There are very important and practical issues raised by following this alternative route which says, let's look to material conditions, to the systems of production, to the needs that human beings have, and to competing alternative solutions to the satisfaction of those needs.

' The Washington Post described him as 'a storm center in his field' and the Los Angeles Times accused him of 'overgeneralized assumptions'. 1981. As used by Marvin Harris emic meant those descriptions and explanations that are right and meaningful to an informant or subject whereas etic descriptions and explanations are those used by the scientific community to generate and strengthen theories of sociocultural life.

Marvin Harris (August 18 1927 – October 25 2001) was an American anthropologist. In his work he combined Karl Marx's emphasis on the forces of production with Thomas Malthus's insights on the impact of demographic factors on other parts of the sociocultural system. After the publication of The Rise of Anthropological Theory in 1968 Harris helped focus the interest of anthropologists in cultural-ecological relationships for the rest of his career.