TNML 17iii16 Can culture be a determinant of economic phenomena? TOK LECTURE CULTURE

 Culture can encompass the entirety of socially- transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, and all other products of human work and thought.  See definitions sheet. “those customary beliefs and values that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation” WORKING DEFINITION:

Learning 1 DEFINING ‘CULTURE’ ISN’T THAT EASY.

Two step process: CAN CULTURE BE A DETERMINANT OF ECONOMIC PHENOMENA?

 Transmission: 1.Parental influence 2.Institutional bias 3.Sexual selection Culture changes slowly; it is not optimisation LEARNING 2:

Adam Smith John Stuart Mill

Karl Marx Antonio Gramsci Max Weber

Karl Marx In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles… The Bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. … It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. The Communist Manifesto 1848 I  Mr Saha

Learning 4: the relationship between culture and the economic structure of society is of significant historical importance WEBER

“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you have to be very careful in dealing with people?" THE EFFECT OF CULTURE ON PRIOR BELIEFS:

The effects of priors on economic outcomes 1.Delayed transactions 2.International Trade 3.Becoming an entrepreneur levels of trust in an economy affect economic outcomes, and may be culturally determined LEARNING 5:

The effect of culture on economic preferences  Which, if any, do you consider to be especially important?, number who respond: ‘‘Thrift, saving money and things.’’ From individual preferences to economic outcomes  Saving and the importance to the long-run:  L-R Growth  International macroeconomics

THE EFFECT OF CULTURE ON POLITICAL PREFERENCES

SOURCE: Guiso, Luigi, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales "Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2): THE END