Resource information
This paper assesses the role of ideas in
economic change, combining economic and historical analysis
with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology.
Belief systems shape the system of categories
("pre-confirmatory bias") and perceptions
(confirmatory bias), and are themselves constrained by
fundamental values. The authors illustrate the model using
the historical construction of racial categories. Given the
post-Reformation fundamental belief that all men had rights,
colonial powers after the 15th century constructed
ideologies that the colonized groups they exploited were
naturally inferior, and gave these beliefs precedence over
other aspects of belief systems. Historical work finds that
doctrines of race came into their own in the colonies that
became the United States after, not before, slavery; that
out of the "scandal of empire" in India emerged a
"race theory that cast Britons and Indians in a
relationship of absolute difference"; and that
arguments used by the settlers in Australia to justify their
policies toward the Aborigines entailed in effect the
expulsion of the Aborigines from the human race. Racial
ideology shaped categories and perceptions in ways that the
authors show can give rise to equilibrium fictions. In the
framework of this paper, technology, contacts with the
outside world, and changes in power and wealth matter not
just directly but because they can lead to changes in ideology.
