« The NBA study of referee bias | Main | Markets in truly *everything* »
The cultural foundations of capitalism
Sahil, a loyal MR reader, asks:
I read your blog post about Roger Scruton's new book, which you praised for giving a "good sense of just how much cultural background is needed to sustain liberty." That's an interesting notion. Do you have recommendation for books that examine this very idea in a more systematic way? I'm sure they're out there, and I'd be interested to read them.
I'll offer a few suggestions: all of Max Weber, the books by Lawrence Harrison, Alan MacFarlane on English individualism, Jonathan Israel on the Dutch Republic, Joseph Conrad, Levi-Strauss's Triste Tropiques, Rene Girard on Christianity, anything good on English history, Hoskyns on Russian history, Albion's Seed, IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Gilbert Freyre on Brazil, de Tocqueville, Sarmiento on Argentina, Louis Hartz, and John Gunther on America. The book "The Influence of the African-American Tradition on the American Ideal of Liberty" remains to be written. Nor have I scratched the all-important and largely non-European notions of liberty from the Nordic regions, which fed into the English success.
Pro-commercial norms are not scarce, as is evident here in Zanzibar. But those norms get you only to a medieval standard of living; as Mancur Olson stressed, they do not on their own support the structures of large-scale capitalism. It is harder to convince people to place larger abstract ideas above immediate duties to friends, family, and clan, but that is indeed the central feature of the problem.
Comments are open, what do you all recommend?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 15, 2007 at 10:46 AM in History | Permalink
Comments
The final chapter of "1491" titled "The Great Law of Peace" suggests that American tradition comes not only from Europe but also from the Native American traditions.
Posted by: mae at May 15, 2007 11:05:33 AM
Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, by Francis Fukuyama
The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, by Edward Banfield
Political Order in Changing Societies, by Samuel P. Huntington
Power and Prosperity, by Mancur Olson
Posted by: Chris at May 15, 2007 11:15:24 AM
"It is harder to convince people to place larger abstract ideas above immediate duties to friends, family, and clan, but that is indeed the central feature of the problem."
Um, Judaism? Christianity? Islam? Buddhism? Etc.?
Placing abstract ideals above immediate concerns of friends, family and clan doesn;t seem to be the missing piece of the puzzle. Seems abundant enough.
Posted by: sd at May 15, 2007 11:27:04 AM
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation
Thomas Haskell, et. al., The Culture of the Market
Karl Marx, The German Ideology & The Communist Manifesto
Posted by: historygrad at May 15, 2007 11:44:34 AM
For various arguments pro and con the significance of cultural background to social modernization, especially in England:
Hume, _Essays, Moral, Political and Literary_
Hobsbawm, _Industry and Empire_
Poovey, _History of the Modern Fact_
Marx, the last three or so chapters of _Capital_
Montesquieu, _The Spirit of the Laws_
Posted by: rameau at May 15, 2007 11:46:06 AM
The introduction to this book is especially useful for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Market-Historical-Institute-Political/dp/0521564786/ref=sr_1_1/104-9376572-4227105?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179243980&sr=1-1
Posted by: historygrad at May 15, 2007 11:50:10 AM
"IQ and the Wealth of Nations"
What's this I see you recommend? Have you ever posted about this book before? because it is one of the most mindboggling important books ever written.
Posted by: adrian at May 15, 2007 11:56:12 AM
"But those norms get you only to a medieval standard of living; as Mancur Olson stressed, they do not on their own support the structures of large-scale capitalism."
The avg IQ of the country, or the percentage of the country in the 'smart fraction' pretty much decides from there. It's a terribly unfair world, but such is life.
Posted by: adrian at May 15, 2007 12:00:43 PM
Amartya Sen has things to say about this in his "Development and Freedom".
Posted by: tom s. at May 15, 2007 12:18:14 PM
While this post reiterates your voracious reading habits and encyclopedic memory, it provides a not-very-helpful response to Sahil's question. Instead of rattling off a long and unorganized list of references, I think there are more useful ways to present the relevant information.
Categorizing or classifying the books would be very useful. Potential classification systems could include depth of economic discussion, spatial or historical distribution of examples, philosophical vs practical nature of the discussion, etc.
Also, I'm theorizing here, but I suspect that Sahil is most interested in knowing what two or three books you think best address the theme.
Please consider this comment as suggestion, not criticism.
Posted by: Earl at May 15, 2007 1:05:46 PM
I'm surprised nobody considers Inglehart relevant here, given that he has led the best effort to get an empirical handle on this question, and also reverses most of the common arguments about causality when it comes to the relation between culture and economics:
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/statistics/some_findings.html
Posted by: Matt at May 15, 2007 1:27:26 PM
I am curious: how is it that you know Sahil is a 'loyal' reader? Have you been tracking his IP at all the times he has visited the Marginal Revolutions weblog? Are you being informed regularly of his nocturnal jaunts via his feedreader into the lairs of Alex Tabarrok's and Tyler Cowen's minds? Does Sahil share with you intimately his fawning adulation for this weblog and for all the ditties and one-liners about the marginalia of this world we inhabit?
Perhaps, he may have stumbled upon that particular post by happenstance -- he may have picked up his coffee, eyed a curious advertisement for the Revolution and its offerings on some other steady web-stream of opinions and finally may have decided it merited a click. Would that one-off occurrence make him a loyal reader?
Posted by: Disloyal reader at May 15, 2007 1:39:52 PM
Uh, author Hoskyns and subject Russia brings up nothing at Amazon. Can you clarify?
Posted by: Buce at May 15, 2007 2:00:49 PM
Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People & Empire.
Posted by: adrian at May 15, 2007 2:12:21 PM
For a great Historical-fiction look at all Russian history definitely read Edward Rutherford's Russka. You'll learn more about ordinary Russians than in any 'real' history book, and it's fun!
Posted by: adrian at May 15, 2007 2:22:37 PM
A truly gorgeous book, I recommend it to Tyler as well, if he hasn't read it.
Posted by: adrian at May 15, 2007 2:26:01 PM
All of Isaiah Berlin's books, but most of all The Crooked Timber of Humanity (http://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Timber-Humanity-Isaiah-Berlin/dp/0712606165/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7580710-3315145?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179253511&sr=8-1) Still one of the most insightful writers out there on Russia and therefore liberty, and he's been dead 10 years ...
Posted by: Mari Kuraishi at May 15, 2007 2:30:07 PM
Don't forget Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" - why capitalism is doomed (despite its ever greater economic successes) because of the way it undermines the pre-capitalist cultural foundations necessary for its own existence. (And also because of the way it spawns an ever-growing stratum of malevolent and malcontented anti-capitalist intellectuals).
Posted by: MNBR at May 15, 2007 3:50:58 PM
Adam Ferguson "An Essay on the History of Civil Society"
Posted by: dearieme at May 15, 2007 5:00:51 PM
How about Douglas North?
Posted by: JSK at May 15, 2007 7:22:27 PM
"non-European notions of liberty from the Nordic regions"
So scandinavia is not part of Europe now?
Posted by: doctorpat at May 15, 2007 8:40:27 PM
At the risk of self-promotion (but let he who is without sin, especially around here, etc), there's this paper -- unencumbered draft version here.
Posted by: Kieran at May 15, 2007 9:34:33 PM
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America
The author makes the case that much of what we think of as the American character has its roots in Dutch history.
Posted by: Aron at May 15, 2007 9:35:47 PM
Interesting. No one has mentioned Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, which is an excellent work.
Posted by: yves at May 16, 2007 3:14:13 AM
I argue that geography plays a critical role in the development of liberty, in my paper The History of Free Nations. Isabel Paterson provided the central thesis in this paper.
Posted by: Richard O. Hammer at May 16, 2007 8:52:55 AM
Emmanuel Todd's theory that family structure has a major role in determining ideology and progress is very interesting. Historian, political scientist, social anthropologist, demographer, he has written several books over the past twenty years.
The Causes of Progress: Culture, Authority and Change (Family Sexuality and Social Relations in Past Times);
Explanation of Ideology: Family Structures and Social Systems (Family, Sexuality & Social Relations in Past Times) (Paperback) ;
Posted by: Maurice Lanselle at May 16, 2007 1:03:06 PM
Property and Freedom by Richard Pipes is a history of the idea of property with particularly look at and comparison of how the ideas developed in England and Russia.
Posted by: Robert Scarth at May 16, 2007 3:02:41 PM
Your reccomendation of the book - IQ and the Wealth of Nations - reveals much about you.
Unless, of course, you haven't actually read/reviewed the book.
Posted by: A.J at May 17, 2007 10:20:10 AM
想在台州树立良好的企业品牌找台州网络公司 。五金装饰目前台州网站建设公司有很多家，台州网页设计水平都很不错装饰五金，尤其网络推广技术很成熟。网站推广和google推广这几项技术也在迅速发展。所谓的通俗地说就是网站优化，其中包括Google优化和Google左侧排名以及Yahoo优化排名。它们都统称为SEO。专业提供SEO培训服务，帮助更多的SEO优化的爱好者实现梦想。我们会为你准备好生日礼物 ，还可以为你提供毛绒玩具批发服务，心动不如行动！网站优化已成为网络时代新宠！通过google优化可以使网站获得好的google左侧排名的自然排名。另外Yahoo优化排名不是有钱就可以卖得到的，搜索引擎优化必须通过技术手段才能实现。也就是通过优化网站从而获得好的排名。通过百度优化获得好的排名，是企业提升品牌的利器。通过多数企业的案例来看，效果都是非常理想。想掌握SEO优化技术吗？来加入我们SEO培训的队伍当中来。
Posted by: wsss at May 19, 2007 5:00:12 AM
Hi, this is Sahil here. I am a loyal reader.
Cheers,
Posted by: Sahil Mahtani at May 19, 2007 4:05:13 PM
How about Daniel Bell's "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism", especially since one of the main themes he focuses on is how we have gotten away from Max Weber's Protestant work ethic. Also check out "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society" even though it might seem somewhat dated now
Posted by: dihydrox at May 22, 2007 10:47:19 AM
INTRODUCTION – Your Dreams Fulfilled
The following ideas and concepts have the potential to radically change your world for the better. Every aspect of your life could be enhanced and every dream you have could become a reality.
Every hope you’ve ever conceived,
Every need you’ve ever known,
Can easily be achieved
Welcome to the growing group of people on this planet who want more from life…
STAGE 1 – Understanding the physical world
The world exists outside of our heads. It’s there to be analysed and understood. It’s not a hard task. The organic material between your ears, your brain, is more than capable of understanding the current world situation.
You are connected.
You are not alone.
You are part of this world.
You have the solution within you.
The world needs you to do your part.
You need you to do your part.
You are connected to every one else on this planet. You may not feel it, but it’s a fact. A fact that can not be refuted, proved wrong, or even sensibly denied. Anyone that does deny it can be ridiculed, and you’ll see why…
Did you have a cup of tea this morning? Have you ever had a cup of tea? Do you drink coffee? If you’ve had any of these experiences, or you’re familiar with the concepts then the ideas below are going to make so much sense to you, and have such an impact on you and your life, that you’ll be asking why you’d never thought of it sooner and then you’ll be demanding that everyone begins to think it too.
Imagine the cup of tea that you had this morning and the process of creating that cup of tea. You took a cup, you boiled some water and you took a tea bag and placed it in that cup or in a tea pot. Now, stop for a second to imagine what that tea bag is, what it means and what it represents.
For that tea bag to exist at all, humans, no matter how far away or close to you, need to that have ploughed a field, planted tea bushes, tended tea bushes, nurtured them through their growth cycle, harvested the leaves, dried the leaves, packaged the leaves, transported the leaves and finally stacked the leaves in a shop where you could purchase them. You know all of these things to be solid, undeniable and verifiable facts.
You are connected to all of those humans in that chain of production as without them, you could have no tea bag. For you to have something as simple as a tea bag to put in a cup, to begin to make tea, there may have been thousands of humans involved. That Tea Bag is a result of their labours and their endeavours, no matter how unseen by you. The Tea Bag should have HumanityTM embossed on it. Those humans have lives, they exist. They have had a direct impact on your life as you are able to enjoy a cup of tea. You are connected to them. They are connected to you.
For, if it was not for you, using their tea bag, the fruits of their labours, their lives would be dramatically different.
And remember, that’s just the tea bag. Think about the kettle that you boiled the water in. Where did the water come from? And did you use gas or electricity to heat the water? Where did that energy supply come from? How many miles of pipes and pumps and wires had to be used? How many connected humans were involved?
And this is all so that you can have a cup of tea! You can now see that you are part of the collective of humanity on this planet, you are not alone; welcome to the realisation.
STAGE 2 – How we currently operate
The collection of humanity on this planet, though highly efficient at getting you the basics like tea and coffee, is currently organised in a very self defeating way.
You and I work for different companies. The companies that we work for may very well be in competition. Companies are only there to make a profit for the company. That is their role. That is their reason for existing. Someone had an idea to make money, and they started a business. All very well as far as it goes. However, now, at this period in our history, the idea of individual companies, working alone to produce the “next big thing”, is something that is holding you and I back from realising our full potential. That is, full potential of the productive capabilities of humans, of humanity, on this planet are being squandered by competition and the profit motive.
Again, this is very easy to demonstrate and again, it’s undeniable.
For example, take two competing drugs companies; you work for one and I work for the other one. Both companies are in business to make a profit and as such they are pouring millions of dollars into research and development to find the next big cure for blindness, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, paralysis, HIV, or pick an ailment or condition that’s close to your heart.
We know that the humans that make up the work force of these companies are members of the collective of humanity that brought us the humble tea bag. So we know that each member of that collective would benefit from a break through in any new treatment; you and I included. ¬¬
So let us assume that the solution that both of these companies are working on will take 10 years to develop. Now what if, after 5 years, the company that you’re working for has half of the solution and the company that I’m working for has the other half of the solution? As a collective, as humanity, we have the whole solution. You know half of it, and I know half of it. So, in theory, we could actually bring it to the other members of the human collective directly. That is after 5 years, not 10. We could half the time that it currently takes to share the break through, as we have all the pieces.
That is, we, as a collection, have done all the work we need to do as both halves of the solution are now known. However, given the fact that we are working for companies that are in competition, for greater and greater profits, the solution will not flow to the members of the global society as no one company owns the whole solution. In theory it will take each company another 5 years to fully understand the solution thus any benefits for humanity are delayed by that time. Even then the companies will only release a product if they can realise a profit from it.
We have just worked out how, with this one example, capitalism is not best suited to the needs of you and I and humanity. In case you think this is just a one off, let us examine the case of mobile phones and competition within that sector..
Mobile phones, at least in the UK, are used for 3 main tasks; sending text messages, making phone calls and sending multi media messages such as pictures and sound files.
You are more than aware of these functions and I dare say you’ve used at least one of them and if not, you know people that have. Now, in the UK there is competition, again, from Orange, O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone etc, etc. Each of these providers may erect separate radio masts to build their coverage foot print. So potentially we could have 4 or more different masts covering the same geographical area because each of the operators wants coverage in that particular area, of course. That’s competition.
No matter which provider you choose to be your mobile phone carrier the service you get at the end will be very much the same from one to the other. You’ll be able to make and receive phone calls and send and receive text messages etc. The major criteria that you’ll have used in your decision will be how many minutes and text messages you get for your monthly outlay.
So instead of distributing mobile phone capabilities to each geographical area once, we, as an unconscious act of the collective and as a direct result of competition and the profit motive of Orange, O2, T-Mobile etc, have actually rolled out enough radio masts, computers, switches and cables to cover each geographical area 4 or more times. However, if we had, as a collective, been working towards providing for the collective, instead of working within competing companies, we could have covered the UK 4 times over in the time that it took us to do it once. We all could have had the benefits of mobile communications sooner than we actually did.
At this stage in our human development we are holding back the potential of humanity on this planet by organising in competing companies. We are holding ourselves back from achieving. We are wasting time. We are squandering our resources. We are distracting ourselves from our full potential.
The current system discards and overlooks a huge number of humans on this planet as they have no practical benefit to the current system; capitalism.
If you condone the current organisational method, in light of this logical evidence, then you are part of the problem. The world needs you to rethink, and understand that a shift in emphasis from working for competing companies and their profit motive to actually working for humanity would bring untold freedoms and benefits to you, your family, your friends, your loved ones, your neighbours.
You are part of the solution if you take these concepts forward. Tell more people about them. Spread them around. Your future depends on it.
STAGE 3 – Imagine The Future
So now we’ve discussed the idea of the collective and of humanity wasting time it’s time to consider what it could mean for us to organise ourselves differently.
Imagine a place and time when all of our endeavours as humans are used for our benefit. No more working for some company’s profit. No more distractions from the needs of humans. No more impediments to you getting exactly what you want from this life. No more antagonism amongst humans. An understanding that each human, if they play their part in the collective, can reap any and all of the rewards of that collective.
Imagine the number of people we can also bring into the system to work towards the goals of the collective. All those people that are currently disregarded by the system; the countless millions in “under-developed” [have you ever asked yourself why?] countries.
With all of these extra resources, we can half the working week or even make it two days long or so. Who knows how we will decide to organise the massive resource on this planet that is the collective community of humanity.
And no enlightened community of humanity would ever decide to make any decision that did not best fit the needs of the community as that would be akin to suicide. Only the best decisions for the collective would be made. Think what that would mean for governmental organisations? Would we require them? Maybe we’d need some form of “commodity request list” or “goals list” that we could all view and prioritise, with the most obviously important goals being raised to the top of the list with ease. How about eradicating famine, poverty, diseases, war, global pollution etc? What about planting trees to form lungs for the planet? What about designing technology that can clean the atmosphere?
If we organise ourselves with us as the priority then all the material items that we struggle to collect just now such as houses, cars, gadgets, and even just the basics of food and water will flow to us as a logical consequence. Far from compromising or goals and our desires, by organising for humans, we can achieve them all! And more importantly we can bring the endeavours of every human on the plant to bear for our well being. Each human who is cast aside by the current system of capitalist production and its insatiable drive for greater and greater profits will be brought into the global collection of working productive humanity and they will be able to influence and bolster that global community. Hence, all of our lives become infinitely better and immeasurably easier.
The solution needs you. It needs everyone you know. So how big is this task? Can we do it? Well, the maths says we can.
The population of this earth is somewhere in the region of 6,000,000,000 (6 Billion or 6 Thousand million). So that makes any effort you make alone, as an “individual”, equivalent to 1/6 Billionth of the effort needed to realise all of your hopes and dreams.
However, if in the first instance, you can tell just 10 people, of this way of thinking, and they feel as passionately as you do about it, and they set themselves the same goal of just telling 10 people, then the numbers soon become very large indeed;
You – 10 – 100 – 1,000 – 10,000 – 100,000 – 1,000,000 – 10,000,000 – 100,000,000, 1,000,000,000, The World!
Just 10 iterations! That is, just 10 times the process of telling 10 folk and the whole world would know! So the chain that you start, by telling 10 folk about these ideas and about your passion for them, will only have to be repeated 10 times and we can all share in the understandings!
You have the solution within you. The world needs you to do your part.
You need you to do your part.
When you know how it works; it’s easy to change the world!
Posted by: Dunk at Jun 12, 2007 10:19:07 AM
我们的设计制造的各种流水线主要有： 搁板线生产线流水线、消毒柜流水线、微波炉流水线、电饭煲流水线、滑板车、电子元件等各种装配生产流水线，也可根据客户的实际需要制造,我们的产品生产周期短，并且提供了运输、安装、调试一条龙等服务。
Posted by: fdfd at Aug 12, 2007 7:46:07 AM
