There have been many, many books written about culture (and you should definitely read a few!), and some of them discuss the effect of culture on politics, or the economy, or both. (We already discussed Ronald Inglehart in an earlier post.) Going too far into the weeds on this topic will take us very far afield, but I did want to point out one key bit of cultural variation that has massive political significance: Do people believe that the economic pie is fixed, or that it can be grown?

If you believe that economic wealth has a fixed quantity, then you believe that no one can gain wealth unless someone else is losing it. (This basic attitude was a staple of Continental socialism. Proudhon’s “Property is theft” and Balzac’s “Behind every great fortune lies a crime” come to mind.) If so, then the key ground of economic conflict becomes “Who gets what?” The characteristic emotion toward the rich will be jealousy. All else equal, more effort will be spent in redistributive activities such as government lobbying, speculation, and sheer banditry.

If you believe that economic wealth can grow in the aggregate, then your attention will be drawn towards ways that wealth can grow. An attitude of optimism may, or may not, coincide with a certain disdain for those who could be accumulating wealth but instead allow themselves the luxury of idleness (though this disdain tends to be characteristic of societies influenced by Calvinism in particular, per Max Weber). The key economic conflict becomes “What is standing in the way of greater wealth?” The characteristic emotion toward the rich will be admiration. All else equal, more effort will be spent building businesses, engaging in commerce, and building infrastructure.

Of course, in the real world we tend to believe in a complex, contradictory mix of both. Partly this is due to our evolutionary history. Prehistoric times were typically a rough approximation of the “fixed pie” condition, because people had few possessions—and what they had often needed to be shared, for the sake of mutual survival. And during long stretches of written history, economic conditions were persistently bad as societies were ravaged by war and famine. The last two or three hundred years featured an explosive growth of affluence beyond anything in our prior experience.

Additionally, it is clear that some people become wealthy by creating wealth, and others become wealthy by taking the wealth of others. Steve Jobs, for example, became fantastically wealthy by creating whole new categories of tools for the betterment of humanity (ideally!). By contrast, Trevor Milton bilked investors seeking to participate in the electric-car boom and sold them a bill of goods. (He may not remain wealthy for long, however, depending on his sentencing in September!)

Still, those two opposed attitudes towards wealth can motivate a whole range of beliefs and behaviors—excellent grist for the fictional mill!

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(This post is part of Politics for Worldbuilders, an occasional series. Many of the previous posts in this series eventually became grist for my handbook for authors and game designers, Beyond Kings and Princesses: Governments for Worldbuilders. The topic of this post belongs in the planned second book in this series, working title Wealth [Commerce?] for Worldbuilders, along with some overlap with the planned third book, working title Tyranny for Worldbuilders. No idea when they will be finished, but it should be fun!)