Reconsidering Identity Economics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Identity Economics, Indeed? A Psychological Introduction

   • Laszlo Garai

   Pages 1-17

3. The Structure of Social Identity and Its Economic Feature

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

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   2. The Double-Storied Structure of Social Identity

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 21-34

   3. Identity Economics: “An Alternative Economic Psychology”

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 35-40

   4. How Outstanding am I? A Measure for Social Comparison within Organizations

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 41-54

4. Social Identity in the Second Modernization

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-55

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   2. Preamble

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 57-59

   3. Theses on Human Capital

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 61-67

   4. Determining Economic Activity in a Post-Capitalist System

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 69-92

   5. Is a Rational Socio-Economic System Possible?

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 93-102

5. Psychology of Bolshevik-Type System

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 103-103

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   2. The Bureaucratic State Governed by an Illegal Movement: Soviet-Type Societies and Bolshevik-Type Parties

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 105-121

   3. The Paradoxes of the Bolshevik-Type Psycho-social Structure in Economics

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 123-142

6. Half of Capitalism—And Its Other Half

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 143-143

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   2. Inequalities’ Inequality: The Triple Rule of Economic Psychology

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 145-155

   3. What Kind of Capitalism Do We Want?

      • Laszlo Garai

      Pages 157-163

7. Back Matter

   Pages 165-172

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This book presents an unorthodox identity economics that approaches social identity through a non-classical psychology. Garai applies the modern physics concept of wave-particle duality to economic psychology, finding a corresponding duality in object-oriented activity and historically generated social identity. These two factors interconnect to create a double-storied structure of social identity and its behavioral manifestations. The book then presents a calculation device for mediating between behavioral and identity economics. Garai then applies all these factors to two socioeconomic systems developed during the second modernization: Bolshevik-type “socialism” and post-Bolshevik “capitalism.” In this context, he examines the Eastern Bloc nomenklatura as a duality of bureaucratic and patron-client organization (“state and party”) and the establishment of both today's material capitalism and its other half: human capital economics.

• mass-production of social identity
• cognitive dissonance
• knowledge
• material capital
• human capital
• activity theory
• economic psychology
• economic system
• economics
• economy
• well-being

“This book is a unique contribution to economic psychology. It synthesizes the activity approach of the Russian psychological school and the author’s theory of a historically generated social identity. Psychological theory cannot remain the same after the appearance of this volume.” ( V.A.Lektorskiy, Professor, Head of Epistemology Department, Institute for Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia)

“Laszlo Garai's Reconsidering Identity Economics gives a new theory that intertwines people’s psychology and their economics: their psychology (and especially their identities) is the result of their economic environment; their economic environment is the result of their psychology. Garai illustrates this new view of economics and psychology with applications that are drawn from his lifelong experience and that will fascinate all readers.” (George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001)

• University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

  Laszlo Garai

Laszlo Garai was the Founder and Head of the Departments of Economic Psychology at the University of Szeged, Hungary, and Nice University, France. He has also taught at Moscow State University, Russia, and branches of California State University at Bakersfield and San Bernardino, USA. He is the author of 21 monographs in Hungarian and Russian on economic, social, and theoretical psychology.

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