Interpersonal Relations in Atomistic Communities

While this commentary proposes chiefly to examine from the standpoint of the concept of social atomism the ethnographic papers contained in this issue of Human Organization, I shall utilize this opportunity to reconsider atomism as that term has been used in American anthropology since its introduction by (I believe) Ruth Benedict. The word itself may be relatively infrequently encountered, but the phenomena which it designates have aroused consistent interest, most recently in connection with the character of interpersonal relations in peasant society. Taking my lead from several fellow contributors, I will concern myself with the relationship of social atomism to George M. Foster's image of limited good, though without implying that the two concepts are identical.