The Traditional Economic Culture of Russians through the Lens of Thorstein Veblen’s Evolutionary Theory

Abstract

This research focuses on Thorstein Veblen’s institutional economics, which links the innate and persistent propensities of human nature with communities’ cultural and economic growth. Three instinctive proclivities—parental bent, the instinct for workmanship, and the propensity to acquire and use pragmatic knowledge—are associated with the productive features of conduct, whereas self-regarding impulses manifest in predatory habits and ceremonial modes of behavior. We apply this theoretical framework to analyze 19th-century Russian folk discourse, specifically normative beliefs about personal finance, consumption, spending, debt, housekeeping, and work. In institutionalist literature, a misconception has taken root that equates tradition with obsolete, archaic, and useless institutions and ceremonial habits. Our research proposition is that traditional ways of thinking and doing can be productive. The novelty of our analytical technique lies in our discursive and interpretative analysis of old Russian proverbs and sayings using in vivo codes extracted from Veblen’s original writings. Our findings show that Russian folk discourse resonates with Veblen’s productive line of conduct, encouraging parsimony and thrift, an unselfish tendency for posterity, the efficient use of available means, diligence, proficiency, technological mastery, and craftsmanship. Ceremonial behavior such as resource waste, overconsumption, excessive spending, indolence, conspicuousness, and inept dandyism, as well as the related attitudes of greed, envy, ostentation, self-seeking, and self-aggrandizement, are sneered at and condemned. We claim that the original institutionalist approach is viable for analyzing contemporary challenges. We propose Veblen’s ideas as a conceptual framework, especially relevant for non-Western societies, as an alternative to widespread tools for cross-cultural comparison.