Economic Culture as Society's Memory

Abstract

In order to understand the essence of contemporary and to forecast future trends in economic development, it is necessary to study them in their connection with phenomena in the cultural and intellectual life of society, in their connection with culture. The connection between culture and economics is two-sided. It is a connection involving reciprocal influences. The "direct" connection (the influence of economics on culture) was revealed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and has been quite well studied. The "reverse" connection, however, has essentially not been studied in our country. Nor has it been taken into account in management practice. Therefore, at the time they embarked on perestroika, neither economic science nor practice were ready for the powerful "resistance," for the opposition of cultural factors. I refer not to the resistance of specific bureaucrats and department heads deliberately blocking progress. The situation proved to be more complex: in seventy years (two-thirds of a century), the country's entire population developed stereotypes of mass consciousness and behavior that "worked" for the inhibition of development and for stagnation in the economy.