Economic culture in the system of social relations. What is economic culture? Functions of economic culture

The economic culture of modern man, which is part of the general culture, continues to develop and expand its sphere of influence, which is due to the growth of the world economy. In modern times, it is important to consider the moral aspect of economic culture. After all, morality and morality act as a limiter that does not allow the economic aspect of the activities of the human community to lead to a general catastrophe (for example, environmental).

Economic culture is a culture of appropriated material, formed on the basis of mastering the economic aspect of objects in the surrounding world (identifying their economic value). During the national historical process, bearers of various ethnic and religious identities created and implemented a variety of economic methods. That is why the economic culture of the Chinese, Russians, British, Italians is so different, based on Orthodox, Confucian, Protestant and Catholic and other traditions. Different management philosophies determined the uniqueness of ethnic management. Ancient traditions, although disappearing outwardly, continue to determine the peculiarities of how people of different cultures perceive the economic process. The economic culture of each society is unique, because it has only its own identical way of economic management, monetary unit, methods of organizing, conducting and managing economic activities. Although, undoubtedly, the phenomenon of globalization, the international language of communication (English) has made it possible to internationalize and make clear to many the rules of conducting international business. The existence of such organizations as the WTO and the World Bank suggests that the economic culture is united, although it draws from different ethnic and religious traditions, mentality, ways of thinking, and is a certain indicator of the globalization of the world. Currently, thanks to the phenomenon of globalization and transnationalization, there is an integrative interaction of some economic cultures with others, which has a positive impact and is considered a factor in the growth of the economies of national states.

The economic culture of a person, society, and state evolves as it develops and the growth rate of the world economy increases. Economic culture is developing at an accelerated pace with the decreasing role of the state in the economy and the expansion of the non-state sector. Denationalization of the economy, privatization of state property, in order to increase the efficiency of its management - these external measures play a positive role in the development of the economic culture of an individual.

A person’s economic culture determines his thinking, actions, and actions in the economic sphere. Economic culture is the basis for the formation and testing of new economic ideas aimed at increasing the efficiency of this area. Positive indicators of the state of the economic culture of a person and society indicate their potential in the field of labor resources and in other economic areas of activity. The achievements of the economic culture of mankind are reflected both in material (ultra-modern buildings, corporations, etc.) and in spiritual media (modern know-how, scientific and technical intellectual product).

Increasing the indicators of the economic culture of a person, society and the state increases the degree of competitiveness of business entities in the economic sphere, improves the quality of goods and services, optimizes the price-quality ratio, increases purchasing power and the well-being of citizens. The growth of the economic culture of the population has a beneficial effect on economic indicators that reflect the expectations of citizens. The centers for the cultivation of economic culture are undoubtedly institutions of secondary, higher, additional and postgraduate professional education. The younger generation, joining society from their student days, brings new models of economic culture, which are then tested in practice, changed, and adjusted. An important issue in this sense is the economic identity of a person, society and state. To what extent the formed economic identity meets the challenges of modernity, how progressive, competitive, and strong in terms of traditions it is.

Bibliographic link

Kargapolov V.E. ECONOMIC CULTURE OF PERSON, SOCIETY AND STATE // Modern problems of science and education. – 2006. – No. 3.;
URL: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=364 (access date: 02/01/2020). We bring to your attention magazines published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural Sciences"

Economic culture of society – this is a system of values and motives for economic activity, the level and quality of economic knowledge, assessments and human actions, as well as the content of traditions and norms governing economic relations and behavior.

Economic culture presupposes:

– respectful attitude towards any form of ownership and commercial success;

– rejection of egalitarian sentiments;

– creation and development of a social environment for entrepreneurship, etc.

Economic culture of the individual– is an organic unity of consciousness and practical activity that determines the creative direction of human economic activity in the process of production, distribution and consumption.

In the structure of economic culture, the most important elements can be identified: knowledge and practical skills, economic orientation, methods of organizing activities, norms governing relationships and human behavior in it.

The basis of the economic culture of the individual is consciousness.

Economic knowledge – a set of economic ideas about the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material goods, the influence of economic life on the development of society, the ways and forms, methods that contribute to the sustainable development of society. They are an important component of economic culture. Economic knowledge forms an idea of economic relationships in the surrounding world, the patterns of development of the economic life of society. On their basis, economic thinking and practical skills of economically literate, morally sound behavior and economic personality traits that are significant in modern conditions are developed.

An important component of the economic culture of an individual is economic thinking . It allows you to understand the essence of economic phenomena and processes, operate with acquired economic concepts, and analyze specific economic situations.

The choice of standards of behavior in the economy and the effectiveness of solving economic problems largely depend on the socio-psychological qualities of participants in economic activity. Among them, an important element of economic culture is economic orientation personality, the components of which are needs, interests and motives human activity in the economic sphere. Personality orientation includes social attitude And socially significant values .

The economic culture of a person can be traced through the totality of his personal properties and qualities, which are a certain result of his participation in activities.

Based on the totality of economic qualities, one can assess the level of a person’s economic culture.

Sample assignment B1. Write down the word missing in the diagram.

Answer: Knowledge.

Economic culture is an integral and essential part of general culture. A civilized person is a person with a developed economic culture. Different scientists define its essence differently. However, all these definitions boil down to the fact that economic culture can be considered, like political culture, in the narrow and broad sense of the word.

Economic culture in the broad sense of the word is the totality of material and spiritual means of production created by society: machines, buildings, cities, roads, etc.; economic knowledge, skills, methods and forms of communication between people, economic intelligence.

Economic culture in the narrow sense of the word is a typical way of economic thinking and activity of a people, group, and individuals. With its help, people adapt to the specific socio-economic conditions of their existence. Economic culture also includes a set of economic interests, values, norms, rules, abilities and skills that are regulators of economic behavior. In other words, economic culture consists of behavioral stereotypes and economic knowledge.

Figuratively speaking, economic culture is a tool, a “language” with the help of which people can communicate with each other in the process of economic activity and behavior and, accordingly, understand the essence of economic phenomena and processes occurring in a given society and throughout the world.

Each economic era is characterized by its own level and type of economic culture of the population. At the same time, of course, different groups of the population have significantly different levels of economic culture. Thus, economists have a theoretical economic consciousness. Government officials, directors, managers, and entrepreneurs must have a culture of practical economic thinking.

And for mass consciousness in economic culture, production and consumer motivations are, first of all, important.

Modern economic culture largely coincides with the civilization and sociality of society. In it, the main role is given to taking into account the interests of individuals and groups of people. Traditional “idols” of economic development (profit, quantitative growth) are being replaced by more human goals.

Today's type of market and especially socially oriented economy is assessed from other positions - as more “concerned”, “understanding”, “reasonable”, “expedient”, “useful”, more and more in line with the interests of each person.

Now the foundations of a new economic culture are being laid: the creation in society of conditions that provide the necessary social orientations for the behavior of business entities in general and separately for the behavior of decision makers; maintaining a mobile information and communication system; improving advertising; organization of activities of economic and financial institutions (exchanges, banks, insurance companies, audit services), etc.

All this should lead to the creation of an information and computer society, in which the diversity of people's needs and differentiation of their interests is the key to the development of the entire society, a condition for its improvement. The features of such a society will be the multivariate choice of economic decisions based on satisfying the pluralism of interests, motives of various subjects of economic activity, as well as taking into account many factors and objective conditions: economic, social, economic-psychological, technical.

Economic culture performs several functions: cognitive, applied, educational, etc. New economic knowledge stimulates a critical reassessment of old knowledge and awareness of trends in the development of society for the future. As for the applied function of economic culture, the activity of subjects of economic relations largely depends not only on the level of their economic knowledge, but also on the ability to apply it in practice, that is, on the economic consciousness of people.

Socio-economic culture

The personal level consists of values, norms, motives, orientations that determine the economic activity of people at the individual level. These are internal, culturally determined motives of economic activity, subjectively perceived meanings and values, personal experiences of this activity, its assessments, and expectations associated with it. At this level, generally accepted meanings and values are subject to change depending on the life path of the individual and the situation of his activity.

These individual values, norms, stereotypes of behavior and perception are formalized and consolidated in the actual practice of production management and business management, in stable mass stereotypes of economic behavior, i.e. are embodied in economic institutions with stable legitimate specifics - a capitalist enterprise, a socialist economy, etc., which form the institutional level of economic culture. At the institutional level, the norms of economic culture are codified in various documents - in the charters and codes of organizations, in declarations of ethical principles of business, in sets of rules for employees of firms and institutions, etc. In an institutionalized culture, a system of sanctions is developed for violating norms, while at the personal level only consciousness of conformity or non-compliance with a value model, a feeling of personal moral worth or guilt are possible. The personal and institutional levels of economic culture are closely interconnected.

Specialized economic culture includes different types of high professional culture. These are local subcultures of high-level specialists (highly skilled workers, farmers, businessmen, managers, financiers, etc.). Such specialists, due to the characteristics of their professional activities, have a specific mentality, traditions, value orientations, norms of behavior, professional language, etc. This also includes mobilization forms of economic culture that arise and exist under the influence of any historical, economic, ideological circumstances and exist for a limited time or among a limited number of economic entities. A striking example: the Stakhanov movement in Russia.

The middle economic culture opposes its specialized and mobilization forms as a stable and consistent set of value orientations that are shared by the broad masses of the population over long periods of time.

The average economic culture penetrates into everyday practice and forms an ordinary (everyday) economic culture. At the ordinary level, it does not appear as a solution to highly complex special problems, but as the daily performance of duties at work or running a small business, housekeeping, family budget planning, etc. It is at the everyday level of culture that the role of customs and norms is most clearly manifested as established stereotypes of economic behavior, little realized and maintained due to habit. At the ordinary level, the traditional level of hard work and diligence, quality and intensity of work, thrift, accuracy and diligence, as well as the permitted measure of idleness, etc. are maintained.

The middle culture forms the general background, the context from which specialized and mobilization forms grow; the boundaries between them are blurred, and there is no direct relationship between the levels of their development. In Russia, the low level of development of the middle culture is one of the main problems, but before and after the revolutionary history there are many examples of high specialized professional culture and highly efficient production, bright entrepreneurial talents.

Middle culture is one of the most significant stabilizing factors in society. A high level of average economic culture smooths out fluctuations in socio-economic development and ensures a higher adaptive capacity of society.

The connection between economic culture and social consciousness. Main features of economic culture as a mechanism regulating economic behavior.

Focusing on economic culture as a social mechanism that reproduces the standards of economic behavior, allows us to define economic culture as a way of interaction between 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 involvement in economic activity), regulating participation 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 a society, social stratum, social group, embodying this state in a certain economic activity (economic behavior).

The more perfect the method of this interaction, the more effective economic activity; The more rational the economic behavior, the higher the level of economic culture. Thus, it is the way of interrelation between economic consciousness and economic thinking that acts as a natural regulator of economic behavior. An inert, passive, undeveloped economic consciousness, which has not experienced the need to change for a long time, has led to contradictory, emotional (rather than rational) economic thinking, combining external adherence to the policy of economic reforms with established social stereotypes. As a result, both economic behavior and economic activity become more emotional than rational in nature and are sometimes carried out in a state of psychological stress. Such economic thinking, in turn, is not capable of significantly enriching economic consciousness with social practice. The regulatory impact of such an imperfect method of interconnection and mutual penetration of economic consciousness and economic thinking into each other on economic behavior and economic activity as a whole is small and weakly determines the variability and flexibility of this behavior.

What are the features of economic culture as a process that ultimately regulates economic behavior: Firstly, 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 also those social norms that, emerging in society, acquire their specific meaning in the economic sphere. These are also those social norms that arise from the internal needs of the economy.
Secondly, the peculiarity of economic culture is determined by the channels through which it regulates the relationship (interaction) of economic consciousness and economic thinking. This is probably the plasticity of social stereotypes, and a minimum of patterns that complicate this connection and make it conservative, and much more. The more meaningful and active the economic consciousness, the more rational and consistent, the more selective and heuristic the economic thinking, the freer and more professional the 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, to a much greater extent than any other, focused on managing the economic behavior of people.

Consideration of economic culture as a method of interaction between economic consciousness and economic thinking presupposes judgments about the regulatory capabilities inherent in the method itself.

Economic culture, like culture in general, plays the role of social memory, but not the entire social memory of society, but only that segment of it that is associated with the history of economic relations. We can talk about the translation function. This is the transfer from the past to the present, from the present to the future of socio-economic values, norms, needs, preferences, motives of behavior. From the past to the present, norms and values are transmitted that make up the content of economic consciousness and economic thinking as a form of its manifestation and economic behavior as a way of their interaction.

We can also talk about the selection function of culture, associated with the selection from inherited values and norms of those that are necessary (useful) for solving the problems of subsequent stages of social development. Economic culture selects those values and norms that are necessary for the development of flexible economic behavior of economic development subjects. However, ideological attitudes can modify this process and even stop it by introducing ideological frameworks and standards.

We can also talk about the innovative function of economic culture, which manifests itself in the renewal of social values and norms by developing new and borrowing progressive values from other cultures. The completeness and quality of performance of these functions determines the regulatory capabilities of economic culture.

Administrative management of the economy (with the deformed action of basic socio-economic laws, in particular the law of competition), the lack of formation of inert, undeveloped economic consciousness as the ability to use laws for the purposes of social development, the inconsistency and emotionality of economic thinking, subordination to the practice of total management - all this made it difficult to fully implement the main functions of economic culture - translational (where dependence on ideology and politics, declarativeness, directiveness prevailed), selection (where cultural uniformity prevailed), innovation (which was practically reduced to nothing). The resolution of the identified contradictions largely depends on how fully the mechanism of functioning of economic culture is used.

Development of economic culture

For example, one cannot evaluate the laws of functioning of the capitalist economic system as bad or good. Meanwhile, this system is characterized by crises and upsurges, confrontation and struggle between classes, and such phenomena as unemployment and a high standard of living coexist in it. These trends include both positive and negative; their natural existence and intensity of manifestation reflect the level of economic culture at the achieved stage of development of social production. At the same time, these trends are not typical for other levels of production development.

The objective nature of the progressive development of culture does not mean that it occurs automatically. The direction of development is determined, on the one hand, by the opportunities contained in the totality of conditions that set the boundaries of economic culture, and on the other hand, by the degree and ways of realizing these opportunities by representatives of various social groups. Changes in sociocultural life are made by people, and therefore depend on their knowledge, will, and objectively established interests.

Depending on these factors within the local historical framework, recessions and stagnation are possible both in individual areas and in economic culture as a whole. To characterize the negative elements of economic culture, it is legitimate to use the term “low culture,” while “high economic culture” implies positive, progressive phenomena.

The progressive process of development of economic culture is determined, first of all, by the dialectical continuity of methods and forms of activity of generations. In general, continuity is one of the most important principles of development, for the entire history of human thought and activity is the assimilation, processing of what is valuable and the destruction of what has become obsolete in the movement from the past to the future. K. Marx noted that “not a single social formation will perish before all the productive forces have developed... and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the depths of the old society itself.”

On the other hand, the progressive development of economic culture is associated with the introduction of innovations into people's lives that meet the requirements of the maturity stage of the socio-economic structure of society. In fact, the formation of a new quality of economic culture is the formation of new productive forces and new production relations.

As already noted, progressive trends in the development of economic culture are ensured, on the one hand, by the continuity of the entire potential of achievements accumulated by previous generations, and on the other, by the search for new democratic mechanisms and their economic foundations. Ultimately, in the course of the development of culture, conditions are created that encourage a person to be actively creative in all spheres of public life and contribute to his formation as an active subject of social, economic, legal, political and other processes.

For a long time, the theory and practice of economic development in our country was dominated by a specific approach that ignored man and his individuality. While fighting for progress in the idea, we received opposite results in reality*. This problem faces our society very acutely and is discussed by scientists and practitioners in connection with the need to develop market relations, the institution of entrepreneurship, and the democratization of economic life in general.

Human civilization does not yet know a more democratic and effective regulator of the quality and quantity of products, a stimulator of economic, scientific and technological progress, than the market mechanism. Non-commodity relations are a step backward in social development. This is the basis for unequal exchange and the flourishing of unprecedented forms of exploitation.

Democracy grows not on the basis of slogans, but on the real basis of economic laws. Only through the freedom of the producer in the market is democracy realized in the economic sphere. Continuity in the development of democratic mechanisms is a normal and positive thing. There is nothing wrong with using elements of bourgeois-democratic experience. It is interesting that the motto of the Great French Revolution “liberty, equality, fraternity” was interpreted in the following way by market relations: freedom is the freedom of private individuals, freedom of competition of isolated masters, equality is the equivalence of exchange, the cost basis of purchase and sale, and fraternity is the union of “brothers” -enemies”, competing capitalists.

World experience shows that for the successful functioning of the market and the economic mechanism, a well-thought-out interconnection of legal norms, competent and effective government regulation, and a certain state of public consciousness, culture and ideology are necessary. The country is now going through a period of rapid lawmaking. This is natural, because no democratic system can exist without a legal basis, without strengthening law and order. Otherwise, it will have a flawed appearance and a low degree of resistance to anti-democratic forces. However, it is necessary to recognize the limits to the effectiveness of legislative activity. On the one hand, decisions made in legislative bodies are not always prompt and do not always correspond to more economically rational approaches. On the other hand, we can talk about the strengthening of legal nihilism. Many of the problems we face are not fully resolved through the legislative process. Serious transformations of production, organizational and managerial relations and structures are needed.

For a long time, the state of economic culture was “described” in the strict framework of the praise of socialism. However, as the main downward trend of all economic indicators was revealed (the growth rate of production and capital investment, labor productivity, budget deficit, etc.), the inoperability of the economic system of socialism became obvious. This forced us to rethink our reality in a new way and begin searching for answers to many questions. Practical steps are being taken towards the market, the democratization of property relations, and the development of entrepreneurship, which, undoubtedly, is evidence of the emergence of qualitatively new features of the economic culture of modern society.

Economic culture of society

The economic culture of an individual is an organic unity of consciousness and practical activity.

The economic culture of an individual can correspond to the economic culture of society, be ahead of it, but it can also lag behind it and hinder its development.

Structure of economic culture:

1) knowledge (a set of economic ideas about the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material goods) and practical skills;
2) economic thinking (allows you to understand the essence of economic phenomena and processes, operate with acquired economic concepts, analyze specific economic situations);
3) economic orientation (needs, interests, motives of human activity in the economic sphere);
4) ways of organizing activities;
5) norms governing relationships and human behavior in it (frugality, discipline, wastefulness, mismanagement, greed, fraud).

Not only the development of production, but also the social balance in society and its stability depend on the nature of economic relations between people (property relations, exchange of activities and distribution of goods and services). The economic interests of people act as a reflection of their economic relations. Thus, the economic interests of entrepreneurs (maximizing profits) and employees (selling their labor services at a higher price and receiving a higher salary) are determined by their place in the system of economic relations.

Economic interest is a person’s desire to obtain the benefits he needs to provide for his life and family.

The main content of the economic life of society is the interaction of people's economic interests. Hence, an important task is to develop ways to optimally combine their interests, their harmonization. History shows us two levers of influence on people in order to achieve greater productivity - violence and economic interest.

One of the ways of economic cooperation between people, the main means of fighting against human selfishness, has become the mechanism of a market economy. This mechanism has made it possible for humanity to introduce its own desire for profit into a framework that allows people to constantly cooperate with each other on mutually beneficial terms (Adam Smith on the “invisible hand” of the market).

In search of ways to harmonize the economic interests of the individual and society, various methods of influencing people’s consciousness were used: philosophical teachings, moral standards, art, religion. This led to the creation of a special element of the economy - business ethics, compliance with the norms of which facilitates the conduct of business, cooperation of people, reducing mistrust and hostility. The civilized understanding of entrepreneurial success today is associated, first of all, with moral and ethical, and then with financial aspects => “It pays to be honest.”

Economic culture of countries

The economic culture of a society is a system of values and motives for economic activity, the level and quality of economic knowledge, assessments and human actions, as well as the content of traditions and norms governing economic relations and behavior.

Today, in countries with developed market economies, serious attention is paid to the moral aspects of economic activity. Ethics is taught in most business schools, and many corporations adopt codes of ethics.

Interest in ethics stems from an understanding of the harm that unethical, dishonest business behavior causes to society. The civilized understanding of entrepreneurial success today is also associated, first of all, with moral and ethical, and then with financial aspects.

Modern economy in the 80s. entered a new stage, which was called “innovation”. Universal computerization, informatization of society, intellectualization of the economy are unthinkable without a creative personality. In this regard, freedom in the economic, intellectual, political, and cultural fields has advanced far ahead for the main subject of social relations.

Creativity begins to acquire primary importance in motivating work activity. And this is a huge army of labor: the share of those whose activities are connected mainly with creative work is approaching half of the entire labor force in industrialized countries.

A new system of the so-called “participatory economy” (“participatory system”, “participatory democracy”) is being formed. The problem of motivating a working person is posed in a new way, including the creation of conditions for the full manifestation of his creative potential and the employee’s participation in the decision-making process.

The main forms of the participation system include:

Sharing in the profits or “success of the enterprise”;
- owned;
- in management.

The formation of a developed institution of social partnership, a structure of social self-regulation of a market economy has strong prospects for the future. Wherever these basic principles are implemented, each country has its own, clearly expressed “national specificity”.

Formation of economic culture

Modern conditions of economic development of Russian society require educational institutions to train more qualified and in-demand specialists in the labor market who are distinguished by their economic culture. Based on this, the priority is “to prepare a specialist of a new generation who has broad fundamental knowledge, is proactive, creative, adaptive to the changing requirements of the labor market and technology, and able to work in a team.”

Economic culture is part of humanitarian culture and, therefore, it has all the essential, deep features characteristic of culture in general. Economic culture occupies its special place in the cultural system and performs its specific functions. This follows from its definition.

It is customary to define economic culture as the organic unity of economic knowledge, beliefs and practical creative activity of a person. It is difficult to clearly differentiate the functions of economic theory. Let us highlight the main ones: cognitive, applied, educational. The cognitive function helps to become familiar with the main provisions of economic science, ways and methods of applying its prescriptions in practice, allows us to consider economic culture as a reflection of economic life, as a means of people’s penetration into complex relationships and relationships in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, as the basis of a worldview personality. The worldview has several “layers,” with the most fundamental being economic: economic ideas, views, perceptions.

The applied or production function of economic culture is manifested in the fact that a person, using economic knowledge, is able to make competent business decisions in his practical, professional activities, and implement specific organizational skills and abilities.

Today, not a single technical decision can be made without an economic justification.

Economic culture underlies any professional activity, providing business, creative qualities, competence, professional skills, the need to work efficiently, and a sense of responsibility for the assigned work of the future specialist.

A modern specialist is required to have deep knowledge of economics, psychology, organization and stimulation of work, mastery of the latest technology, the ability to see the future, the need for continuous expansion and updating of knowledge, growth of professional level, the ability to be an educator and organizer in production, intransigence to shortcomings, stagnation, indifference , commitment to everything advanced and progressive, discipline, diligence, organization.

Let's add to this the increase in such traits as professional dedication, self-esteem and the realization of professional personal capabilities.

The educational function of economic culture is to transform a body of knowledge into beliefs, and to implement this knowledge and beliefs in people’s actions.

Beliefs in their essence represent a fusion of rational, emotional and volitional comprehension of knowledge acquisition. Knowledge turns into beliefs only if they are assimilated by the mind and heart of a person.

The connection between economic and moral culture is important. Moreover, it can be argued that the goal of economic and moral culture is common - the formation of ideas, views, principles, rules of behavior that are adequate to universal humanitarian values.

The actual purpose of economic education is to develop the personal qualities of a subject of market relations. Among them, we will highlight the ability to combine personal interests with public ones and ways to realize them. These qualities come to the fore when achieving personal success in a market economy.

Thus, the most important task of forming a moral and professional culture is the combination of economic and moral interests, because in modern conditions it makes no sense to talk about professional and moral interests in general. A market economy requires an active, autonomous, independent individual who is responsible for his own destiny. Therefore, the main task is to combine personal interests with economic ones, to combine personal needs with the possible satisfaction of the interests of other people. The affirmation of universal human values should take into account the revision of the conditions and values of the social environment and the interests of the modern engineer.

The formation of economic culture, and on its basis economic thinking, occurs in the process of education and upbringing. Through education, economic theories, ideas, views, knowledge are studied, and in the process of education, economic qualities and norms of behavior of people are formed.

The core of an individual’s economic culture is economic consciousness. The formation of a high consciousness, a sense of responsibility and discipline, the transformation of social requirements into an individual need becomes the result of a consistent educational process.

The development of economic thinking determines the specific tasks of economic education of students:

Formation of an economic worldview;
the ability to adequately assess the processes occurring in economic life and navigate it;
ability to evaluate public policy;
ability to justify technical solutions from the point of view of their economic efficiency;
the ability to competently organize your business, properly organize your life.

A fairly clear system of economic education has developed in humanitarian and technical universities. It is based on basic economic disciplines, the purpose of which is to give students knowledge of the basic economic categories and concepts in their organic connection with the market economy, the economic strategy of the state, economic growth, and global problems of the country’s entry into the world economic community.

This is achieved through various forms of training, the use of various active forms of student work in practical classes (tests, program-targeted and problematic situational tasks, business games, etc.).

The most effective ways to intensify work in practical classes are creative teaching methods: business games, program-targeted and problem-based tasks, “brainstorming”, the “If ...” method, thanks to which management decisions are simulated in different situations by playing options according to given or rules developed by the participants themselves. Situational seminars involve decision-making with analysis of the parameters of specific situations taken from practical activities. They allow students to improve their analytical skills by justifying decision-making and reasoned defense of their position in the discussion process.

A business game conducted with students involves the creation of complex production situations, the distribution of roles and functional responsibilities between participants, collective decision-making, and creative interaction of all participants in the game.

This approach allows future specialists to develop economic thinking, more consciously perceive the economic transformations of today, navigate modern economic life and make optimal decisions in any economic situation. It should be said that modern state educational standards of economic disciplines make it possible to expand the system of economic views, concepts, assessments, conclusions, and to form a new type of thinking, dictated by the formation and development of the country's market system.

It should be noted that changes in the economy certainly affect changes in the psychology of people and their moral values. Essentially, a new model of life is emerging, based on a change in values, life guidelines and ideals: individualism, selfishness, uncertainty and risk of initiative and entrepreneurship, activities that often go beyond the law, personal interest and the primacy of material values. People often commit immoral acts.

Economic culture is indeed mobile in terms of filling it with new knowledge corresponding to a new stage in the development of the economic system, but moral guidelines must remain unchanged.

In the process of teaching basic economic disciplines, it is important to emphasize that the market economy itself, in fact, cannot be immoral, since it is only an unsurpassed mechanism of production and distribution that ensures the receipt of maximum benefits for society as a whole. The basis for this is competition and free markets. Competition stimulates increased productivity, free markets help overcome shortages of goods, and both of these factors together make it possible to increase the well-being of society.

Acting within the framework of a market economy, people strive for benefit for themselves, while relying on a generally recognized ethical foundation that allows them to reconcile personal and public interests. The absence of such moral regulation leads to increased government regulation of the economy, i.e. where the market is not ethically oriented, there is a need for greater legal regulation, and vice versa.

What is certain, however, is that in conditions of economic freedom and competitive relations, the importance of ethical regulation increases.

We can highlight moral requirements in the economic field:

The highest productivity and profit should not come at the expense of environmental destruction;
competition must be carried out according to fair rules;
the benefits created by labor should be distributed in such a way as not to contribute to the emergence of declassed sections of the population;
Technology should serve man, not man technology.

State educational standards establish general requirements for the content of general and vocational education programs. They determine the compulsory disciplines that every student of any specialty must study.

Along with compulsory disciplines, the main educational programs include disciplines of the student’s choice.

Reading elective courses provides certain advantages compared to traditional classes:

Firstly, the teacher gets the opportunity to realize his potential accumulated in the course of professional and scientific work and self-education. At the same time, it is planned to maximize the scope of elective courses in all disciplines of economic departments, faculties, and special departments. This expansion of topics contributes to the optimal expansion of the professional problems of the future engineer.
Secondly, the voluntary choice by students of one or another elective course contributes to a certain spiritual community between the teacher and the student, which has a positive effect on the work of both parties.
Thirdly, the opportunity to deeply study a particular problem turns into an energetic push towards the subject being studied.

To a certain extent, this problem can be solved by such elective courses as “Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship”, “Ethics of Entrepreneurship”, “History of Economic Doctrines”, “Securities Market”, “Management”, “Marketing”, etc. Particular attention should be paid to the special course “Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship”. It is this course that allows you to study and understand fundamentally new phenomena for our country, such as business, entrepreneurship, and provide basic skills for the practical organization of your business (for example, teach how to develop a business plan - a necessary condition for the success of entrepreneurial activity).

This course should provide extensive coverage of ethical business practices. Students, and many of them can become and are already becoming entrepreneurs, must understand that the subjects of a business that generates income are, on the one hand, business people, entrepreneurs, merchants, and on the other – consumers, clients, customers. The system of relations between them is a market, in the regulation of which, as already noted, ethical requirements become of great importance. In a civilized market, a number of fairly stringent requirements are imposed on business entities. Among the moral qualities that businessmen should be guided by, the most important are honesty (includes truthfulness, integrity, fidelity to accepted obligations), nobility (dedication, fidelity to ideals, courage, generosity, etc.), frugality (economical and expedient use of funds is opposed to unjustified luxury, mismanagement).

In the absence of strict state control over economic activity, the listed moral norms become the most important regulators of business relations and competition. In countries with developed market economies and democracies, the majority of the population understands that the richer the entrepreneurs, the more of their wealth will be spent on social programs in the form of taxes. Of course, social inequality disrupts the comfortable existence of many people, but not so much as not to understand that it is better to live well off with social inequality than to live poor in equality with others.

Among the forms of economic education, obtaining a second higher (usually paid) education, which allows one to acquire the profession of a manager, marketer, or financial manager while studying at a technical university, is of great importance. This undoubtedly allows you to expand the scope of future activity, the general level of education, stimulates creative growth, creates the prerequisites for faster career advancement or more efficient running of your own business.

In addition to traditional forms of education (as our sociological surveys have shown), extracurricular work with students plays a special role in the formation of economic culture.

The vastness of the content of elective courses creates the prerequisites for developing interest clubs, scientific circles, round tables, and oral journals around them. They can become a successful continuation of classroom teaching.

The effectiveness of the formation of economic culture is achieved only in conditions of continuous education.

The continuity of economic preparation can be viewed from two sides. On the one hand, the economic aspect should be present when reading all disciplines: humanitarian, general scientific, special, which is ensured on the basis of interdisciplinary connections. On the other hand, economic education and upbringing should be carried out throughout the entire period of student education.

The implementation of these areas should obviously be presented in a unified program of economic education for the entire period of study.

1. Economic departments need to take into account the profile of the university and faculties, using material from general scientific and technical disciplines, and the achievements of the relevant industries. They should provide advisory assistance to students and graduate students in developing the economic aspects of scientific problems when writing abstracts, coursework, diplomas, competition works and projects.
2. It is important for departments of general scientific and technical disciplines to focus on strengthening the economic focus of lecture courses, seminars, practical classes, and research work.
3. Economic departments must, in turn, hold joint meetings with special departments to discuss current economic aspects of scientific problems, achievements of domestic and foreign science and technology.
4. It is important for the Academic Councils of universities to discuss at their meetings the state of economic training of students, measures for its further improvement.
5. It is desirable that methodological seminars be organized at the university in order to improve the economic culture of all teachers.

The following list of problems can be proposed:

The role of domestic scientists in the development of science and technology;
disclosure of the unity of technical, economic, social and organizational tasks in the educational process;
showing the place and role of this discipline in accelerating scientific and technological progress; the increasing social role of the technical intelligentsia, the aesthetics of technological creativity, and responsibility for preserving the environment;
moral and aesthetic aspects in teaching this discipline; formation of an active life position of students: the need for work, compliance with the rules of academic and industrial discipline, norms of behavior and moral ethics.

Continuity of economic education is also achieved in the process of individual work with students, which allows them to develop in the educational process, during other types of extracurricular work, practical skills and abilities aimed at developing hard work, efficiency, enterprise, organization, prudence, economy, and caring attitude. to state property; formation of skills in scientific organization of work, effective use of free time.

All of these areas of classroom and extracurricular work are aimed at improving the quality of education and the formation of economic culture, which undoubtedly increases professional mobility and social security of the individual in a market economy. It seems that the priority of this work should be to cultivate the habit of intellectual activity in the presence of pluralism of opinions, of critical evaluation of certain ideas, concepts and theories.

In the organization of economic education, the role of the teacher of economic disciplines and his ability to effectively organize the educational process is great. During lectures, it is important to attract students’ attention to key problems of economic development. In seminar classes, it is necessary that all students are involved in the learning process.

As practitioners have shown, the dialogue form of teaching has an effect. A free exchange of opinions and an atmosphere of ease greatly accelerates students’ familiarization with economic knowledge and stimulates the formation of stable beliefs. It is useful to organize discussions in groups on problematic economic issues.

Thus, a university teacher has at his disposal a large selection of means and methods of influencing students in order to form their economic culture.

The personality of the teacher plays a huge role in education. If a teacher is a socially active, principled and civic-minded person, if his judgments are distinguished by courage and novelty, if he himself is a bearer of economic culture, then it is easier for students communicating with him to choose their life position and self-realization.

Levels of economic culture

The structural analysis of economic culture is dictated by the very structure of economic activity, the successive succession of phases of social reproduction: production itself, exchange, distribution and consumption. Therefore, it is legitimate to talk about a culture of production, a culture of exchange, a culture of distribution and a culture of consumption. In the structure of economic culture, it is necessary to highlight the main structure-forming factor. Such a factor is human labor activity. It is characteristic of the entire variety of forms, types of material and spiritual production. Due to its importance for maintaining basic life processes, labor is highlighted as the basis for the development of other elements and components of economic culture. Each specific level of economic labor culture characterizes the relationship of man to man, man to nature (it was the awareness of this relationship that meant the emergence of economic culture), and the individual to his own working abilities.

Modern psychological science identifies several levels of people’s creative abilities:

The first level is productive-reproductive creative ability, when in the process of labor it is only repeated, copied and, only as an exception, by chance, something new is created.
The second level is generative creative ability, the result of which will be, if not a completely new work, then at least an original new variation.
The third level is constructive-innovative activity, the essence of which is the natural emergence of something new. This level of ability in production is manifested in the work of inventors and innovators.

Thus, any work activity is associated with the disclosure of the creative abilities of the manufacturer, but the degree of development of creative moments in the labor process is different. The more creative the work, the richer the cultural activity of a person, the higher the level of work culture. The latter, ultimately, is the basis for achieving a higher level of economic culture as a whole. It should be noted that labor activity in any society - primitive or modern - is collective, embodied in joint production. And this, in turn, finds expression in the fact that, along with work culture, it is necessary to consider production culture as an integral system.

Work culture includes skills in using tools of labor, conscious management of the process of creating material and spiritual wealth, free use of one’s abilities, and the use of scientific and technological achievements in work activities. The production culture consists of the following main elements. Firstly, it is a culture of working conditions, which has a complex of components of an economic, scientific, technical, organizational, social and legal nature. Secondly, the culture of the labor process, which finds expression rather in the activities of an individual employee. Thirdly, the production culture, which is determined by the socio-psychological climate in the production team. Fourthly, management culture, which organically combines the science and art of management, reveals the creative potential and realizes the initiative and entrepreneurship of each participant in the production process, is of particular importance in modern production.

There is a general tendency to increase the economic cultural level. This is expressed in the use of the latest technology and technological processes, advanced techniques and forms of labor organization, the introduction of progressive forms of management and planning, development, science, knowledge in improving the education of workers.

However, a logical question arises: is it legitimate to consider economic culture as an exclusively positive phenomenon, is it possible to imagine the path of its development as a straight line on the axis of progress, directed upward, without deviations and zigzags?

In our everyday understanding, “culture” is associated with a certain stereotype: cultural means progressive, positive, bearer of good. From a scientific standpoint, such assessments are insufficient and not always correct. If we recognize culture as an integral system, then it becomes necessary to consider it as a dialectically contradictory formation, which is characterized by positive and negative, humane and inhumane properties and forms of manifestation.

Fundamentals of economic culture

The growing role of the sphere of culture and art for the development of modern society is associated with the rapidly growing spiritual and aesthetic needs of man, its increasing impact on the quality of human capital and economic growth. The nature and scale of this impact greatly exceeds the quantitative expression of the industry in the structure of gross domestic product.

The status of a key element of the social system is given to culture by two of its characteristics. Firstly, it accumulates the centuries-old experience of the people: the overwhelming majority of the values by which the country lives were created in the past, sometimes distant, and they largely determine its further development. Secondly, it is culture that ultimately shapes the person himself and contributes to the formation of an open and legal society and civil harmony.

Culture itself has three unique resources - the creative potential of its creators, accumulated over centuries and developed from generation to generation; cultural heritage, which is the result of centuries-old work of creators; cultural traditions, materialized in the population’s interest in cultural values. These are the most important resources of society, which, however, can be lost during the life of two or three generations if the necessary conditions for the existence and development of culture are not provided. The social effect of cultural activities delayed over time and the often lack of immediate results oblige society to treat these truly strategic resources with particular diligence, protecting the accumulated cultural potential as one of the highest values of the country.

There are several levels of the role (contribution) of culture and art in the development of modern society:

A) Direct contribution of the cultural sector to the economy: the cultural and art sector creates specific jobs, has its own autonomous markets with significant investment potential, and makes a direct contribution to the development of the economy of a particular region; culture and art serve as the main source of development of education, media, tourism, and the entertainment industry.
b) Direct social influence: culture and art provide socially significant activities, organization of recreation, positively influence the consciousness of people, relationships between them, contribute to the spiritual development of the individual and society as a whole, and the disclosure of their creative potential; in elite, mass cultures, and the underground, a variety of possible samples and models of social behavior are offered.
c) Indirect economic impact: culture and art are socially beneficial, since they accumulate and transmit certain basic values of society, images, which, among other things, are used in commercial and non-commercial activities; such modern business and management technologies as advertising, public relations, work with personnel, corporate reengineering, the formation of corporate culture and corporate identity, are impossible without the use of traditional forms of socio-cultural activity, without cooperation with institutions and organizations in the cultural sphere; mutually beneficial, mutually stimulating cooperation between the business world and the cultural sphere, commercial and non-commercial, but socially significant spheres, their social partnership turns out to be the most important mechanism and tool for the formation of a civil society capable of self-development; culture and art add value to the environment, for example by decorating goods, premises, buildings, being included in the design of the city, the material environment of production and recreation.
d) Indirect social influence: culture and art enrich the social environment, providing it with various attractive events; they act as a source of civilizational influence and social organization, stimulate creativity, increasing society’s ability to perceive and search for something new, to overcome outdated stereotypes of consciousness and behavior; culture and art - the collective memory of society, an inexhaustible source of cultural and historical heritage and creative ideas for future generations; they improve and diversify life, increase the degree of socialization of the individual, helping to prevent and reduce deviant and antisocial behavior; the great role of culture and art in the education and upbringing of the younger generation, influencing the intellectual and emotional development of children; The role of culture and art in social communication is increasing, including with the use of modern technologies.

Taking into account all the above connections, we can say that culture is a system-forming factor in the consolidation and development of society on a national and regional scale.

In the economic analysis of cultural activity, the most important theoretical and starting point is the question of classifying labor in the field of culture as part of the economic sphere and identifying the corresponding branch of the national economy. From an economic point of view, this new branch of social labor can be characterized as follows: Culture is a special branch, the product of which satisfies a special group of human needs (cultural needs). Its difference from other industries (which directly or indirectly can also contribute to the satisfaction of cultural needs) is that certain subsystems of cultural needs are satisfied in a special way, which is the main criterion for identifying a specific labor process in the cultural industry. Activities in the field of culture are aimed at the comprehensive (intellectual, aesthetic, moral, etc.) education of a person, for which special means are used, the perception of which is carried out voluntarily, taking into account the interests of the individual (in his free time) and, as a rule, does not have a systematic character (for example, a person may not go to the theater at all, much less he is not obliged to attend it regularly). The next distinguishing feature by which one can determine whether a particular type of human activity belongs to a branch of culture is the decision of the question of whether it is carried out by a person for himself or for other people. Cultural activity formed into an independent industry precisely because it was included on a large scale in the process of spending social labor and became a permanent element in the system of social division of labor. The development of culture based only on the laws of the market, an exclusively commercial approach to business in this specific and very subtle branch of the country’s national economic complex does not fully correspond to the social nature of society. In addition, economic laws operate specifically in the cultural sphere (which manifests itself, for example, in the discrepancy between supply and demand, inelasticity of effective demand, pricing features, etc.), and economic relations have a number of features and differences from relations in the sphere of material production. The specificity of the cultural sector also lies in the fundamental uniqueness of the interaction between producers and consumers of socio-cultural services.

The consumer makes his own contribution to the achievement of final results and satisfaction of needs. Thus, introducing a person to the benefits of culture, as a rule, cannot be achieved if the employee’s efforts do not find active support from those to whom the services are provided. At the same time, services often deeply affect the consumer’s personality, changing its important features.

The direct impact on the consumer, while determining the specifics of the cultural sector, at the same time puts forward special requirements for the economic mechanism and methods for realizing economic interests. The distinctive features of the cultural sphere as an object of management are also expressed in the characteristics of the resource potential, processes and results of functioning. The area under consideration is characterized by high labor intensity of services with relatively low capital and material intensity. Thus, material costs, including depreciation in theaters are 13.3%, in circuses - 17.4%, in concert organizations - 3.5%, in parks - 20.3% and at the same time in industry - 65.4 %, construction - 55.6%. As for natural resources, in relation to specific processes of providing cultural services, these factors act, as a rule, only as general conditions of human life. The personnel composition of the cultural sector is also specific. In terms of the level of training of workers, this area is far ahead of other sectors of the national economy. Among workers in culture and art, 36.0% of the total number of employees have higher education (in industry - 19.0%, in housing and communal services and consumer services - 12.6%).

There is also reason to talk about the qualitative uniqueness of the personnel structure of the industry, in which the functions of direct influence on people are most clearly expressed. Here, it is the specialist who most often makes a decisive contribution to the provision of the service, and lower-skilled personnel are assigned a mainly auxiliary role. In material production and public services industries, on the contrary, the direct creation of products is primarily the function of workers, while specialists mainly provide technical and organizational support for production processes.

It should also be noted that the area under consideration is developing under the strong influence of the modern scientific and technological revolution. New technology expands creative possibilities: electronic synthesizers are used in musical art, artists and sculptors use new materials and processing means, the theater absorbs new artistic means characteristic of the film industry, video and audio business. The technical equipment of cultural and art institutions is rising to a new level, and their organizational structure is changing. The most important trend is the universalization of cultural institutions: modern libraries, museums, and cinemas are, as a rule, multifunctional complexes. Libraries host lectures and conferences, museums have lecture halls, video rooms, kiosks, shops and even restaurants. A typical modern cinema is a multiplex, consisting of several halls with comfortable seating and seating, equipped with the latest audiovisual equipment, with first-class service and restaurants. This is one of the reasons for the strengthening in recent years of the competitive positions of cinema, previously won by television and video. Both in the scientific literature and in public practice, there are still different approaches to the issue of culture as a special branch of the national economy. In the past, the fact that culture is a branch of the national economy was often rejected or questioned, since only those types of activities that were associated with the creation of material use values were considered economic. However, scientists gradually came to a consensus: culture is an organic component of the national economy and, moreover, it should be considered as one of the branches of the national economy.

Determining the boundaries of the socio-cultural sphere and the cultural sector as its component is based on the use of various classifications. Most often, classifications are found based on the identification of types of activities consistent with types and genres of art, often in combination with the results (products) of cultural activity.

Culture of economic relations

The culture of economic relations is a set of values, meanings, moral norms, customs through which the economic behavior of people is regulated and directed.

Economic culture cannot be considered as a separate, independent part of culture, since it represents a projection of culture in its broad sense onto the sphere of socio-economic relations.

In the most general form, economic culture can be defined as a set of social norms and values that are a regulator of economic behavior and serve as the social memory of economic development, facilitating (or hindering) the transmission, selection and updating of values, norms and needs that function in the economic sphere and guide it. subjects other forms of economic activity.

The economics of culture studies culture in a sectoral dimension as a branch of the national economy in which certain resources are expended, including financial ones, and a certain product is produced.

In the 70s it was believed that there are no economic relations in culture, because no material wealth is created in culture. Only a few believed that there is, because culture consumes what is created by material production - buildings, light, electricity, water supply, financing.

In culture, economic relations develop regarding the creation, distribution and consumption of cultural goods and the development of cultural values.

Cultural values - moral and aesthetic ideals, norms and patterns of behavior, languages, dialects and dialects, national traditions and customs, historical toponyms (place names), folklore, arts and crafts, works of culture and art, results and methods of scientific research into cultural activities structures, objects and technologies of historical and cultural significance, historically and culturally unique territories and objects.

Cultural goods are conditions and services provided by organizations and individuals for citizens to satisfy their cultural needs.

There is a specific stage of PRESERVATION in culture. This is associated with the accumulation of cultural potential or with the concept of cultural heritage.

Cultural heritage – immovable monuments of culture, history and architecture; movable monuments of culture and art - collections of libraries and museums; international convention for the protection of intangible cultural heritage - folklore, professional art, etc., masterpieces of Russian folk art.

Material goods are destroyed in the process of consumption!! Many cultural values only increase their value in the process.

Economic culture of Russia

Institutional aspects of economic culture are values and norms that characterize not people, but economic activity - as a set of social institutions. Institutions have had and are having a major impact on economic culture, contributing to the improvement and development of economic culture. One of the important institutions that has a direct impact on economic culture both in the past and at present is labor. In this regard, I will refer to the opinion of S.N. Bulgakov, who dedicated his 1911 doctoral dissertation “Philosophy of Economics” to the desire to understand the world as an object of labor and economic influence. The point is that Russian scientific literature did not pay attention to labor as a social principle, did not take into account its role in the economic culture and existence of Russia, in the formation of the way of existence of the individual, society and state.

S.N. Bulgakov considered human labor as a single whole, which is human history. There is a discrepancy between needs and the means to satisfy them; the consequence of this was free competition between people, in which not only the more adapted, but too often the more unscrupulous elements win. Industrial morality deteriorated when some people were seduced by the success of rivals who exploited economic conditions favorable to them. And to preserve and successfully extract the wealth of nature, the existence of a moral system in the historical process is necessary: progress in this direction, as well as the number of gifted and enterprising people, ensured the historical advantages of the tribe, people, and country. In collective work, the art of hard work and ingenuity were honed as ways to modernize all labor. Among human needs and wants, not the least important were the needs of mutual assistance, support, communication, and love. Hopes for society were associated with faith in the nobility of man: by nature he is a creature inclined to justice, virtue, and pity.

These moral qualities did not exclude others: foresight, ingenuity, perseverance, prudence, and the desire for order. Most thinkers in Europe and Russia assessed and called the desire to establish material equality between people impossible for the reason that the most ingenious systems based on material equality and common property will fail due to differences in individual human nature. The differences shown did not erase the principles of morality in the economic culture of peoples that had existed for many millennia, but only pointed out, for example, personal interest or the interest of small groups (family, monastic brotherhood, community) as the main spring of economic activity. The common good has been a vague and uncertain concept since ancient times, while the private good, on the contrary, is always clear and definite. That is why the theory, based on the private interests of the individual and family, has received universal approval and widespread practical application. We are talking about Adam Smith (1723-1790), he promulgated the “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” which he concluded with the following conclusion: every person, by his natural essence, cares first of all about himself, since it is easier for him to care about himself than for anyone else. to another, then this responsibility is naturally assigned to him. There are four main personal interests of people: the interest of love, the interest of money, the interest of ambition, and the interest of pride or vanity. He considered labor to be a meter for comparing the value of various goods, and called the right of each person to his own labor the most sacred and inviolable property, for labor is the fundamental basis of all other property.

A. Smith foresaw a society in which there would be perfect freedom and where everyone would be absolutely free to choose an occupation that he considers suitable, and to change it when he sees fit. He was convinced that each person's own interest would encourage him to seek benefits for himself and avoid unprofitable activities. A. Smith recognized reason, conscience and a sense of civic duty as judges and evaluators of human behavior; he considered these qualities to be the basis of moral behavior, most characteristic of human nature and expedient not only for the individual, but also for society. He also argued that a person should have complete freedom to make decisions. Restriction of the freedom of an individual is permissible only if it is required to ensure the freedom of others. He was the first to explore both sides of human nature and brought into the philosophy of world economy the belief in the natural course of things, that during the transition from the formal subordination of labor to capital to actual subordination, the transformation of the spiritual parts of production will play a significant role. The manifestation of dualism is characteristic in the assessment of human nature and for Karl Marx (1818-1883). He wrote that, in the process of producing public goods, a person changes the nature surrounding him. K. Marx considered the combination of personal interest and public interest possible on the basis of the development in work of human solidarity, camaraderie, and awareness of common interests.

Economic culture can bring a person closer to the ideal of economic life and can provide more and more new means to satisfy human needs, while at the same time improving the means of satisfying needs. The economic culture of the people that interests us reflects a certain stage in the formation of human consciousness. Using the concept of economic culture makes it possible to link value definitions into a single whole as an expression of market values and as a reflection of religious, moral and aesthetic norms of people’s creative activity.

But the main problem of economic culture in the past and present has been and remains the problem of the freedom of collaborating individuals in the process of their life-giving and productive influence on the external environment, during which and thanks to which a person improves his own nature and fulfills his destiny.

Culture of economic organization

The key concept for defining organizational culture is the human environment.

Culture is a product of interaction:

The firm as a formal organization that has income maximization as its objective function;
- individuals, members of the organization, with a whole range of individual interests and needs;
- the team as a whole and individual social groups formed within the organization;
- the external environment of the company, which imposes its requirements on the ways of its life.

All interests, needs, target functions that exist in the space of an economic organization, “sifting” through the “sieve” of the human environment, form the phenomenon of organizational culture, that is, a separate economic phenomenon becomes a fact of culture if it receives recognition from the human environment and the company’s employees.

The properties of organizational culture are based on the following essential features: universality, informality, stability.

The universality of organizational culture is expressed in the fact that it covers all types of actions carried out in the organization.

The concept of universality has a double meaning. On the one hand, organizational culture is the form in which economic acts are clothed. For example, organizational culture may determine how strategic issues are developed, or how new employees are hired, or how different parts of the organization communicate. On the other hand, culture is not just the shell of an organization’s life, but also its meaning, an element that determines the content of economic acts. Culture itself becomes one of the strategic goals of the company. A certain hiring procedure may be subordinated to the need to best adapt new employees to the existing culture of the organization. The universality, uncertainty and blurred boundaries of organizational culture allow some specialists to identify it with the concept of “organizational climate”.

The informality of organizational culture is determined by the fact that its functioning is practically not connected with the official rules of organizational life established by order. Organizational culture operates, as it were, in parallel with the formal economic mechanism of the organization, although both – formal and informal – systems of coordination of actions are represented by the same subjects. A distinctive feature of organizational culture compared to a formal mechanism is the predominant use of oral, speech forms of communication, rather than written documentation and instructions, as is customary in a formal system.

The importance of informal contacts is determined by the fact that more than 90 percent of business decisions in modern corporations are made not in a formal setting - at meetings, gatherings, etc., but during informal meetings, outside specially designated places.

Organizational culture cannot be identified with any informal contacts in the organization. Organizational culture includes only those informal contacts that correspond to the values accepted within the culture. Thus, conversations on personal topics conducted by employees of an organization during working hours may conflict with the company’s accepted value of productivity and therefore not fit into the parameters of this culture.

The informality of organizational culture is the reason that the parameters and results of the impact of culture are almost impossible to measure using quantitative indicators. They can only be expressed in the qualitative term “better – worse”.

The stability of organizational culture is associated with such a general property of culture as the traditional nature of its norms and institutions. The formation of any organizational culture requires long-term efforts on the part of managers and entrepreneurs. However, once formed, cultural values and methods of their implementation acquire the character of traditions and remain stable over several generations of workers in the organization. Many strong organizational cultures inherit values introduced by company leaders and founders many decades ago. Thus, the foundations of modern IBM culture were laid in the first decades of the 20th century. by its founding father T. J. Watson. The history of corporate culture knows many similar examples.

Organizational culture is most fully characterized by its following functions.

Security function of culture. Culture serves as a kind of barrier to the penetration of undesirable tendencies and negative values characteristic of the external environment. Thus, it neutralizes the effects of negative external factors. Organizational culture, as an element of the “visible hand” and a consciously formed phenomenon, clearly defines the boundaries within which the price mechanism ceases and uncertainty gives way to purposeful and systematic actions of entrepreneurs and managers. It includes a specific value system, a special climate and ways of interaction between organizational participants and thereby creates a unique image of the company, which allows it to be distinguished from other companies, economic entities and from the external environment as a whole.

This function of culture is especially relevant for modern Russian economic organizations, since in the external environment of Russian business:

There are no necessary conditions that regulate economic life, both formal (economic legislation) and informal, which are determined by the development of a general economic culture;
- there is a high aggressiveness of the external environment of a Russian company, expressed, in particular, in the criminalization of economic life in Russia and severe pressure on companies and their managers from criminal elements;
- Russian firms operate in conditions of instability and uncertainty in the political environment;
- Russian companies are still a relatively alien element in the structure of society, which basically has not adapted to the changing conditions of existence and has not accepted the emerging value system of the Russian private enterprise economy.

These factors necessitate the special attention of managers of Russian companies to the problems of creating an organizational culture that can limit the space of uncertainty and change the balance of power in favor of stability and sustainability.

Integrating function. By instilling a certain system of values that synthesizes the interests of all levels of the organization, organizational culture creates a sense of identity among individuals and groups - its participants.

This allows each subject of intra-company life:

Better understand the goals of the organization;
- acquire the most favorable impression of the company in which he works;
- feel like part of a single system and determine your responsibility to it.

Regulatory function. Organizational culture includes informal, unwritten rules that indicate how people should behave at work. These rules determine the usual methods of action in the organization: the sequence of work, the nature of work contacts, forms of information exchange, etc. In this way, the unambiguity and orderliness of the main economic acts are established.

Integrating and regulating functions contribute to increased productivity in the organization because:

A sense of identity and perception of the organization's values can increase the determination and persistence of organizational members in carrying out their tasks;
- the presence of informal rules that streamline organizational activities and eliminate inconsistency and multidirectional actions, creates time savings in every business situation.

Substitute function, or function of a substitute for formal relations. A strong organizational culture, capable of effectively replacing formal, official mechanisms, allows the company not to resort to excessive complication of the formal structure and an increase in the flow of official information and orders. Thus, there is a saving on management costs in the organization. As an objection to this thesis, an argument can be made that the creation and management of culture also requires certain costs. However, culture, in contrast to the formal mechanism, is for the most part a self-reproducing phenomenon - the language of culture, cultural communications, and habitual forms of behavior within the cultural environment are self-reproducing. The personal qualities and energy potential of organizational culture leaders are not related to formal regulation. Therefore, many elements of culture do not require special efforts and costs for their reproduction.

When analyzing the replacement function, the question arises: does not this process lead to the gradual displacement and erosion of the formal structure of the organization, which, in essence, means the destruction of the formal organization as such. Such a danger does not exist in a developed culture, since the essence of a strong organizational culture lies precisely in the organic combination of the values of a formal organization with other guidelines for people’s activities. On the contrary, neglecting culture and ignoring informal human relationships does not mean their destruction. In this case, there is a high probability that close-knit informal groups with clearly defined leaders, “webs” of informal contacts, will begin to oppose the formal organization, weaken and destroy it.

Adaptive function. The presence of an organizational culture facilitates the mutual adaptation of employees to the organization and the organization to the employee. Organizational culture allows new employees to most effectively “fit” into the economic system and the way of human interactions characteristic of a given organization. Adaptation is carried out through a set of measures called socialization. In turn, the opposite process is possible - individualization, when a company organizes its activities in such a way as to make maximum use of the individual’s personal potential and capabilities to solve their own problems.

For Russian companies, where personnel policy issues are very acute, the adaptation function is extremely relevant.

Educational and developmental function. Culture is always associated with an educational and educational effect. Firms are like large families, so managers must take care of the training and education of their employees. The result of such efforts is an increase in “human capital,” that is, an increase in the knowledge and skills of workers that the company can use to achieve its goals. In this way, the organization expands the quantity and quality of economic resources at its disposal.

Quality management function. Since culture is ultimately embodied in the results of a company's economic activities - economic benefits, organizational culture, by producing a more attentive and serious attitude to work, helps improve the quality of goods and services offered by an economic organization. In other words, the quality of the work and the working environment translates into the quality of the product.

Another group of functions is determined by the need for the company to adapt to its external environment. These include the following functions.

Customer orientation function. Taking into account the goals, requests, and interests of consumers, reflected in the elements of culture and, above all, in the company’s value system, helps to establish stronger and more consistent relationships between the company and its customers and clients. Many modern companies highlight customer care as the most significant and widely declared value.

Function of regulating partnership relations. Organizational culture develops rules for relationships with partners that imply not legal, but moral responsibility to them. In this sense, organizational culture develops and complements the norms and rules of behavior (elements of the “invisible hand”) developed within the framework of the economic culture of the market order.

The function of adapting an economic organization to the needs of society. The action of this function increases the efficiency of the external environment and creates the most favorable external conditions for the company’s activities. Its effect, in contrast to the previous function, most likely lies not in increasing the productivity of an economic organization, but in eliminating barriers, obstacles, and neutralizing the impacts associated with a company violating or ignoring the rules of the social game. That is, here the benefit of the company lies not in obtaining economic “pluses” - gains, but in eliminating economic “cons” - losses.

The external environment can be unfavorable for a company not only because it is uncertain and chaotic, but also because it contains norms and values that do not coincide with internal company goals - therefore, the company must not only protect itself from the environment, but and adapt to it.

The second point, determined by the implementation of the function of adaptation to the external environment, has, paradoxically, an internal orientation. It is associated with reconciliation and harmonization of the internal values of the organization’s employees. An individual worker, on the one hand, is a participant in an economic organization and shares its specific corporate interests. On the other hand, he is a representative of a certain society, a bearer of public values. The greater the discrepancy and opposition between elements from two value groups, the higher the likelihood of internal conflict in the employee, which leads to a loss of work orientation and a decrease in labor productivity. Therefore, the function of organizational culture is to find the most consistent combination of corporate values and values of the external environment.

Factors of economic culture

The issues of transformation of the economic system that the Russian economy faced during the formation of market reforms are largely associated with issues of transformation of the economic culture itself. Apparently, at present, no one should prove that market economic reforms in our country have not brought any tangible positive results. And in this regard, it should be said directly that the mechanisms of transition to a market economy are not clearly determined by stabilization and liberalization. In fact, it is necessary to talk about transformations of the entire economy, starting with technology and ending with the consideration of the corresponding indices of living standards. In this case, it seems quite natural that economic culture is studied within the framework of certain instrumental skills and knowledge. Meanwhile, the problem seems to be that the adoption of the priority of the instrumental aspect artificially leaves aside the analysis of the value aspect, which is not properly reflected in modern research. However, real life shows something different, and first of all, drawing attention to the fact that in order to acquire and qualitatively use information and determine the factors characterizing the motivation and behavior of a person in the economic sphere, characterized by a high role of innovation, it is necessary to apply a diverse range of scientific approaches, including including axiological, sociological, cultural, etc.

This is most obvious in countries where there is an active transformation of the economy and associated transformations in the social sphere. As a rule, the economic culture of countries whose market economies have developed over a long period of evolution quickly adapts to new economic conditions. Societies prone to authoritarianism are often characterized by a lack of sufficient adaptive potential, which limits the possibility of changing economic and political regimes in accordance with the priorities of the functioning of market mechanisms. Apparently it should be emphasized that the lack of adaptive potential of economic culture must be compensated, and we can talk about direct investment in economic culture. By the way, this fully corresponds to the dialogue of cultures emerging in various areas of general cultural and socio-economic sciences.

Can economic culture be considered as some kind of structural and functional unity? Russian economic life provides us with a fairly wide field of analysis in this direction, clearly demonstrating the existence of a discrepancy between economic theory and economic practice. However, one cannot help but pay attention to the fact that mass consciousness forms their common basis in the sense that representatives of the practical and theoretical levels of economic culture act as carriers of mass consciousness precisely at the level of the everyday world. However, there is another situation when mass consciousness is actually influenced by economic culture associated with the traditions of its development in other countries and the setting of priorities that correspond to the cultural traditions of other peoples. This in Russian history was associated, for example, with the reforms of Peter I, P.A. Stolypin, market transformations of the post-Soviet period, etc. We can say that the confrontation of cultures in the Russian tradition formed the phenomenon of double morality in the mass consciousness. That is, the real picture was determined by the fact that the theoretical economic culture laid mainly officially approved values in the mass consciousness, and the economic culture of practical economic agents was mainly correlated with the positive results of economic behavior, as well as, to some extent, with the traditional attitudes that had developed and transmitted at the level of interpersonal relationships.

In this regard, attention should be paid to the fact that there are basic historical traditions that determined the ways of shaping the features of the development of domestic economic culture. Here, first of all, the community-state tradition stands out. It is also noteworthy that for thousands of years in Russia there was neither a rule of law nor a civil society. On the other hand, there was a combination of the country's characteristics with a feudal economy and a very exaggerated role of the state. It is impossible not to note the communal habit of striving to conduct economic activity not individually, but as part of a certain group. At the same time, it was very typical to constantly turn to state authorities when various kinds of economic and social problems arose.

Another tradition can be defined as communist. At the same time, in Russian literature it is customary to attribute European characteristics to it, although in this regard one can talk about the peculiarities of Russian communism. Another thing is that it was the Marxist tradition that gave these features of national character the appearance of a certain set of values. It was the communist tradition in the mass consciousness that was largely associated with industrial and social positive changes and, accordingly, the installation of a constant increase in well-being as the norm of life in a communist society. However, the conflict between high social demands and the capabilities of an economic system, for example a planned one, inevitably aggravated the contradictions of this system, and in the case of socialist development, became one of the determining factors of its collapse.

And finally, we can highlight the market tradition. Unfortunately, in the domestic economic culture it is not represented as clearly as, for example, in the Western one. In recent decades, it has been predominantly associated with the shadow economy. It was the shadow economy that primarily ensured the functioning of basic economic structures, such as enterprises and private households. But at the same time, as Russian reality shows, the shadow economy has formed a very distorted market and an economic culture corresponding to it. The instrumental elements of the culture of the shadow market are rationalism, the ability to produce and use economic information, and along with this, the identification of personal income and enterprise income, a focus on maximizing income with the active use of illegal methods of doing business in the absence of a sufficient legal basis. The value aspects of the shadow culture were largely focused on personal success, but its stable characteristics include a kind of spontaneous collectivism, the desire to join a certain community, fear of independent actions, and egalitarian stereotypes.

It is quite natural that the indicated features of the Russian tradition in the formation of economic culture have a negative impact on the development of the economic system as a whole and at the present stage of its development. The mass consciousness itself, based on these traditions, reacts to changes occurring in society in an unpredictable way, perceiving them through the prism of existing stereotypes. Effective reproduction of economic culture at various levels requires a search for effective methods that would allow for adequate changes in the system of economic culture, taking into account its changes within the framework of the priorities of an innovative culture.

Such changes must, of course, be ensured institutionally. Without claiming originality, it should still be emphasized that this requires the determination of legislative and regulatory limits of economic activity that can guarantee the whole range of appropriate changes in the behavior of economic entities. In addition, improvement of the information dissemination system is required, both at the institutional and technological levels. And, of course, taking into account the already established economic culture, it is necessary to improve the activities of economic and financial institutions.

However, speaking about economic culture, it is necessary to take into account that it is formed and transmitted at various levels of the social structure of society. The most effective way of transforming economic culture has a vector from, so to speak, higher levels to lower ones. In fact, it is assumed that, first of all, changes affect the highest level of economic culture, at which theorists and researchers are located. Naturally, this social stratum is easier to modify, but it should be noted that various kinds of conservative approaches are also formed in this environment, and prevailing scientific stereotypes can have a restraining effect on the progressive development of economic culture. Here it is necessary to change the very scientific vision of economic processes based on the global tradition, taking into account national characteristics.

If we talk about changes in mass culture, then it is necessary to determine that this is the most inertial part of the entire system. If in the economic culture of the highest level the priority part is made up of instrumental skills and knowledge, then in relation to mass economic culture we should talk about the greater importance of traditional values and attitudes. Here it is necessary to take into account such a psychological factor as the great inertia of mass consciousness. The effect of this factor is actually due to the fact that the values that have developed over the life of several generations can hardly be supplanted with the help of any beliefs. That is, we are talking about the fact that a person must become convinced in practice of the necessity and acceptability of changing his views and values. On the other hand, the population of our country is initially quite skeptical about any massive intellectual influence. In fact, the widespread propaganda of a new system of values, built on the ideals of a market economy, is not supported by specific positive results that would make it possible to identify directions for economic stabilization in the country, which is reflected in the spread of the corresponding features of the perception of economic life, manifested in the economic behavior of the vast majority of the country's residents. When it comes to the need to modernize economic culture in the mass consciousness, issues related, on the one hand, to changing society’s perception of the results of economic activity, and on the other, to the formation of adequate economic thinking, focused on market values, but taking into account national traditions, become relevant. In this regard, it is of interest to analyze the relationship between the rational and the national in economic culture.

Elements of economic culture

The basis of the economic culture of the individual is consciousness. Economic knowledge is a set of economic ideas about the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material goods, the influence of economic life on the development of society, the ways and forms, methods that contribute to the sustainable development of society. They are an important component of economic culture. Economic knowledge forms an idea of economic relationships in the surrounding world, the patterns of development of the economic life of society. On their basis, economic thinking and practical skills of economically literate, morally sound behavior and economic personality traits that are significant in modern conditions are developed.

Economic thinking is an important component of an individual’s economic culture. It allows you to understand the essence of economic phenomena and processes, operate with acquired economic concepts, and analyze specific economic situations.

The choice of standards of behavior in the economy and the effectiveness of solving economic problems largely depend on the socio-psychological qualities of participants in economic activity. Among them, an important element of economic culture is the economic orientation of the individual, the components of which are the interests, needs and motives of human activity in the economic sphere. Personality orientation includes social attitudes and socially significant values.

The economic culture of a person can be traced through the totality of his personal properties and qualities, which are a certain result of his participation in activities.

Based on the totality of all economic qualities, one can assess the level of economic culture of a particular person. The economic culture of a society is a system of values and motives for economic activity, the level and quality of economic knowledge, assessments and human actions, as well as the content of traditions and norms governing economic relations and behavior.

Economic culture presupposes respect for any form of ownership and commercial success; creation and development of a social environment for entrepreneurship; rejection of egalitarian sentiments, etc.

The economic culture of a person is an organic unity of consciousness and practical activity that determines the creative direction of a person’s economic activity in the process of production, distribution and consumption.

National economic culture

In a broad sense, national economic culture means the totality of cultural achievements inherent in a given nation, regardless of whether the various elements of this national heritage have a specific national coloring or are nationally neutral.

In this sense, national culture is the entire historical totality of material, scientific, philosophical, ethnic, aesthetic and other values created by a given nation directly, as well as values received by it in the process of interaction with other nations and actively used in its progress in all spheres of society life. The culture of a nation testifies to the role and degree of participation of a nation in global socio-economic processes: industrial progress, political organization of society, the development of science, education, culture, information systems, etc. The culture of a nation reveals the specifics of a nation’s creativity, the dynamics of its worldview and worldview, expresses the universal human essence of the life of a nation, its attitude to socio-economic and historical-cultural processes.

The culture of a nation is an integral part of world culture. National culture in the proper meaning of this concept is a set of cultural elements and values that are recognized by people as “ours” and “not ours”, which contribute to their awareness of their unity and difference from representatives of other nations (peoples). Cultural specificity should be considered as one of the main characteristics of a nation, allowing one to differentiate one nation from another.

National culture, of course, includes spiritual, socio-political and material components, and is not reduced only to spiritual culture (where its four elements are traditionally considered - religion, language, moral and artistic culture), as is usually presented. National cultures are stable formations, under the influence of which the primary socialization of the majority of people is carried out, that is, introduction to world culture.

Culture occupies a very important place in the historical development of every nation and in the formation of its national identity. In modern conditions, material culture contains significantly less national specificity and does not always act as a “support” of national identity. Therefore, orientation towards spiritual culture serves to a much greater extent as an expression of national identity.

National culture can be divided into folk and official (“high”). Folk culture is a synthesis of several traditions. Its general appearance is determined by the phenomena and values formed by the nation in accordance with its representatives, views and needs. Each historical era had a special folk culture and a special official culture that differed from it. Global processes of integration of the economic, political and cultural life of a nation gave rise to a new component of culture - modern, when, along with culture with a capital C, a special cultural state was created, alternative to the traditional one. The current sociocultural situation requires an understanding of the interaction of these two most important links in spiritual life.

When characterizing national culture, it is necessary to especially emphasize that its ethnic specificity is far from being reduced to archaic elements of culture. Ethnic functions (the difference between one ethnic group and another) are also performed by professional culture, literary language, fiction, professional art, etc. After all, it is quite obvious that such components of culture for each ethnic group have specific features that are characteristic of it. This circumstance is important to keep in mind, since one often has to deal with the interpretation of the ethnic in the national as archaic, outdated, exotic elements.

The proportion of the national component, its place in the culture of the nation and its everyday life are not the same among different nations (peoples), which excludes a unified approach to the problem of preserving and developing national culture. This understanding of national culture allows us to consider the specific features of a culture that characterize its uniqueness and difference from others, but at the same time, of course, those that make it similar and bring it closer to other cultures.

Legal economic culture

Law is closely connected not only with the economic and political spheres of society, but also with its cultural layer. The term “culture” (from the Latin сultura – cultivation, nurturing, upbringing, education, development) is quite diverse in content. In the broadest sense, culture is understood as a certain qualitative state of society at one or another stage of its historical development, which is characterized by a historically certain level of development of society, the degree of its civilization, the totality of material and spiritual values, and the intellectual and spiritual development of man. As a generalized characteristic of a society's civilization, culture affects all spheres of its life. Therefore, they distinguish between artistic, physical, economic, and political culture.

Culture has always been an important component of social life. Like no other social phenomenon, it can be a measure of the humanization of society. It is in a person’s attitude to cultural values that freedom and self-affirmation of the individual are manifested.

Naturally, culture and cultural relations could not but affect the sphere of law and legal regulation. Moreover, law and culture are not only connected, but also interdependent. Marx specifically emphasized that law not only cannot be higher than the economic system, but also the cultural development of society conditioned by it.

First of all, this relationship is due to the fact that law is part of social (spiritual) culture and is its element. As a result, law (like the state) acts not only as a social phenomenon, but also as a cultural phenomenon, representing a certain cultural value.

In Soviet jurisprudence, law was not always recognized as elements of culture, much less interpreted as a cultural value. Law was presented as a weapon of class domination, a means of suppressing class opponents, one class by another. With the disappearance of classes, law, like the state, must wither away and disappear. Naturally, a phenomenon that disappears over time could not be considered as socially valuable, as a cultural value.

However, already in the mid-1960s, law began to be considered not only as a well-known social value, but also as an element of culture, as a cultural value. As a result, the term “legal culture” entered the scientific vocabulary and political practice as an important element of social culture.

The relationship between law and culture is manifested from two sides. Firstly, the nature of law and legislation is largely determined by the level of cultural development of society. A historical analysis of law convincingly shows that its development from barbarian law to the law of civilized states occurred in parallel and largely due to the cultural development of society. This is manifested in the state of legislation, its systematicity, organization, absence of contradictions and gaps. On the other hand, the methods and types of regulation changed - from rough straightforward imperativeness to dispositive regulation. Finally, the highest level of culture was manifested in the content of law, when the basis of its regulation was a person, an individual, and human rights became the basis of the content. Finally, support methods also changed. Such inhumane sanctions as quartering, impalement, etc. were gradually eliminated from the legal ones. Finally, the international community has set the goal of eliminating such penalties as the death penalty from rights. The relationship between law and culture is also reflected in the categorical apparatus of jurisprudence. Thus, the category “legal culture” has become widespread and quite deeply developed. Some authors consider the principle of “unity of legality and culture” as one of the principles of legality. “Humanitarian law”, “cultural law”, etc. are sometimes analyzed as complex branches (institutions) of law.

On the other hand, law itself actively influences the development of culture. Positive law regulates many relations in the socio-cultural sphere of society. The experience of domestic regulation shows that in the case when the main influence is on the legal regulation of economic relations, leaving aside the regulation of social and cultural relations, the level of culture of the population sharply falls and crime increases.

No area of legislation is so closely connected with the moral foundations of human activity as cultural legislation. Its subject touches on such spiritual phenomena as worldviews, moral and aesthetic traits of a person, and his educational level. An array of normative legal acts on culture is a legal normative basis for the moral and value orientation of an individual, an important means of influencing a person’s moral and aesthetic ideas, which makes it possible to purposefully form a model of a civilized cultural level of the population.

The most important guarantees ensuring that citizens use their rights and freedoms, including in the field of culture, are contained in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. According to Article 44 of the Constitution, everyone has the right to participate in cultural life and use cultural institutions, to have access to cultural values. The law that has the most general character in the system of normative legal acts in the field of culture is the Law of the Russian Federation “Fundamentals of the legislation of the Russian Federation on culture”.

The main objectives of cultural legislation are:

Ensuring and protecting the constitutional right of Russian citizens to cultural activities;
- creation of legal guarantees for the free cultural activities of associations of citizens, peoples of other ethnic communities of the Russian Federation;
- determination of the principles of state cultural policy, legal norms of state support for culture and guarantees of state non-interference in creative processes.

To the maximum extent, the relationship between law and culture is manifested in the formation of a high legal culture.

The origin of the concept of “culture” (from Latin colo - to cultivate, cultivate the soil) is directly related to material production through agricultural labor. At the initial stages of the development of human society, this concept was identified with the main type of economic activity of that time - agriculture. However, the demarcation of the spiritual and material-productive spheres of human activity that soon followed created the illusion of their complete autonomy. The concept of “culture” gradually began to be identified only with the phenomena of the spiritual life of society, with the totality of spiritual values. This approach still finds its supporters today. However, along with this, the dominant point of view is that culture is not limited exclusively to the phenomena of the spiritual life of society. It is inherent in all types and forms of human activity, including economic activity.

Economic culture is the totality of material and spiritual socially developed means of activity with the help of which the material and production life of people is carried out.

The structure of economic culture is correlated with the structure of economic activity itself, with the sequence of the main phases of social production: production itself, exchange, distribution and consumption. Therefore, it is legitimate to talk about the culture of production, the culture of exchange, the culture of distribution and the culture of consumption. The structure-forming factor of economic culture is human labor activity. It is characteristic of the entire variety of forms, types of material and spiritual production. Each specific level of economic labor culture characterizes the relationship of a person to a person, a person to nature (it is the awareness of this relationship that is the moment of the emergence of economic culture), and an individual to his own working abilities.

Any work activity of a person is associated with the development of his creative abilities, but the degree of their development varies. Scientists distinguish three levels of these abilities.

The first level is productive-reproductive creative ability, when in the process of labor everything is only repeated, copied, and only as an exception, something new is accidentally created.

The second level is generative creative ability, the result of which will be, if not a completely new work, then at least an original variation.

The third level is constructive-innovative activity, the essence of which is the natural emergence of something new. This level of ability in production is manifested in the work of inventors and innovators.

The more creative the work, the richer the cultural activity of a person, the higher the level of work culture. The latter ultimately serves as the basis for achieving a higher level of economic culture.

Labor activity in any society is collective and is embodied in joint production. Therefore, along with work culture, it is necessary to consider production culture as an integral system.

Work culture includes skills in using tools, conscious management of the process of creating material and spiritual wealth, free use of one’s abilities, and use of scientific and technological achievements in work activities.

The production culture includes the following main elements:

1) culture of working conditions, representing a complex of components of an economic, scientific, technical, organizational, social and legal nature;

2) the culture of the labor process, which finds expression in the activities of an individual employee;

3) socio-psychological climate in the production team;

4) a management culture that organically combines the science and art of management, identifies and realizes the creative potential, initiative and entrepreneurship of each participant in the production process.

In modern society there is a tendency to increase the cultural level of production. It finds its expression in the use of the latest technology and technological processes, advanced methods of labor organization, progressive forms of management and planning, and scientific achievements.

However, the objective nature of the progressive development of economic culture does not mean that it occurs automatically. The direction of this development is determined, on the one hand, by the opportunities contained in the totality of conditions that set the boundaries of economic culture, and on the other hand, by the degree and ways of realizing these opportunities by representatives of various social groups. Changes in sociocultural life are made by people, therefore these changes depend on the knowledge, will, and objectively established interests of people. Depending on these factors, recessions and stagnation in certain areas and economic culture as a whole are possible within the local historical framework.

Progress in the development of economic culture is determined primarily by the continuity of methods and forms of activity of generations, the assimilation of those that have proven their effectiveness, and the destruction of ineffective, outdated ones.

Ultimately, in the course of the development of economic culture, conditions are created that encourage a person to actively creative production activities and contribute to his formation as an active subject of economic processes.

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Economic culture can be defined as a complex of cultural elements and phenomena, stereotypes of economic consciousness, motives of behavior, economic institutions that ensure the reproduction of economic life.

Economic culture most directly (and this is the most important in this issue) affects the development of the economy. This influence is exercised through the economic activities of people. The latter, in turn, depends on what economic agents value or not, what they fear or strive for, and what values they are guided by in their activities. This set of phenomena of consciousness includes the following aspects: values associated with the economy(which economic goods are more or less preferable); economic standards(economic norms of mass behavior); priorities and preferences in the economic sphere(people’s choice of certain economic goods); economic needs(individual, family, group at different levels); motivation of economic behavior(explanations that justify actions and actions, as well as the choice of values and norms).

Economic culture, like political culture, is built into a certain pattern of orientation toward economic action.

The orientations of the subject of the economic process underlie the typology of economic culture. If there are no specialized economic roles, if they are not separated from religious, political or other orientations, then we can talk about the economic culture of a patriarchal society or traditional economic culture. The presence of specialized economic institutions, but low individual activity of subjects indicate a different type of economic culture - intermediate, but still pre-capitalist.

The key category in dividing human history into stages and types of social systems is differentiation - the distinction between roles, statuses, institutions and organizations specialized in performing individual functions, including economic ones, that appear during the evolution of society.

Throughout the history of mankind, two main methods of economic reproduction can be established. Accordingly, two main forms or models of economic culture are defined.

The economic process can be carried out in the form of a “centrally managed economy”, i.e. governed by the plans of a single plan maker. If the economic unit is small and one person is able to lead it, as is the case in a small closed family, then we are talking about “own subsistence farming.” Or a situation in which the economic process is planned on the scale of an entire nation (natural-community form of state economy). Both of these varieties belong to the culture of a centrally controlled economy, and therefore to a closed type of society.

As for socialism, its general economic task is divided into three points: determining the structure of social needs; the distribution of society's resources to satisfy needs and the distribution of the produced product - he decided in kind, i.e. within the framework of the economic culture of a centrally managed economy.

The basic model of an open, modern society is the economic culture of a market economy, in which numerous individual enterprises and households independently develop plans, enter into economic relations with each other in market forms, and function on the principle of self-organization. Coordination of the plans of economic entities is carried out through prices and exchange values. This economic culture began to establish itself as a result of the great social revolutions of the 16th - 18th centuries.

The modern type of economic culture presupposes the presence of an “economic man” with his efficiency, reasonable perception of innovations and self-discipline, with a developed network of specialized economic institutions.

Economic man responds to the greatest extent to the tendency toward the predominance of “formal rationality” and corresponds, according to Weber, to the “purposive-rational type of action.” A rational attitude was established due to economic necessity. Humanity owes its initial training in the field of rational thinking and behavior to the everyday solution of economic problems.

Economic man initiates the rationalization of the way of farming and management in all spheres of social life. In turn, this process has the opposite effect: it rationalizes the way people think, the way they feel and the way they live in general.

Developing the theme of “economic man,” A. Smith, the herald of modern economic culture, formulated the world-famous concept of the “invisible hand.” He convinced his readers that personal incentive was a powerful factor in economic progress. The main motive for human economic activity in the classical school of political economy was recognized as self-interest. A person realizes this interest only when he provides services to other people, offering his labor and products of labor in exchange. “... In this case, as in many others, he is guided by an invisible hand towards a goal that was not at all part of his intention... Pursuing his own interests, he often serves the interests of society in a more effective way than when consciously strives to do this."

The most important theoretical and practical question of economic culture - about the motives and incentives of human economic activity - in market conditions is solved economically. The state, according to A. Smith, should:

1) take on what a private individual cannot do or what is not beneficial to a private individual - taking care of public education, public works, developing and maintaining transport and communications, expanding public services, etc. ;

2) maintain the “natural order”, an important aspect of which is the regime of free competition. In the economic conditions of that time, monopolies could only exist with the help of the state;

3) protect the life, freedom and property of citizens, relying on such regulators as determining the minimum wage, political institutions, and justice authorities.

The characteristics of the economic culture of a “market economy” include the main components of economic democracy, also called “participatory economics”.

The main forms of the participation system include: a) participation in the profits or “success of the enterprise”; b) owned; c) in management.

A radical transformation in property relations, the search for the optimal balance of power and property, finding the measure of acceptable intervention of politics and politicians in economic processes will create real opportunities for the formation and strengthening of a modern economic culture, which will allow Russia, like any other post-socialist state, to become a composite, organic part of the civilized world.