Cultural Values In Political Economy

“This masterful collection illuminates many of the all-important interfaces between culture and economy. . . . These insights have never been more important.” —W. Lance Bennett, author of News: The Politics of Illusion The backlash against globalization and the rise of cultural anxiety has led to considerable rethinking among social scientists. This book provides multiple theoretical, historical, and methodological orientations to examine these issues. While addressing the rise of populism worldwide, the volume provides explanations that cover periods of both cultural turbulence and stability. Issues addressed include populism and cultural anxiety, class, religion, arts and cultural diversity, global environment norms, international trade, and soft power. The interdisciplinary scholarship from well-known contributors questions the oft-made assumption in political economy that holds culture “constant,” which in practice means marginalizing it in the explanation. The volume conceptualizes culture as a repertoire of values and alternatives. Locating human interests in underlying cultural values does not make political economy’s strategic or instrumental calculations of interests redundant: The instrumental logic follows a social context and a distribution of cultural values, while locating forms of decision-making that may not be rational.

Empirical analysis of how people's values and perceptions differ according to their socioeconomic and political systems.

This fascinating volume offers a critique of recent institutional and cultural turns in heterodox economics and political economy. Using seven case studies as examples, the authors explore how research on sense- and meaning-making can deepen critical s

This review of the literature dealing with management in business in selected countries, and how management is affected by the culture and values of that country attempts to establish a baseline and methodology for developing further empirical studies. The contributors are selected from professional economists and sociologists from the countries discussed. The first part of the work deals with definition of terms and theories that are to be used in the work. The second part of the work deals with individual representative countries in Europe and Latin America, and the third part of the work describes future work needed in the area.

All human beings develop a certain view on the world. Inhabitants of the same country are likely to develop similar worldviews. The common part of these views constitutes the country’s national culture. Consequently, academic economists, policymakers, and the population at large are consistently exposed to the same opinions on the preferred way of organizing an economy. This book explores the economic impacts of these shared cultural values, focusing on the economies of the United States of America, Germany, and France. These three countries broadly represent three different types of economic organization and their corresponding economic ideologies: a free market economy, a coordinated market economy, and a hierarchical market economy. The contributors to this edited volume have examined the extent to which the shared worldviews between academic economists, policymakers, and the wider population impact these economies. In particular, the chapters investigate the consequences for the design of the labor market, the financial system, competition policy, and monetary policy. The work also explores the extent to which the shared views on national culture and economic systems and policies in these countries contribute to the population’s well-being overall. This book makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on comparative economics, economic policy, well-being and cultural economics.

. . . the book is excellent in setting out and explaining a fundamental critique of economics one moreover that has been missed by most other current critics of the field. Making this case is an achievement. Hopefully, it will have a greater impact than its author probably expects. Journal of Cultural Economics Economics evolved by perfecting the taking of culture out of its reductionist and virtual world. But culture has recently been reintroduced, both as a sphere of application for an otherwise unchanging methodology and as a weak form of acknowledging that the economic alone is inadequate as the basis even for explaining the economy. This volume is an essential critical starting point for understanding the changing relationship between economics and culture and in offering a more satisfactory and stable union between the two. Ben Fine, University of London, UK Economics, Culture and Social Theory examines how culture has been neglected in economic theorising and considers how economics could benefit by incorporating ideas from social and cultural theory. Orthodox economics has prompted a long line of cultural criticism that goes back to the origins of economic theory and extends to recent debates surrounding postmodernism. William A. Jackson discusses the cultural critique of economics, identifies the main arguments, and assesses their implications. Among the topics covered are relativism and realism, idealism and materialism, agency and structure, hermeneutics, semiotics, and cultural evolution. Drawing from varied literatures, notably social and cultural theory, the book stresses the importance of culture for economic behaviour and looks at the prospects for a renewed and culturally informed economics. The book will be invaluable to heterodox economists and to anyone interested in the links between culture and the economy. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, arguing against the isolation of economics, and will therefore hold wide appeal for social scientists working in related fields, as well as for economists specialising in cultural economics and economic methodology.

The global political economy is inescapably cultural. Whether we talk about the economic dimensions of the "war on terror", the sub-prime crisis and its aftermath, or the ways in which new information technology has altered practices of production and consumption, it has become increasingly clear that these processes cannot be fully captured by the hyper-rational analysis of economists or the slogans of class conflict. This book argues that culture is a concept that can be used to develop more subtle and fruitful analyses of the dynamics and problems of the global political economy. Rediscovering the unacknowledged role of culture in the writings of classical political economists, the contributors to this volume reveal its central place in the historical evolution of post-war capitalism, exploring its continued role in contemporary economic processes that range from the commercialization of security practices to the development of ethical tourism. The book shows that culture plays a role in both constituting different forms of economic life and in shaping the diverse ways that capitalism has developed historically – from its earliest moments to its most recent challenges. Providing valuable insights to a wide range of disciplines, this volume will be of vital interest to students and scholars of International Political Economy, Cultural and Economic Geography and Sociology, and International Relations.

Why have East Asian immigrants done so well in the United States in the face of adversity and discrimination? Why have the Chinese done so much better outside China than inside? Why have Japan, Taiwan, and Korea grown so rapidly and equitably in the second half of the twentieth century? What explains Spain's transformation into a high-growth democracy after centuries of poverty and authoritarianism? Why has Brazil's economy grown faster in this century than that of any other Latin American country? And what explains the paradox of America's blacks, two-thirds of whom have made it into the middle class mainstream, while the remaining one-third languishes in the poverty of the ghetto? According to Lawrence E. Harrison, the author of this myth-shattering but ultimately hopeful book, culture--values and attitudes--provides the key to unlocking these mysteries. Drawing on three decades of experience in Latin American economic and social development as well as extensive research elsewhere, Harrison shows how it is the cultural values of a people, with respect to work, education, austerity, excellence, family, and community, that largely explain why some succeed while others do not. Harrison argues that it is the erosion of these values that lies behind America's decline, evident, for example, in lagging competitiveness, declining real income for most workers, low savings rates, the persistent and growing budget deficit, and the savings and loan scandal, not to mention growing divisiveness within the society. Understanding how culture can facilitate--or impede--progress is crucial to a renaissance in the United States, just as it is to development in Third World countries mired inauthoritarianism, economic stagnation, and social inequality. Who Prospers? suggests measures to promote cultural change that nurtures progress, both at home and abroad.