In the 1970s much of the debate had shifted from formalism and substantivism, to Marxism and structuralism. Marxists approach economic anthropology comparatively by focusing on production, arguing that society's basic forms of exploitation and inequality are continually being recreated in modes and relations of production (Godelier 1979). Structuralists hold that one had to understand the total system of meaning in order to interpret the relative value of items in a society, but they reject the functionalist assumption that economic institutions serve to integrate society (Graeber 2001: 18).

In the 1980s, the emphasis shifted to consumption. In an influential paper titled "Commodities and the Politics of Value," Arjun Appadurai (1986) states that anthropologists can more effectively examine cross-cultural patterns in economy and exchange by focusing on exchange from the consumption perspective. Appadurai follows Georg Simmel (2004 [1907]) in arguing that the source of an object's value is based in its exchangeability and the desire of the buyer, not the labor that went into production. As with formal approaches, this emphasis on exchange permits broad cross-cultural comparisons because exchange activities are universal characteristics of human behavior. Appadurai's approach shares some of the limitations of formal approaches. Appadurai focuses on the commodified value and the value that goods accrue primarily through transfer, which put constraints on the analytical potential for looking at the social and symbolic significance of human relationships organized around exchange. Rather, Appadurai investigates an object's "life history" as it has passed through multiple hands. The emphasis is shifted from two individuals exchanging goods to the relationship of equivalencies between the two objects being exchanged (Appadurai 1986: 12-17).

A notable challenge to Appadurai's contention that "circulation creates value" is Weiner's (1976: 180-183) observation that among the societies discussed by Mauss (1925) the value of the objects in question is associated with their original owners and their specific histories, and value is not the product of transfer. Thus, the value is not predominantly a result of demand, as asserted by Appadurai, and it is often the case that value reflects the inalienable properties of specific heirlooms some of which, like the royal crown jewels, do not circulate at all. Igor Kopytoff (1986: 74) describes a variety of items that have "singularity" due to restricted commercialization. Examples of this include ritual items or medicines in western society that are destined specifically for the intended patient that have prohibitions against resale. In his critique, David Graeber (2001: 34) suggests that for any society it might be possible to map "a continuum of types of objects ranked by their capacity to accumulate history: from crown jewels at the top, to, at the bottom, such things as a gallon of motor oil, or two eggs over easy". Unlike Appadurai, Graeber's approach places goods in a continuum that does not depend on transfer to establish the relative value of an item. The distinction between alienable and inalienable goods is linked to relative abundance and exclusivity of the products in question and to historic characteristics, like the degree of influence of a price-regulating market (Miller 1995).