, and draws a number of important lessons from the history of distribution efforts in southern Africa that could inform the expansion of grants globally.
Ferguson positions cash transfer programs as a compelling answer to the question many were left with following critiques of the development framework of the 1980s - “Well, what should we do?” He describes the rise of welfare globally and highlights a number of studies illustrating the positive impact of cash transfers. Beyond a highly theoretical approach to distribution, Ferguson stresses the importance of real-life experimentation throughout the volume. In his opening remarks he lays out a definition of what he calls the “politics of distribution”; it is the broader set of questions raised about “the general processes of distribution as they unfold in contemporary societies and about the stories of binding claims and counterclaims that can be made about these processes.” His following chapters explore these questions.
Chapter one and two dissects anti-distributionist sentiment and the assumptions of the development framework. The famous saying, which the book is named after, goes as follows - “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Ferguson explains how this saying is representative of a few assumptions that have undergirded development and drive the fears related to distributive programs; “The slogan encapsulates a certain development ethos, economically expressing a core belief that the object of development work is transformation, not charity, and that recipients of aid should get productive skills and the opportunity to work, not handouts and dependency” (p. 35). He adds that the proverb implies that poverty is a result of ignorance, not due to any sort of systemic root. Very much in line with definitions of development from the likes of Gilbert Rist, Ferguson illustrates that many believe “the problem of poverty is fundamentally a problem of production” (p. 36). Hence, the proposed cure by this group is to bring more people into formal wage labor. But what about economies where there is a large surplus of labor, like South Africa?
Ferguson draws a second observation from the proverb: the fisher is a man. He highlights the centrality of the male breadwinner in both development schemas and cash transfer programs globally. European family norms shaped the way welfare has traditionally been conceived, but Ferguson notes how South Africa is pushing to move beyond “traditional” views of family as the basis for grant eligibility. One possibility for basic income grants (BIG) is biometric; in this model, grants would be authorized indiscriminately of marital status, family members, gender, race, immigration status, etc. The only question this approach would need to ask itself would be “Has this person received their grant this month yet?”, an inclusive option that eases the burden on the State.
Chapter three supports Ferguson’s argument that “distribution is a crucial social activity.” He describes how, in improvisational economies, funds are subject to claims and are divided into slivers that permeate across social relations. He calls this a system of distributed livelihoods. He identifies six distributive domains, including landholding, migration, and sex – arguing that governments are built on communities in which distribution is already a vital lifeblood. In chapter four, Ferguson attempts to de-villify markets somewhat, pointing out the helpful “information” and “allocation” functions of markets (p. 128-129). Cash distribution is preferable to handouts because it helps boost purchasing power, leveling allocation. He argues that in modern societies, such as those in southern Africa cash is an important tool for building social bonds and solving social problems. In this sense, cash is a basic need, like water, and the distribution of cash helps create “less malevolent sorts of dependencies” (p. 138).
Chapter five dives into all things dependency. Ferguson observes that Americans are socialized to equate dignity and value with autonomy and independence. To the contrary, in the African communities he studies, dependency is actually desirable to many individuals, because it creates forms of free choice (you can make claims on other people) and these social networks help one achieve social personhood. Rather than proposing a utopian scheme to completely eradicate inequities, Ferguson argues that the priority should be first moving from asocial inequalities to social inequalities. The poor are already dependent, and the only real alternative is interdependence.
Chapters six and the conclusion represent his proposed way forward. Chapter six creates a framework for understanding cash transfers as more than just a gift from the government. Rather, Ferguson would have us think about distributive claims as claims to a rightful share – allocations of society’s wealth properly due to rightful owners. This shift opens up new possibilities for distributive politics. Ferguson states in his conclusion that wage labor “cannot fulfill the daunting distributive role that has so often been imagined for it” (p. 192). Instead, we should explore the role expanded cash transfers might play in distribution. South Africa is moving towards more universal cash transfers, and basic income grants talks in Namibia have stalled but are still alive.
Distributive cash grants work because it puts decisions in the hands of the poor - it gives them a lever to make choices they don’t otherwise get to make. This is part of the power of grants according to Ferguson. Give a Man a Fish is a compelling primer on the state of the landscape of distributive politics using southern African programs as its case study. It addresses misconceptions and objections about distribution programs and articulates a basic philosophical understanding of distributive justice as well. Overall, I found it convincing and moderately comprehensive. In his discussion about the future of distribution, I would have appreciated insights on how his takeaways from South Africa might translate (or not translate) to other global contexts. Also, while much attention is paid to the “problem of poverty,” noticeably absent is much commentary on what we might consider the problem of wealth.
Further scholarship might helpfully extend Ferguson’s work, but for what it is, Give a Man a Fish would prove an excellent initial foray into real-time distributive politics for the curious reader.
--
What would happen if we just gave poor people cash?
Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution seeks to shed insight onto this question of distribution by an analysis of recent global cash transfer efforts, with particular attention to programs in southern Africa. This work is undertaken by Dr. James Ferguson, a professor of anthropology at Stanford University, and was published in book form in 2015. In Give a Man a Fish, Ferguson creates a framework for understanding what he calls the “new politics of distribution” rising across the world. He critiques the historic hostility on both the political Right and Left, and outlines a set of possibilities for the future of distributive politics. Ferguson is convincing in his argument for the growing popularity, impact, and feasibility of cash transfer programs, and draws a number of important lessons from the history of distribution efforts in southern Africa that could inform the expansion of grants globally.
Ferguson positions cash transfer programs as a compelling answer to the question many were left with following critiques of the development framework of the 1980s - “Well, what should we do?” He describes the rise of welfare globally and highlights a number of studies illustrating the positive impact of cash transfers. Beyond a highly theoretical approach to distribution, Ferguson stresses the importance of real-life experimentation throughout the volume. In his opening remarks he lays out a definition of what he calls the “politics of distribution”; it is the broader set of questions raised about “the general processes of distribution as they unfold in contemporary societies and about the stories of binding claims and counterclaims that can be made about these processes.” His following chapters explore these questions.
Chapter one and two dissects anti-distributionist sentiment and the assumptions of the development framework. The famous saying, which the book is named after, goes as follows - “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Ferguson explains how this saying is representative of a few assumptions that have undergirded development and drive the fears related to distributive programs; “The slogan encapsulates a certain development ethos, economically expressing a core belief that the object of development work is transformation, not charity, and that recipients of aid should get productive skills and the opportunity to work, not handouts and dependency” (p. 35). He adds that the proverb implies that poverty is a result of ignorance, not due to any sort of systemic root. Very much in line with definitions of development from the likes of Gilbert Rist, Ferguson illustrates that many believe “the problem of poverty is fundamentally a problem of production” (p. 36). Hence, the proposed cure by this group is to bring more people into formal wage labor. But what about economies where there is a large surplus of labor, like South Africa?
Ferguson draws a second observation from the proverb: the fisher is a man. He highlights the centrality of the male breadwinner in both development schemas and cash transfer programs globally. European family norms shaped the way welfare has traditionally been conceived, but Ferguson notes how South Africa is pushing to move beyond “traditional” views of family as the basis for grant eligibility. One possibility for basic income grants (BIG) is biometric; in this model, grants would be authorized indiscriminately of marital status, family members, gender, race, immigration status, etc. The only question this approach would need to ask itself would be “Has this person received their grant this month yet?”, an inclusive option that eases the burden on the State.
Chapter three supports Ferguson’s argument that “distribution is a crucial social activity.” He describes how, in improvisational economies, funds are subject to claims and are divided into slivers that permeate across social relations. He calls this a system of distributed livelihoods. He identifies six distributive domains, including landholding, migration, and sex – arguing that governments are built on communities in which distribution is already a vital lifeblood. In chapter four, Ferguson attempts to de-villify markets somewhat, pointing out the helpful “information” and “allocation” functions of markets (p. 128-129). Cash distribution is preferable to handouts because it helps boost purchasing power, leveling allocation. He argues that in modern societies, such as those in southern Africa cash is an important tool for building social bonds and solving social problems. In this sense, cash is a basic need, like water, and the distribution of cash helps create “less malevolent sorts of dependencies” (p. 138).
Chapter five dives into all things dependency. Ferguson observes that Americans are socialized to equate dignity and value with autonomy and independence. To the contrary, in the African communities he studies, dependency is actually desirable to many individuals, because it creates forms of free choice (you can make claims on other people) and these social networks help one achieve social personhood. Rather than proposing a utopian scheme to completely eradicate inequities, Ferguson argues that the priority should be first moving from asocial inequalities to social inequalities. The poor are already dependent, and the only real alternative is interdependence.
Chapters six and the conclusion represent his proposed way forward. Chapter six creates a framework for understanding cash transfers as more than just a gift from the government. Rather, Ferguson would have us think about distributive claims as claims to a rightful share – allocations of society’s wealth properly due to rightful owners. This shift opens up new possibilities for distributive politics. Ferguson states in his conclusion that wage labor “cannot fulfill the daunting distributive role that has so often been imagined for it” (p. 192). Instead, we should explore the role expanded cash transfers might play in distribution. South Africa is moving towards more universal cash transfers, and basic income grants talks in Namibia have stalled but are still alive.
Distributive cash grants work because it puts decisions in the hands of the poor - it gives them a lever to make choices they don’t otherwise get to make. This is part of the power of grants according to Ferguson. Give a Man a Fish is a compelling primer on the state of the landscape of distributive politics using southern African programs as its case study. It addresses misconceptions and objections about distribution programs and articulates a basic philosophical understanding of distributive justice as well. Overall, I found it convincing and moderately comprehensive. In his discussion about the future of distribution, I would have appreciated insights on how his takeaways from South Africa might translate (or not translate) to other global contexts. Also, while much attention is paid to the “problem of poverty,” noticeably absent is much commentary on what we might consider the problem of wealth.
Further scholarship might helpfully extend Ferguson’s work, but for what it is, Give a Man a Fish would prove an excellent initial foray into real-time distributive politics for the curious reader.
February 6, 2019
This is an essential reading for anyone studying/working on social policies. By exploring the case of South Africa, Ferguson makes the case that the South – or developing countries – have a lot to teach the world, and not just "catch up" with Europe, not even when dealing with poverty and inequality.
December 9, 2017
"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime." Ferguson takes issue with this adage, and says it's actually a good idea to give people fish, otherwise they'll never have the means to buy themselves fishing rods, lures and bait. He argues that, at least where the very poor -- those so far out to the margins of the market economy that they're barely participating in it at all -- are concerned, it's a good idea to give them money. Since the economies he's talking about are those of southern Africa (especially South Africa itself), the sums involved for any given person are very small, just a few dollars a month. For many people, this is enough to lift them a few notches on the income scale, out of extreme poverty. In so doing, the program seems to have a disproportionate effect in getting people to actually begin participating in the market, and not to simply remain idle or to live a subsistence existence outside the mainstream cash economy. So, this government social program thus does two things at once: it reduces poverty and provides a shot in the arm to growing the country's economy.
This argument could have made a good magazine article or a research study, but instead Ferguson stretches it out into an entire book, with extensive reviews of the academic literature and diatribes against authors living and dead, of left and right. And he never even does get around to providing much research evidence for his thesis. On the whole, I felt I would have learned more in much less time from reading a typical Pew Research report, for example.
By the way: If you are seeking enlightenment about the issue of a guaranteed minimum income, or "basic income", which is currently rising to greater visibility in the US and elsewhere in the industrialized world, you won't find much here. For one thing, the individual sums of money involved are small, and probably don't represent anything close to an income sufficient to support anyone, even in South Africa. For another, many of those affected were probably never really engaged in the market economy in the first place, unlike in the West where such programs are more likely to be directed to families which have dropped out of or been forced out of the labor force. And finally, the differences between the level of economic development of South Africa and the US are so fundamental, I don't think they're very comparable. There are lessons to be learned here, and good ones, but not so much lessons that are relevant to the US.
This argument could have made a good magazine article or a research study, but instead Ferguson stretches it out into an entire book, with extensive reviews of the academic literature and diatribes against authors living and dead, of left and right. And he never even does get around to providing much research evidence for his thesis. On the whole, I felt I would have learned more in much less time from reading a typical Pew Research report, for example.
By the way: If you are seeking enlightenment about the issue of a guaranteed minimum income, or "basic income", which is currently rising to greater visibility in the US and elsewhere in the industrialized world, you won't find much here. For one thing, the individual sums of money involved are small, and probably don't represent anything close to an income sufficient to support anyone, even in South Africa. For another, many of those affected were probably never really engaged in the market economy in the first place, unlike in the West where such programs are more likely to be directed to families which have dropped out of or been forced out of the labor force. And finally, the differences between the level of economic development of South Africa and the US are so fundamental, I don't think they're very comparable. There are lessons to be learned here, and good ones, but not so much lessons that are relevant to the US.
March 21, 2017
Another great book by Ferguson, a meditation on the possibility of a new sort of welfarist politics, rooted not in production, but in everyone in a society getting a "share" -- above all in the form of a basic income grant. He focuses on the rise of such general income support grants in Namibia and South Africa, which go to everyone, including working age males, without regard for employment or means testing. He speculates about the possibility that Universal Basic Income could become the basis for a new kind of global politics as well, pointing to the ILO as promoting this idea. The result is both an anthropological meditation on sharing as a social norm (he talks about Hunter-gatherer sharing practices as a basis), and kind of normative speculation about a new and different kind of politics.
To be somewhat critical: Ferguson acknowledges the limits to such politics within today's frame, but underplays the enormities of the barriers, especially the fact that these grants still work within nationalist (and often Xenophobic) frames, or the boggling idea of scaling Hunter-gatherer norms to a 8 billion person planet. Moreover, he doesn't address at all the fact that basic income grants, while creating a norm around a basic social minimum (currently pegged at $16/month in South Africa), do nothing to address social or economic inequality. He dismisses with little more than a handwave the possibility that creating this minimum may sap the political energy around more radical solutions, or divert normative attention away from reducing inequality.
To be somewhat critical: Ferguson acknowledges the limits to such politics within today's frame, but underplays the enormities of the barriers, especially the fact that these grants still work within nationalist (and often Xenophobic) frames, or the boggling idea of scaling Hunter-gatherer norms to a 8 billion person planet. Moreover, he doesn't address at all the fact that basic income grants, while creating a norm around a basic social minimum (currently pegged at $16/month in South Africa), do nothing to address social or economic inequality. He dismisses with little more than a handwave the possibility that creating this minimum may sap the political energy around more radical solutions, or divert normative attention away from reducing inequality.
May 6, 2020
I wouldn't have read this book if it wasn't an assigned reading for uni, but I'm so glad I did because it really offers a fresh lens on development programs and public policy.
I'd recommend it to anyone interested in distributive policies like universal basic income. Or anyone interested in understanding different approaches to livelihood beyond waged employment. Ferguson's ideas are more relevant now than ever, given that the pandemic has really shed light on the precarity of modern work.
I'd recommend it to anyone interested in distributive policies like universal basic income. Or anyone interested in understanding different approaches to livelihood beyond waged employment. Ferguson's ideas are more relevant now than ever, given that the pandemic has really shed light on the precarity of modern work.
January 26, 2017
Super interesting book. Although I didn't agree with all his arguments it made me think quite a bit about questions of capitalism, neoliberalism and distribution. He also touches on key debates within liberalism.
November 1, 2020
This has been on my personal list for a while, and I’m so glad I took the time to finally get to it, albeit in bits and pieces in between everything else going on! Such a fascinating exploration of post-wage/non-productivist forms of distributive claims... in a world where full employment is both unlikely to occur and unable to address structural inequities, Ferguson argues that new types of welfare states (particularly South Africa), by using direct cash transfers, are part of a possible new “politics of distribution” based on the idea that all people have a “rightful share” to wealth. Really great discussion of “distributive livelihoods” and the fetishization of independence/demonization of dependence, among many other rich topics. Fascinating & particularly thought provoking as wealth inequality climbs around the globe.
August 6, 2020
Very clear argument formulation: why give a man a fish, instead of teach a man to fish? Ferguson's basic diagnosis of our time is that the world basically enters a phase of production surplus. Therefore he's against the producionist position and also criticizes the deep-rooted Marxist view of labor (in the realm of production) as the source of value. But isn't the point that the "entire society is the source of value" too vague and ambiguous? Anyway, Ferguson's theory is oriented toward the legitimacy of distributive claims (and an effective one which has real distributive outcomes). He wishes to move beyond ameliorative social payments; but in the end Ferguson doesn't seem to articulate more than that hope.
October 17, 2023
I think this book brings to the point one of the biggest problems of our time: that poverty is constantly reduced to a lack of productive work. So naturally, out of this assumption the solution to „help“ poor people is to bring them into productive labor. In a world of massive overproduction and consumption, where all the resources are in the hand of the top 1%, it is absurd to oversee that the solution to poverty really lies in redistribution. Ferguson shows in this book how this narrative of productive labor work still very much shapes our view of the world.
October 24, 2024
Great book about a new way of looking at distribution and an alternative ‘solution’ to poverty and the growing group of people not able to participate in conventional labour. Interesting perspective on how within neoliberal capitalism, systems of a quite opposite nature manage to exist, thrive and expand due to its success of (partially) alleviating poverty in Southern Africa.
Really liked the take on dependency as being a vital part of survival and freedom, instead of the evil opposing freedom often seen in Western ways of thinking.
Really liked the take on dependency as being a vital part of survival and freedom, instead of the evil opposing freedom often seen in Western ways of thinking.
May 5, 2025
Thought provoking questions followed up by disappointing answers.
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