This happened during a bilateral business meeting between businessmen from Russia and Tunisia. The discussion of the issues on the agenda took its course, apparently, in a rather tense mode. In the process of work, one of the representatives of the Russian delegation asked the head of the group for a lighter, to which he replied to him in a sharp and even rude manner, saying “You know that I do not smoke and do not molest me now with such questions, etc.”, in short, as we usually do, publicly “put in place”. Suddenly, all tunisians, as one, silently stood up and left the room. To the perplexed questions of Russians – “What’s the matter? What happened?” – answered the translator – our compatriot, who lived in Tunisia for several years. He said that the Russian delegation demonstrated a lack of “team spirit” and Tunisians do not consider it possible to continue business negotiations with the group, within which there is no unity between its members. (Based on the materials of the author’s television program by Y. Menshova “To be continued …”. Channel NTV). Let’s ask ourselves what in this situation played the role of a regulator of the behavior of representatives of the Tunisian delegation and was not such in relation to the Russians? Obviously, such a regulator was the mechanism of the culture of thinking, which manifested itself in the context of business negotiations in the form of economic culture. So what is economic culture? Consider this phenomenon in the context of sociological analysis.
Proceeding from the classical understanding of culture as a two-pronged process of preservation and reproduction of cultural values and using the methodological developments of T. I. Zaslavskaya and
R. V. Ryvkina, G. N. Sokolova defines economic culture “as a way (structure of social mechanisms) of interaction of economic consciousness (as a reflection of economic relations and knowledge of the functioning and development of economic laws) and economic thinking (as a reflection of inclusion in economic activity), regulating the participation of individuals and social groups in economic activity and the degree of their self-realization in certain types of economic behavior. This means the formation by past economic experience of a certain state of economic consciousness (and economic thinking as a form of its manifestation) of society, the social layer, the social group, embodying this state in a certain economic activity (economic behavior)” (Sokolova G.N., 1995). The more perfect the way of this interaction, the more effective the economic activity; the more rational the economic behavior, the higher the level of economic culture.
The passive, undeveloped economic consciousness of our society, which has not felt the need to change for decades, has led to contradictory, emotional economic thinking that combines external adherence to the policy of economic reforms with established social stereotypes. For this reason, economic activity is more emotional than rational in nature and is often carried out in a state of psychological stress. Such economic thinking, with in turn, it is not able to significantly enrich economic consciousness with socio-economic practice. The inflexible way of interaction between economic consciousness and economic thinking, burdened by rigid social stereotypes, practiced in the Soviet economy, does not yet give rise to special illusions about the high level of economic culture. The regulatory impact of such an imperfect way of interconnection and mutual penetration of economic consciousness and economic thinking into each other on economic behavior, economic activity as a whole is small and weakly determines the variability and flexibility of this behavior.
Let us describe the main features of economic culture as a mechanism that ultimately regulates economic behavior.
First, economic culture includes only those values, needs, preferences that arise from the needs of the economy and have a significant (positive or negative) impact on it. These are, among other things, those social norms that, having emerged in the social sphere, acquire their specific sound in the economic sphere of society. For example, the universal principle of social equality has been embodied in the economic sphere in the equalizing principle of wages. These are also those social ones. norms that arise from the internal needs of the economy. Thus, the economics of extensive development, focused mainly on quantitative methods for assessing the efficiency of production, considers it natural to plan from what has been achieved, “a plan at any cost”, “not a single laggard nearby”, “deduction”, “equalization”, etc.
Secondly, the peculiarity of economic culture is determined by those channels through which it regulates the interconnection (interaction) of economic consciousness and economic thinking. This refers to the flexibility and plasticity of social stereotypes, a minimum of templates that complicate the relationship between economic consciousness and economic thinking, make it conservative, etc. The richer and more active the economic consciousness, the more rational and heuristic, the more variable and creative the economic consciousness. thinking, the freer and more professional economic behavior.
Thirdly, the peculiarity of economic culture is seen in the fact that, as a regulator of the connection between economic consciousness and economic thinking, it is much more focused than any other on managing the economic behavior of people. Regulatory values and norms of economic culture have an organizational orientation and activate the masses for certain actions, i.e. activate their economic behavior. Thus, all serious turns in politics were accompanied by putting forward appropriate slogans of an economic nature. The slogan as a moment of culture, aimed at developing socio-economic stereotypes in people, the more strongly it motivates people to solve the tasks put forward, the more contradictory and emotional their economic thinking, formed on faith in symbols. These were the slogans “To learn communism (at the beginning of the revolution); ” Learn to trade” (during the NEP period); “Technology in the period of reconstruction decides everything” (at the stage of industrialization); To work in a new way, you need to start thinking in a new way (in the years of perestroika); “Privatization” (in the transition period). Thus, we can say that economic culture is focused on the management of economic behavior to the extent that the past experience of economic development has formed the economic consciousness and economic way of thinking of the individual, group, society.
Considering economic culture as a way of interrelationship between economic consciousness and economic thinking presupposes judgments about the regulatory possibilities inherent in this method. We are talking about the possibilities of regulating the relationship in order to make it the most flexible and sensitive, both in terms of determining positive economic thinking and in terms of saturating economic consciousness with the real content of practice. These processes of direct and feedback between the phenomena under consideration largely depend on the completeness of the functions of economic culture.
First of all, economic culture, like culture as a whole, plays the role of the social memory of society, but not of the entire social memory, but only of that segment of it that is associated with the history of the development of economic relations, i.e. we can talk about the translational function of culture. This is the transfer from the past to the present and from the present to the future of socio-economic values, norms, rules, patterns of behavior. Norms and values, norms and values are transmitted from the past to the present. Norms and values, constituting the content of economic consciousness and economic thinking as a form of its manifestation, as well as economic behavior as a result of their interaction. Economic culture selects (rejects, preserves, accumulates) those values and norms that are necessary for the development of flexible economic behavior of the subjects of economic development, i.e. we can talk about the selection function of culture. However, ideological attitudes can, at certain stages of the development of society, modify and even suspend this natural process by introducing ideological frameworks and norms. We can also talk about the innovative function of economic culture, which is manifested in the renewal of socio-economic values and norms by developing new ones within the culture itself, or borrowing from other cultures. The completeness and quality of performance of these functions determine the regulatory possibilities of economic culture.
In a managed economy, the innovative function of culture (specifically the introduction of an innovation) can be countered by an administrative restriction. The fight against such a restriction can be protracted and exhausting for innovators and, in the end, depends on a strong-willed decision. And it is quite another matter if the source of conservatism goes into the tradition of economic behavior. In this case, a concrete and one-time solution is not enough. rapid shifts are unlikely. The evolutionary development of both general and economic culture is required.
At the same time, underestimating traditional actions can also be very costly. For example, the failures in the work of social mechanisms that occurred in the autumn of 1998 in the Russian Federation (the government crisis) immediately led to a serious destabilization of the economic sphere of society. The fragile market economy of Russia was not yet able to sufficiently self-regulate the processes taking place in it. At the same time, the traditional (administrative) actions of the government on a number of objective and subjective reasons were either no longer applicable, or they did not give the desired effect. As a result, the crisis of federal power led to a crisis in the consumer and financial markets of the country.
So, the balance — adherence to socio-economic norms and awareness of the need for economic innovation — depending on how economic consciousness and economic thinking interact, can shift in one direction or another. If commitment prevails, it threatens to stagnate socio-economic thought and, accordingly, in economic activity. It can be expressed in the idealization of the past, its opposition to the present. But at the same time, the stability of the system is an important factor in weeding out non-viable innovations, testing them for prospects. Therefore, it would be wrong to create a cult of novelty, as well as to underestimate the positive value of the already existing, recognized.
The dominance of controlled processes in the domestic economy (to the detriment of natural-historical ones) has created and is creating a unique situation when innovation is often introduced only by an administrative decision without taking into account both socio-cultural and socio-economic factors. This gives rise to purely specific features of the implementation of the innovation function in the domestic economy. First of all, it depends on the level of economic thinking of representatives of power structures. managers of the economy, and from local subjects of government, who are often carriers of conservative stereotypes. As a result, the methods of “piecewise introduction” are becoming widespread, when only one of its elements is accepted under the guise of mastering an innovation; “eternal experiment”, when economic innovations are preliminarily tested at individual facilities and this is the end of the matter; “reportable implementation”, when there is a fundamental discrepancy between the nominal development and the actual use of the innovation; “parallel implementation”, when innovation coexists with the old.
So, what are the reasons for the shift in the balance – adherence to the old or awareness of the need for innovation – towards commitment? First, it is the dominance of administrative and command methods of managing the economy. Secondly, it is an ineffective way of interconnecting inert economic consciousness and contradictory, emotional economic thinking, which does not have a regulatory impact on the motivation of achievements in which risk and unforeseen difficulties are seen. Thirdly, rooted in the economic mentality of social stereotypes that do not meet the needs of the emerging economy (“The initiative is punishable”, “The bosses are more visible”, etc.).
It can be concluded that the degree of innovativeness of the domestic economic culture is quite low. This low innovativeness has two forms of manifestation: institutional and personal. The first, institutional form is manifested in the monopoly of departments on the achievements of science and technology, the weak orientation of economic organizations (production, supply, trade, etc.) to the introduction of advanced methods of work, to the assimilation of progressive world experience, the corresponding retraining Staff. The second, personal form finds its expression on the scale of innovative behavior (as an economic component) of economic entities, the development of their attitudes to the development and implementation of innovations. In this case, the low innovativeness of the economy reflects the underdevelopment of values that regulate transformative activities in the economic sphere – the value of creativity, success, risk, non-trivial achievements. Incentives capable of nourishing such values have been weakened (if not absent). The bulk of managerial and engineering and technical workers were not focused on the introduction of technological, and even more so socio-economic innovations.
It can be concluded that the administrative management of the economy (with the deformed action of the basic socio-economic laws, in particular, the law of competition), the unformed undeveloped economic consciousness as the ability to use laws for the purposes of social development, the inconsistency and emotionality of economic thinking subordinated to the practice of total management – all this made it difficult to fully implement the basic functions of economic culture . translational (where dependence on ideology and politics, declarativeness, directiveness is developed), selection (where cultural monotony prevails), innovative (which is practically nullified). The resolution of the identified contradictions largely depends on how fully the mechanism of the functioning of economic culture will be used.
Thus, economic culture is a social mechanism, the characteristic features of which are the globality of manifestation and functional universality. The scope of this mechanism extends from the system of norms, rules and patterns of behavior of an individual economic entity (at the micro level) to the sphere of interaction of collective and even mass subjects (socio-professional groups, strata, classes, societies) in the process of social production (on the macro-level). At the micro level, the social mechanism of economic culture, using its “instrumental equipment” in the form of translational, selection and innovative functions, is designed to provide the subject with the optimal development of tactics for individual economic development based on the prevailing conditions of the objective macroenvironment. With this interpretation, an individual economic entity acts as a specific carrier of economic culture. At the level of social production, the super-task of the social mechanism of economic culture is the regulation of social processes in accordance with social needs – the acceleration of some, the containment or overcoming of others. The specific content of the integral function of economic culture at the macro level is to ensure the optimal use by society of limited resources in the name of its survival and development.
At the level of social production, the social mechanism of economic culture is manifested in the activity of economic entities and acts through this activity. The more the norms, rules and patterns of behavior transmitted by economic culture correspond to the expectations of economic entities and their worldview, the more fully the translational function is realized. In overcoming the discrepancy (or incomplete coincidence) of the content of economic culture, the macro level with the interests the source of development of the breeding function is laid. If, in the process of “feedback”, the subject transmits the developed norms and rules of economic behavior and those, being perceived by other subjects, enrich the content of economic culture, then we can talk about the implementation of an innovative function. The degree of realization of each of the functions depends on a number of characteristics (the level of development of the general culture, the specifics of social stereotypes, socio-psychological characteristics, national-territorial affiliation, etc.) of economic entities, whose activity is a source of development and, at the same time, the result of the development of the social mechanism of economic culture functioning at the level of social production.
To analyze the mechanisms of interaction between economic consciousness and economic thinking through the use of the phenomenon of economic culture, we will use the methodology of the system approach, which allows, firstly, to reveal the diversity of connections and relations of a complex object of cognition, and, secondly, to present them in the form of a single theoretical model. A systematic approach to the study of economic culture allows us to achieve an increase in scientific knowledge about the laws of functioning and development. of the phenomenon under study.
Diagram of the model shown in Fig. 12.1. allows not only to fix the presence of different types of relations in the object, but also to present this diversity in an operational form, i.e. to depict various connections as logically homogeneous, which allows their direct comparison and comparison. Based on the foregoing, we will interpret the graphic vision of the analyzed process with the help of a scheme that clearly reflects the specifics of the relationship between economic consciousness and economic thinking, and show the role of economic culture as a way of their connection with the regulation of economic behavior.
Economic consciousness, the first block of this scheme, contains information about the scientific basis for the operation of objective socio-economic laws, as well as about the history of the development of economic relations. Figuratively speaking, economic consciousness is a solid information bank, the quality of information of which, in approximating to the ideal, creates the basis for decision-making of the strategic plan. The main criteria that determine economic consciousness are scientificity and reflection in it. modern realities , allow us to conditionally designate him as a “strategist” of the analyzed system.
Economic thinking (the second block of the scheme) is, figuratively speaking, that individual subject-information pool in which the economic entity “floats” every day, trying not to go down” and, if possible, “swim” to the goal, i.e. to solve its own, in this case economic, problems. The main criteria that determine economic thinking are rationality, the ability to adapt to the existing “rules of the game”, the ability to calculate costs and benefits as the basis of the optimal selection , allow you to conditionally designate it as a “tactic” of the analyzed system.
The selected blocks operate with languages of different levels of complexity due to different deep essence. If the strategy is the art of conducting large operations, determines the main way to achieve the goal, then tactics are methods and means, forms and methods of achieving the goal, used in a particular situation and collectively ensuring strategic success.
To transform strategic decisions on the part of economic consciousness into the tactics of economic thinking, a new block is introduced into the scheme – economic culture, which contains mechanisms that allow it to perform translational, selection and innovative functions and acts as a “transformer” in the analyzed system. This block is both a “translator” of information from the language of strategy to the language of tactics of operational decisions, and an analyzer of the quality of translation, determined by the degree of performance of translational, selection and innovation functions.
Verification of the formed strategy of economic development occurs in the direct economic activity of the subject. Embodying in practice certain options for economic behavior within the framework of the developed type, the subject of economic relations inevitably falls into one of two possible situations: either he achieves the goal or does not achieve it. In the event that the subject does not achieve the goal, its analysis takes place in the “analyzer” block. This block, on the one hand, it plays the role of a “controller”, permanently determining the compliance of the subject’s energy costs with the significance of the achieved goal, on the other hand, “monitors” that the already worked out options for economic behavior within their set in the block of economic thinking “do not stagnate” and do not work “idle” in already tested economic situations. If, as a result of the analysis, it turns out that the goal is not significant enough for the subject, then he may refuse further activity altogether.
If the goal is achieved, then the block of economic thinking receives an impulse with a positive semantic load of communication, which confirms the legal capacity of the tested variant of behavior. When the subject fails to solve the problem, and the goal after its analysis remains significant, the block of economic thinking tries to use another variant of economic behavior within the framework of the strategy specified by the block of economic consciousness. The “détente” of a set of options for economic behavior will occur until the problem is solved, or until the moment when, as a result of a re-analysis at the next round of economic activity, the goal is determined by the “analyzer” as insignificant. Such a reassessment may occur due to the fact that the subject decides that the end does not justify the means, time or energy spent, and refuses further activity.
Note that the various variants of economic behavior within the framework of the formed type are quite flexible and diverse. The boundaries between them are transparent enough to allow the process of diffusion from one variant to another. How is the subject of economic activity able to sort through all these options? If this task was solved by a computer, then it would consistently and scrupulously go through all the options from the first to the last, until I found a capable one. As for a person, he often simply does not need to “lose” all available options. It is enough to check the nodal elements of a set of variants, and if they do not work, then derivatives from them will not work because of their essential identity.
Trying to achieve success in economic activity, the subject of economic relations implements in practice various variants of economic behavior within the framework of the development strategy set by the economic consciousness. In the process of work, a situation may arise when the stock of alternatives embedded in the set of options has dried up, thereby exhausting the content of a certain type of economic behavior. After analysis, the goal continues to be significant or even vital for the subject. Thus, thus, the system enters a state of crisis.
If the stock of alternatives embedded in the set of options for economic behavior has dried up, thereby exhausting a certain type of economic behavior, and the goal continues to be significant, or even vital, for the subject, then from that moment the “strategist” and the “transformer” are included in the active work. From the block of economic thinking to the block of economic consciousness there is an impulse in the form of a request. The interaction of these blocks is carried out through the “transformer”, which translates the impulse request from the language of economic thinking to the language of economic consciousness. At the same time, excessive emotional load and insignificant information are removed. This is possible when the “transformer” is able to ensure the implementation of such transformations. To do this, it is necessary that economic culture includes current values, norms, rules and patterns of behavior, as well as flexible and variable social stereotypes that orient it to further development and enrichment of the content.
The block of economic consciousness, in response to the request, sends information to the block of economic thinking about a new type of economic behavior. This information, passing through the block of economic culture, is translated into the language of economic thinking and transformed into the tactics of economic development, containing a new set of options for economic behavior. The final adaptation of new tactics and its use in practical activities is carried out by the block of economic thinking, since the perceived set of options for economic behavior is not yet fully ready for direct use and needs to be adjusted and finally correlated with a specific economic situation (otherwise, a set of options for economic behavior would occupy the entire volume of the block of economic thinking). Thus, the system, using internal capabilities, stabilizes its state.
Based on the foregoing, it is clear how significant an impact the “transformer” (and if we distract from the scheme – economic culture) has on the regulation of the economic behavior of the subject. Moreover, in the context of our analysis, we can talk about a two-way influence. Indeed, on the one hand, it is passing through the “transformer” that the type of economic behavior is translated into an adapted (the most adapted to the existing state of affairs) set of behavior options within this type, and on the other hand, even the very choice of the type of economic behavior is subject to direct control by the “transformer”.
Thus, it is clear how great the role of this bloc is and how important its functional load is, which, by the way, is also dualistic. After all, on the one hand, economic culture acts as a way of connecting economic consciousness and economic thinking, which, as it may seem, indicates its subordination to elements of a higher order; on the other hand, economic culture acts as an autonomous subsystem that has its own complex structure and has a huge impact on others. components of the system of regulation of the economic behavior of the subject.
Economic theory, describing various models of economic behavior of the subject, traditionally proceeds from several premises, namely: a person is an independent individual who makes independent decisions based on his personal preferences; selfish – he primarily cares about his interest and seeks to maximize his own benefit; rational – he consistently strives for the goal and calculates the comparative costs of a particular choice. the means of achieving it; is informed – he not only knows his own needs well, but also has sufficient information about the means of satisfying them. “We are faced with the image of a “competent egoist” who rationally and independently pursues his own benefit and serves as a model of a “normal average” person. For such actors, all kinds of political, social and cultural factors are nothing more than external frameworks or fixed boundaries that keep them in a kind of bridle, preventing some egoists from realizing their benefits at the expense of others in too frank and crude ways. This normal average person is the basis of the general model called homo economicus (“economic man”). On it, with certain deviations, almost all the main economic theories are built (Radaev V.V., 1997).
In the context of our analysis, the model of economic culture, in the part in which it is described and worked out by us to this day, can adequately explain the economic behavior of an economic entity, based on the listed prerequisites. However, economic sociology, deeply studying the various social mechanisms that influence the course of economic processes, orients us to identify a wider range of social factors that affect the economic environment. behaviour. Of course, no one disputes that the subject of economic relations is relatively independent, more or less selfish, as a rule, rational and more or less informed. However, economic sociology is primarily interested in the influence on the choice of a particular type of economic behavior exerted by such factors as: the subject’s belonging to a certain social stratum, the structure of his connections within the socio-professional group, the existing system of relations with representatives of other groups. Economic sociology tries to find out what is the role of economic culture in regulating the economic behavior of the subject and how social stereotypes affect this process.
Therefore, a complex block of socio-psychological characteristics of the subject has been introduced into the model of economic culture, which affects the work of all other components of the model. Depending on the goals of the analysis, the content of this block can include such characteristics of the (personified) economic entity as gender, age, education, type of nervous activity, etc. The same characteristics, in their aggregate expression and manifestation, can be used to assess the specifics of a collective economic entity and, as a consequence, the specifics of its economic culture, economic thinking and economic behavior (for example, male, female, youth labor collective, etc.). Using sociometry tools, it is possible to measure a number of group characteristics. Obviously, a labor collective that, for example, is distinguished by a high index of group cohesion (the index is generally determined by dividing the sum of “mutual positive elections” of group members by the maximum possible number of such elections in this group) will behave more rationally (including) in economic activity than the team in which this indicator is low.
The regularities of the influence of the block of socio-psychological characteristics of the subject on other components of the constructed model lie in the interdisciplinary field of cognition and, in addition to economic sociology, are included in the sphere of scientific interests of social psychology, which studies the laws of human behavior in a group, and economic psychology, which concentrates its attention on a person in the world of things.
In this context, the socio-psychological characteristics of the subject act as an external factor of influence in relation to the other components of the model (therefore, the connections on the scheme are unilaterally directed). Of course, it is possible to reflect on the reverse influence of, say, economic thinking or economic culture on the emotional sphere of the individual or on the status characteristics of the subject, which can be the subject of a separate analysis.
It should be noted that the described theoretical constructions are necessary conditions for analysis, without which it would be impossible in the end and synthesis with access to a typology of situations, which allows to deepen (and at the same time concretize) the explanatory possibilities of the concept of economic culture as a regulator of the economic behavior of the subject. are conditionally zero) to a positive position (regulatory opportunities are m