01126pab a2200133 454500008004000000100002100040245002800061260000900089300001500098362001100113520080800124650002600932773003400958180718b2001   xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aGudeman, Stephen  aScales, tales and tools  c2001  ap.1859-864  a26 May  aAnthropologists perceive that culture and economy are made up of multiple and sometimes inconsistent value domains.  In the cost-benefit world, all values belong to a single sphere and can be compared on a seamless scale so that socio-economic choices can be made - the thesis of commensuration.  In contrast, anthropological comparison suggests that people do not always commensurate in everyday life, and employ other tools for making social selections.  This paper focusing on the assumptions and the economic world that cost-benefit analysis invokes, begins with an anthropological model of the economy and some problematics of the cost-benefit procedure, using some ethnographic tales to illustrate the problems and closes with suggestions for ways cost-benefit analysis might be used. - Reproduced  aCost benefit analysis  aEconomic and Political Weekly