Cultural Materialism and Institutional Economics

Abstract

Economics and culture have usually been kept apart in academic discussion. The resulting division is damaging to economics, since important cultural questions such as the formation of preferences, the influence of ideology and the relation between the individual and society are systematically neglected. Outside economics, however, anthropologists and literary theorists have formulated a “cultural materialism” that seeks to reintegrate culture with the material world. This paper argues that the cultural materialist perspective has strong affinities with institutional economics and can provide a framework for a more culturally sensitive approach to economic theorizing.

Keywords:

• culture
• materialism
• anthropology
• literary theory
• institutional economics
• scientific realism