Review of Virgil Henry Storr's Enterprising slaves & master pirates: Understanding economic life in the Bahamas, New York: Peter Lang, 2004,147pp

摘要

The questions of "whether" and "how" culture matters for economic, political, and social development have puzzled social scientists for centuries. Economists have largely neglected these issues, focusing instead on alternative explanations for economic performance. For instance, over the past century mainstream economics has offered investment in physical capital, investment in human capital, and geography and natural resources as explanations for differences in economic well-being. In each case, these explanations failed to be satisfactory. Only recently have economists begun to pay attention to culture as an important factor in economic performance. It is within this context that Virgil Storr seeks to contribute to our understanding of economic life in the Bahamas by "...grounding individuals in their historical and cultural context..." (p. 3). In doing so, Storr hopes to offer a richer picture of life in the Bahamas as compared to alternative methods of economic history, such as cliometrics. The first two chapters of the book draw on the work of Max Weber, Don Lavoie, Peter Boettke, Emily Chamlee-Wright, and previous work by Storr to develop the importance of context for understanding the behavior of individual actors. Storr argues that individuals do not act in a vacuum, but rather are embedded in a network of political, economic, and social institutions. Only by understanding this institutional context can one ultimately understand economic interactions and performance.