J. Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) introduced the general public to the mysteries of the Neolithic revolution, when the human being went from a state of hunters-gatherers to residential agriculture. Later, an important discussion took place between Diamond and Acemoglu & Robinson over the respective diverging interpretations of the dawn of civilization – material circumstances versus institutions.  However, the extensive use that Diamond does in his work of the notion of economic surplus has so far received little consideration.

Diamond was not the first successful popular book in (economic) anthropology to endorse the concept of social surplus, indeed. The Marxist Vere Gordon Childe (1892-1957), that most consider the greatest archaeologist of the past century, also pivot on this concept. Childe coined the terms “Neolithic revolution” and “Urban revolution”. The latter precisely refers to the role of the agricultural surplus in the development the earlier civilizations. The use of the notion of economic surplus in anthropology has a long tradition that goes back to the Eighteen century, and continues through Morgan (1818-1881), Herksovits (1895-1963), until Diamond and many current anthropologists and archaeologists. In economic analysis, the classical economists’ concept of economic surplus has been recovered by Piero Sraffa (1951). Heterodox economists should therefore be naturally intrigued by the diffusion of the notion in economic anthropology. However, with few exceptions, the concept of economic surplus has remained rather in the shadow in the debate, when not openly ostracised not only by the marginalists, but also devotees of Karl Polanyi.

A recent book by two heterodox economists, Cedrini and Marchionatti (M&C 2017), enters in this debate, but unfortunately fails to re-address the terms of the discussion returning the concept of economic surplus the centrality it deserves. They rightly context the neoclassical “imperialist” attempt to occupy the territory of economic anthropology. They do that, however, relying upon the frail institutionalist background provided by Karl Polanyi and his school. In short, this debate risks to end up in a controversy over human nature, selfish or altruistic, or, in economic terms, over exchange versus gift. The book prompts, therefore, a reflection if the neoclassical colonialism should precisely be held-back by lining up behind the notion of economic surplus. This notion can provide a robust economic basis to institutional change, by firmly anchoring it around the changing modes of generating and distribution of the economic surplus.