- 29 -


current economic levels need not result in a lowering of the minimum standard;

such a change would come only as the result of prolonged and sustained drops in

economic levels.
 1/
 The minimum subsistence standard of living per person within any particular

social aggregation of individuals such as a village, can be described as a function

of three types of variables: (1) physiologic and nutritional; (2) economic, es-

pecially current and previous levels of economic well-being; and (3) socio-cultural
 2/
in an historical and cross-cultural context.

 For an individual in a specified homogeneous social aggregate and for any

specified time period the relevant variables may be symbolically defined as

follows:

 Sas = achievement standard of living

 L = actual level of living

 Sms = minimum subsistence standard of living

 Pm = minimum physiologic requirements (below which death)

 The minimum subsistence standard of living, Sms, cannot be less than Pm, the

 physiologic minimum below which death takes place, but note that Sms could still

 be low enough to cause nutritional deficiencies and result in reduced capacity
 3/
 for physical exertion.



 1/ "Standard" and "level" are carefully distinguished. The latter refers to
 the actual, existing components, whereas the former refers to the desired
 components.

 2/ For a variety of reasons, I consider Nakajima's revision of my equation'an
 improvement [Nakajima, 1969]. Sms = Pm + g(E, C) g O where E = economic well
 being variable and C = cultural variable.

 3/ Such minima have a long history in the literature. For some recent examples
 see Mellor [1963], Fei and Ranis [1964], Miracle [19681, and Nakajima [1969].
 The role of such minima in determining an "agricultural surplus" has been the
 source of debate among anthropologists [Dalton, 1960, 1963; Orans, 19661.