Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
REVIEW ARTICLE
Culture and institutions: a review of Joel Mokyr’s
A Culture of Growth
Geoffrey M. Hodgson
Loughborough University London, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Corresponding author. Email: g.hodgson2@lboro.ac.uk
(Received 26 May 2021; revised 2 July 2021; accepted 2 July 2021; first published online 28 July 2021)
Abstract
This is a review of Joel Mokyr’s fascinating book entitled A Culture of Growth. The work is summarized,
noting its focus on Darwin-style evolutionary explanations of cultural change. But Mokyr’s emphasis on
cultural entrepreneurs and positive feedbacks in the procreation of ideas is insufficient to explain the
origins of modern economic growth. Too much explanatory weight is placed on too few extraordinary
people. It is argued that Mokyr’s analysis should be extended, to bring the evolution of institutions, as well
as the evolution of culture, into the picture at an additional level. The role of inter-state rivalry and
exogenous shocks has also to be underlined. This kind of analysis can be developed within the framework
of generalized Darwinism, which Mokyr himself adopts. This is a major and highly stimulating book.
Keywords: Culture; economic development; generalized Darwinism; ideas; Joel Mokyr; technology
JEL classifications: B52; N10; O14; O30
1. Introduction and overview
For more than 30 years, Mokyr’s(1990a,1990b,2002,2009,2016) work has cast much light on the
explosion of technological innovation and economic growth that began in Britain in the late 18th cen-
tury and then spread around the world, bringing large increases in wealth and average life expectancy.
Like the complementary work of Deirdre McCloskey (2010,2016b), central to Mokyr’s argument is the
role of ideas and culture in driving change. Both authors argued that the crucial change was the emer-
gence of a culture of progress based on the idea that mankind can improve its condition through
science and rational thought. In his A Culture of Growth, Mokyr (2016) goes further and deeper
into his explanation of the industrial take-off. The book develops an important conceptual framework.
It is filled with a mass of fascinating detail. This essay is a review of that work.
1
Mokyr’s(2016) book is divided into five parts, with an overall total of 17 chapters. In the first part,
he outlines his theory of cultural evolution. The second part is devoted to the role of ‘cultural entre-
preneurs’, particularly Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, who have a chapter each. The third part goes
into more empirical detail, highlighting how ideas were communicated and debated throughout
Europe among leading thinkers in the ‘Republic of Letters’. The fourth part examines how these devel-
opments prepared the ground for the Enlightenment and industrial growth. The final part compares
developments in Western Europe with the different fate of Imperial China.
Mokyr is aware of the ambiguity of the term culture and he defines it in the following way:
‘Culture is a set of beliefs, values, and preferences, capable of affecting behavior, that are socially
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Millennium Economics Ltd. This is an Open Access article,
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1
The author is very grateful to four referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this review essay. McCloskey
(2016c) argued that Mokyr’s(2016) book should earn him the Nobel Prize.
Journal of Institutional Economics (2022), 18, 159–168
doi:10.1017/S1744137421000588
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
(not genetically) transmitted and that are shared by some subset of society’. He distinguishes culture
from institutions by regarding culture ‘as something entirely of the mind’which is ‘to an extent, a matter
of individual choice’. By contrast, institutions ‘are socially determined conditional incentives and con-
sequences to actions. These incentives are parametrically given to every individual and are beyond
their control’(Mokyr, 2016:8–9).
These are reasonable working definitions and distinctions, but quibbles are possible. Culture must be
more than beliefs. If several people believe that it is currently raining, then it would hardly qualify as a
cultural trait. Even if many people believed in a God, this would not be enough to constitute something
cultural, unless we added the stipulation that they must also believe that others believe in a Deity. Culture
in this sense is not simply shared beliefs, but the widespread belief that others share those tenets. Also,
the extent to which culture is a matter of choice may be highly limited. We do not choose to be born into
a particular culture or subculture, yet these contexts engender many of our beliefs. For Mokyr, like
others, cultural transmission is a matter of learning in social networks. But this implies that culture
involves social relations as well as beliefs. Culture is not entirely a matter of the individual mind.
Mokyr’s definition of institutions is close to the near consensus that institutions are systems of
rules, with incentives of different kinds to follow those rules (Hodgson, 2006,2019a). But the distinc-
tion between culture and institutions still needs to be clarified further. This is too big a task for this
review essay. But it needs to be addressed.
2
Mokyr saw his definition of culture as similar to that of Alesina and Giuliano (2015) who regarded
culture as synonymous with informal institutions. He also noted the similarity of his approach to the
classic work in evolutionary anthropology by Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson (1985). Following this
evolutionary cue, Mokyr explained that cultural change, at a sufficiently abstract level, is a process that
involves the general Darwinian principles of variation, selection and replication, despite big differences
at the level of detail. Cultural and genetic evolution both involve variation, selection and replication. But
of course the detailed mechanisms are often very different. This framework is known as generalized
Darwinism. Consistent with this approach, culture is distinguished from behaviour. Mokyr (2016:9)
treats ‘culture as genotypical and actions as phenotypical’. His use of generalized Darwinism is an
important milestone. So far it has not been used widely in economic history.
3
In distinguishing between culture and institutions, Mokyr does not dismiss institutions from the
explanation of cultural and economic change. As he put it: ‘Institutions create the environment in
which cultural evolution occurs’(Mokyr, 2016: 12). It could also be claimed that culture creates the
environment in which institutional evolution occurs. For instance, legal systems were built to a
large degree built on preceding cultural rules. In any case, Mokyr repeatedly stressed the importance
of institutions, as well as of culture.
This is in contrast to the work of McCloskey (2010,2016a,2016b), who emphasized culture and
ideas but does not acknowledge a major explanatory role for institutions. She claimed that there
were no major institutional changes since 1500 that are capable of explaining what she called the
Great Enrichment. She also narrowed the possible ‘causes’of change to ‘the mental states of
human individuals’, making the valid point that intentions and thoughts that motivate actions are cru-
cial. She regarded mental states as (primary) causes. Other factors, including institutions, were seen as
‘intermediate’(McCloskey and Silvestri, 2021). With this restricted notion of cause, McCloskey high-
lighted ideas as the crucial drivers of the Great Enrichment. But even if we accept this rather limiting
understanding of a cause, institutions and other factors can still be part of the explanation, as Mokyr
rightly admitted.
Greif and Mokyr (2016: 35, 38) praised McCloskey’s contribution but criticized her for overlooking
the institutional buttresses of economic and technological progress: ‘innovation, too, needed
2
Note that this consensus definition means that organizations are also a kind of institution. Despite a widespread inter-
pretation, there is no clear evidence that North took a different view (Hodgson 2006,2019a).
3
Generalized Darwinism is outlined in Hodgson and Knudsen (2010), which Mokyr cited in his book, along with an article
on the topic that he co-authored with this reviewer and others (Aldrich et al. 2008).
160 Geoffrey M. Hodgson
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
institutional support’. Furthermore, ‘institutions may have changed more in the period leading up to
the Industrial Revolution’than McCloskey admitted. Examples and evidence of major changes in
British legal and financial institutions in that period are provided elsewhere (Grajzl and Murrell,
2021a,2021b; Hodgson, 2017,2021a).
Following Boyd and Richerson (1985) and others, Mokyr (2016:48–56) identified a number of pos-
sible biases in the replication of cultural beliefs. Among these, he wrote of confirmation bias (where
people choose beliefs that are consistent with their other ideas), conformist bias (where people tend to
follow the majority) and authority or prestige bias (where the ideas of authoritative or prestigious
people are adopted). Mokyr (2016: 20, 33–35) also emphasized the role of persuasion in cultural trans-
mission. These and other biases result in different rates of growth of particular ideas. Culture evolves
partly through these ongoing processes of differential replication.
Where do new cultural ideas come from, particularly those that lead to the development of knowl-
edge useful to the improvement of the human condition? Mokyr’s answer to this question highlights
‘cultural entrepreneurs’such as Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Mokyr
(2016: 6) regarded such cultural entrepreneurs ‘as the exceptional and unusual specimens who are
the sources of evolutionary change: they are the ones who do not take the cultural choices of others
as given, but try consciously to change them’.
Mokyr emphasized the inspirational contribution of Bacon, who developed empirical and experi-
mental methods at the foundation of modern science. Bacon also understood the importance of an
interacting community of scientists who compare and test competing explanations. His goal was to
make science useful for human progress, by connecting it to technology. As Hill (1965: 110) wrote:
‘Bacon’s scientific method is the trial and error of the craftsmen raised to a principle’. Furthermore,
Bacon reconciled science with religion, claiming that it was virtuous to reveal and respect the laws
that God in his wisdom had devised to govern nature. This reconciliation helped to make Bacon’s rad-
ical ideas more acceptable. For Mokyr, Bacon was the supreme cultural entrepreneur whose influence
greatly contributed to the eventual industrial take-off.
But maybe too much of an explanatory load is placed upon Bacon. It is almost as if without him the
Industrial Revolution would not have happened. I return to this problem below. While he sometimes
advocated free trade (Hill, 1965:97–98), Bacon was not a political liberal. For instance, he supported
the use of torture (Langbein, 1976: 90). Mokyr’s elevation of Bacon’s influence contrasts with
McCloskey’s emphasis on the power of liberal ideas in promoting the Great Enrichment. Mokyr
also overlooked Bacon’s roles as royal legal advisor and Attorney General, and his major written con-
tribution to jurisprudence (Kocher, 1957). Bacon was as much a legal and institutional entrepreneur as
a cultural one. But Mokyr’s focus is mostly on science and technology, and much less on politics and
law. There are good reasons, some discussed below, to give politics and law as much prominence as
science or technology in the explanation of modern economic development.
Mokyr (2016: 66) wrote: ‘Cultural entrepreneurs change what people believe, and if enough import-
ant people are converted, they will change institutions to conform with the new beliefs and thus the
environment in which the next generation of cultural entrepreneurs find themselves’. He concluded:
‘What counts for economic history was the beginning of a long and drawn-out rise in the belief in the
transformative powers, social prestige, and virtuousness of useful knowledge’(Mokyr, 2016: 267).
While the Industrial Revolution began in Britain and spread to Europe and other parts of the
world, Mokyr showed that the culture of scientific endeavour was empowered by a European commu-
nity that he dubbed the Republic of Letters. This autonomous organization of scientists began in
England and France in the 17th century. His argument for its significance is powerful. European scien-
tists in the 17th and 18th centuries were networked together in a way that promoted critical reflection
and synergetic endeavour.
In the fifth and final part of the book, Mokyr turned to China as a case study. While China pro-
duced major innovations, many independently of Europe, after about 1700 it fell behind in terms of
economic growth. Mokyr is careful to note a number of important Chinese thinkers that might have
helped restore Chinese economic dynamism but failed for a variety of reasons. Strikingly, several of
Journal of Institutional Economics 161
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
those explanations are political and institutional. China lacked the plurality and rivalry of states in late
medieval Europe. European political division created economic competition between territories for
merchant trade and refuges for dissident intellectuals when they were threatened by authoritarian
and conservative rulers. By contrast, Chinese geopolitics created a powerful state and bureaucracy, rul-
ing over a large and well-populated area. As Mokyr explained in his book, this state bureaucracy hin-
dered open dialogue and innovation. He also acknowledged the argument of Greif and Tabellini
(2010) that the enduring absence of a sufficiently developed legal system in China obliged economic
actors to rely on extended family or clan networks for contract enforcement and moral authority.
By contrast, inter-state competition and widening trade helped eventually to generate more effective
legal systems in Western Europe (Berman, 1983,2003; Tilly, 1992). Part of the explanation of the
China-Europe divergence hinges on institutions.
2. On cultural and institutional evolution
Much of Mokyr’s argument is forceful and persuasive. The book is a treasure chest of information and
insights. But my biggest criticism is that the evolutionary framework needs further development to
sustain his argument. As it stands, the analysis depends too much on successive, fortuitous cultural
mutations, each initially promoted by one individual. Too much explanatory weight is placed on
too few extraordinary people.
Mokyr (2016:26–27) recognized the need to explain evolutionary leaps. He pointed to the history
of technology that shows ‘totally new options’and the parallel existence of ‘discontinuous leaps in cul-
ture’. But the point, however, is not only to observe them, but also to explain their appearance, and
also to show why some of them succeeded and proliferated. Mokyr attempted an answer with ‘muta-
tions’followed by runaway ‘positive feedback’, particularly between propositional and prescriptive
knowledge. But the latter is about science-technology feedbacks: it is not explained sufficiently how
they may apply to culture.
Part of the problem is that Mokyr’s account is largely a bottom-up explanation. Although he
mentions interactions between individuals and their environment, including the possibility of runaway
positive feedbacks, there is insufficient attention to the possibility that environmental changes
and exogeneous shocks may themselves trigger new bursts of innovative thought and economic
development.
We have ample evidence that external shocks matter. For example, William the Conqueror’s 1066
invasion changed English institutions and culture in fundamental ways. The 1688 invasion of Britain
by William of Orange brought financial practices from the Netherlands, resulting in a major recon-
figuration of British finance and administration. The growth of the British Empire spread English
cultural norms and common-law systems to many countries. The arrival of American warships in
Tokyo Bay led to the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and Japan’s rapid transition from feudalism to a
Western-inspired capitalist society.
This diffusion of crucial ideas and institutions from one country to another undermines the Marx–
Schumpeter notion that evolution is the unfolding of a system exclusively ‘from within’(Marx, 1976:
91; Schumpeter, 1934: 63, 1954: 391). Politico-economic development is often driven by military and
economic competition between nations. While internal development is vitally important, the trans-
mission of ideas from country to country or organization to organization is also a major feature in
socio-economic evolution.
The persistence of the ‘from within’claim is sustained by the ambiguity of the word evolution and a
lack of clarity among ‘evolutionary economists’and others as to whether it refers to a developing single
entity (ontogeny) or to an evolving population of multiple entities ( phylogeny) (Hodgson, 2011,
2019b). Yet modern biologists are fully aware of the importance of exogeneous changes. Biology
underlines both ontogeny and phylogeny in biological evolution.
Mokyr (2016: 163–4) briefly noted the importance of exogeneous shocks in natural evolution, such
as ‘the spectacular proliferation of new mammalian forms at the beginning of the Cenozoic after the
162 Geoffrey M. Hodgson
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
extinction of the dinosaurs’. But shocks on this scale are catastrophic. They led to change because most
species were wiped out. In the human world, we have to consider lesser exogenous pressures that lead
to significant but not annihilating internal disruption, thus creating adaptive opportunities for effect-
ive cultural entrepreneurship. These (disruptive but not devastating) exogeneous shocks are not prom-
inent in Mokyr’s account, yet they are arguably very important.
Consider the two cultural entrepreneurs highlighted by Mokyr. First, it is no accident that Bacon
was born and became prominent during a period of upheaval, following the English Reformation.
Multiple external and internal shocks played a major role in Tudor and Stuart history. Henry
VIII’s break from Rome was motivated as much by a wish to dispel foreign power and enlarge his
own, as by a desire to annul his first marriage. Huge economic disruption followed the resulting
Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Reign of Elizabeth involved multiple defensive moves against
repeated foreign plots and threatened incursions. As well as Bacon, this turbulent period produced
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlow, John Donne, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and several
other dramatists, poets and composers.
Newton was born during a century of heightened violence and revolution. In his lifetime, England
was involved in several major wars. Hostilities with Scotland triggered the English Civil Wars of 1642–
1649. The year 1688 saw a Dutch invasion. Newton’s century also brought Robert Boyle, Robert
Hooke, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, William Petty, John Milton, Henry Purcell and many others
of enduring influence. Their combined creativity is testimony to the importance of disruptive (but
not devastating) exogenous shocks. Periods of disruption and uncertainty created a both an aesthetic
yearning for constancy and security, alongside compulsive attempts to understand the disturbing pre-
dicament. Cultural entrepreneurs do not arise simply as random mutations in a singular stream of
cultural transmission. They become energized, and may gain attention, as a result of the challenging
special circumstances in which they appear to offer solutions or appeasements. These national and
international circumstances evolve, and they too are subject to some kind of evolutionary analysis.
If the explanation rests mainly on the fortuitous mutation of cultural entrepreneurs, then why
didn’t successful, modernizing cultural entrepreneurs appear many thousands of years ago? Their
emergence may have been prevented by the ubiquitous struggle for subsistence, the lack of a surplus
sufficient to sustain a complex division of labour, and of insufficient institutions to support creative
thinkers and innovators. On these grounds, cultural entrepreneurship would have to wait for
large-scale sedentary societies with complex institutions, including states. That is less than 8,000
years ago. But then the evolution of these institutions becomes a necessary part of the explanation.
Cultural mutations and feedbacks are not enough.
Cultural transmission in a tribal context is much less complex than in large-scale societies with
hierarchical systems of authority. In tribal societies, cultural and technological knowledge is limited.
Consequently, any one person can be aware of much of the know-how in the group. By contrast,
large-scale societies have more complex divisions of labour and are repositories of more extensive
and detailed knowledge. It is impossible for any one person to hold more than a small fraction of
this knowledge. As a result, information transmission is generally more than person-to-person persua-
sion or imitation. It depends also on the reinforcing and filtering mechanisms of structured authority.
This applies to modern technology, science and law. These systems of organized, practical and experimen-
tal knowledge depend on some degree of authority, to build sufficient consensus on key issues and assure
the quality of judgement and research (Kitcher, 1993; Polanyi, 1958,1962). Consequently, the cultural
transmission of technological and scientific knowledge depends on the higher-level evolution of organized
authority. The Republic of Letters lacked sufficient organized authority to establish modern science. The
organized authority of experts, involving sufficient trust, helps to obtain assent to laws or scientific claims.
Trust and authority are necessary because no-one can be an expert on more than a tiny fraction of the
relevant knowledge. These considerations bring in institutions as well as culture. Institutional evolution
must be understood, and not simply as person-to-person persuasion or transmission.
Assuming the existence of states, why didn’t enough breakthrough cultural entrepreneurs emerge in
the hundreds of years of (say) Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome? Why didn’t a modern economy begin
Journal of Institutional Economics 163
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
to emerge much earlier than it did? We can point to innovative and inspiring thinkers such as Plato,
Socrates, Aristotle, Archimedes, Cicero, Aurelius, Hypatia and many others. The absence of moveable-
type printing technology helps to explain their failure to gain traction and produce a critical mass of
transformative followers. But then the existence of a printing press in China as early as the 7th century
creates a comparative analytical problem. In the 11th century, the Chinese had moveable type. Why
didn’t effective and transformative cultural entrepreneurs emerge in China in the 11th century or even
before? Furthermore, when printing was developed in Europe in the 15th century, why was its cultural
stimulus much greater in some European countries than in others? In explaining our modern origins,
it is inadequate to rely on fortuitous cultural mutations alone. We have to consider the evolution of
institutions, as well as the evolution of individuals and cultural beliefs.
As noted above, much of biological evolution is driven by contextual or exogenous changes. This
was recognized by Darwin (1859) and it has become a prominent theme in biology (Corning, 2003,
2005; Mayr, 1960,1982; Waddington, 1976; Weber and Depew, 2003). Furthermore, there is not sim-
ply a struggle for survival involving individuals, but also rivalry between groups within species, and
obviously between different species. There are processes of selection acting on multiple levels.
These help to explain major changes in the environment.
Consider the evolution of the modern state. The plurality and rivalry of states in late medieval Europe
helped create the conditions for the emergence of capitalism (Ertman, 1997;Tilly,1992). Water and
mountains divided multiple lowland populations, making Europe difficult to unify by military force.
The Romans nearly succeeded, but medieval monarchs faced more formidable European opponents.
Unlike China and India, where large armies could sweep across the large plains and subdue whole popu-
lations, Europe remained divided into multiple states. The enduring rivalry of these states was an import-
ant stimulus to military and economic development. Growing military strength was necessary for
defence and a growing economy helped to pay for it. Consequently, as Tilly (1992:26)putit:
Other states …strongly affected the path of change followed by any particular state. From 1066 to
1815, great wars with French monarchs formed the English state, French intervention compli-
cated England’s attempts to subdue Scotland and Ireland, and French competition stimulated
England’s adoption of Dutch fiscal innovations.
War between rival states periodically devastated Europe and often checked its development. But
these traumas brought major institutional changes as well. England’s conflicts in the 17th and 18th
centuries promoted state-building, public financial institutions and more efficient administration
(Brewer, 1989; Ertman, 1997). Wars in the 18th century and early 18th prompted the development
of more efficient state administrations and reductions in public corruption (Neild, 2002).
As Mokyr (2016) fully recognized, another effect of European political fragmentation was the abil-
ity of critical intellectuals to seek refuge from persecution by moving to another regime. Inter-state
competition also created some pressure on relatively enlightened states to develop policies to encour-
age merchants and trade.
Once a merchant class became well-established in a nation, it became a political lobby to defend its
interests, reinforce countervailing power and enable the development of a relatively autonomous sys-
tem of law. In countries where merchants had greater power and autonomy (contrast England with
Spain), the rewards of global trade made this class even more powerful and led to institutional changes
that further checked the arbitrary power of the state. Access to emerging Atlantic trade routes
enhanced this process of positive feedback between commerce and countervailing power (Acemoglu
et al., 2005a,2005b; Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012; Braudel, 1984; Cipolla, 1965). To be effective,
these changed institutions also had to bestow a degree of political stability within a complex system
with divergent interests (Ertman, 1997; Moore, 1966; Tilly, 1992). Where they emerged, countervailing
power within pluralist constellations of institutions created spaces for the intelligentsia, the
Enlightenment and the advancement of science (Mokyr, 2002,2016). They also encouraged financial
investment on a larger scale.
164 Geoffrey M. Hodgson
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
3. Selection and replication on multiple evolutionary levels
These developments involved multiple levels of institutional and cultural replication and evolutionary
selection. Contrary to many writers, evolutionary selection is neither a simple nor a self-evident con-
cept. First, we have to distinguish between objects and outcomes of selection. In nature, the objects of
selection are organisms, all engaged in a struggle for existence. The outcomes of selection include the
changing gene pool, resulting from differential selection of the organisms. To make sense of selection
in the socio-economic world, a similar distinction must be made between objects of selection (i.e.
interactors, such as organizations) and outcomes of selection (i.e. the pool of replicators, such as rou-
tines, customs, habits or ideas) (Hull, 1988). Second, there are different modes of selection, all of
which involve an anterior set and a posterior set of varied entities in a population (Hodgson and
Knudsen, 2010: ch. 5). The simplest case of selection is the elimination of some entities. This is
known as subset selection because the posterior set is a subset of the anterior set. A more complex
case is successor selection, which involves the creation of new, somehow related, entities (offspring)
in the posterior set.
Evolutionary selection at the cultural level involves both subset and successor selection. There are
numerous cases where individuals or organizations carrying ideas or habits are eliminated, and many
cases where new individuals or organizations with new ideas or habits are formed. Selection at the
cultural level is incessant. By contrast, evolutionary selection at the level of states and other large-scale
organizations is generally very different in tempo. In particular, the elimination or creation of new
states is relatively infrequent. Some expanding states subdued or fused with others, as England joined
with Scotland in 1603–1707 and with Ireland in 1800. But otherwise, the elimination and creation of
states does not account for much evolution at that level. Consequently, the evolution of states is more
of a developmental process, which is very much stimulated by military rivalry and defence (Tilly,
1992). Much more common than the changing of boundaries and the assimilation of states is the rep-
lication of legal, technological and administrative structures and ideas from one country to another. It
is not development solely from within.
As in the biological world, evolution depends on the environment and rivalry with others, as well as
on the development of the organism itself. The stress on multiple levels of institutional as well as cul-
tural evolution expands the analysis from ‘dual inheritance’, as found in the Boyd and Richerson
(1985) approach. To embrace the complexity of change in modern economies, we require more
than two levels at which information is replicated –more than genes and culture –and an accordant
hierarchy of multiple levels of replication and hierarchic objects of selection.
With due caution, we can draw still more inspiration from biology. Maynard Smith and Szathmáry
(1995) considered several major transitions in biological evolution, each involving a new way in which
information is stored and replicated. They addressed primitive replication, RNA, DNA, animal soci-
eties and human language. Each of these introduced a new form of information transmission.
Hodgson and Knudsen (2010: ch. 8) considered further informational levels in human society, includ-
ing language, writing, law and science. The expanded hierarchy of objects of selection includes groups,
organizations, legal systems, religious institutions, states and scientific institutions.
This is far from a developed theory, but by moving the focus away from individual cultural entre-
preneurs alone, and by examining the tectonic plates of institutional change, it may help to understand
the movers and changing contexts that drove and facilitated economic development and growth.
Accounts along these lines may draw on arguments by Tilly (1992), Ertman (1997), North et al.
(2009) and Fukuyama (2011), who bring national rivalries, and political, religious and legal institu-
tions into the picture.
This picture of creative disruption followed by slower change is known in biology as punctuated
equilibria (Eldredge and Gould, 1977). The idea has been taken up by social scientists, including
Mokyr himself (Arthur, 1990; Baumgartner and Jones, 1993; Hodgson, 1991,1993; Mokyr, 1990a,
1990b,1991). Mokyr (1990b: 351–2) noted that ‘the economic history of technology displays a similar
dynamic pattern of long periods of stagnation or very slow change, punctuated by sudden outburst like
Journal of Institutional Economics 165
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
the Industrial Revolution’. Part of his explanation for the uneven development of technology involved
‘Cardwell’sLaw’, where technological advances create vested interests that may ally with conservative
forces to resist further innovation (Mokyr, 1994,2002). But Mokyr (1990b: 354) admitted that we
‘know very little about the causes of macroinventions’that cause rapid leaps forward in technology.
We could say something similar about institutional change.
But we have several lines of possible future enquiry. Gould (2002: chs 8–9) argued that the notion
of punctuated equilibria rests upon a hierarchy of evolutionary processes with multiple levels of selec-
tion. Shocks can lead to changes in the articulation of levels and to rapid changes in speciation.
Similarly, in the socio-economic sphere, the shifting, interacting strata of institutional arrangements
may lead to crisis, spur adaptations and result in discontinuous development. There is much more
to be done, but multi-level evolutionary theory may offer a way forward.
4. Markets for ideas?
Much of Mokyr’s argument is consistent with further development upon the lines indicated above. But
unfortunately, he created a diversion from this path. I refer to Mokyr’s overly repetitive use of the phrase
‘market for ideas’. In the book as a whole, this phrase appears over 60 times, including 7 times on one
page (p. 157). Is this merely a harmless metaphor? I think not. There is no effort to insist that the usage
is merely metaphorical, and the frequency of usage suggests something more. Of course, some ideas, as
intellectual property, can be owned and sold. But the vast majority of ideas under discussion in Mokyr’s
book are not traded, as John Milton put it in his Areopagitica: ‘like our broadcloth and our woolpacks’.
Mokyr is not alone in his use of the term. Among many others, Ronald Coase was fond of the
phrase too (Coase, 1974; Coase and Wang, 2012). Coase (1974: 389) addressed ‘the market for
goods and the market for ideas’. He claimed: ‘There is no fundamental difference between these
two markets’. His use of the term was not just metaphorical.
4
In the context of the discussion above about levels of replication and selection, the ‘market for
ideas’pulls it all back to one level. It resists the hierarchical expansion required. While the
Republic of Letters was important, describing it as a ‘market for ideas’diverts attention from the orga-
nized hierarchy and authority that were necessary to create powerhouses of technological and scientific
ideas, as they emerged in the 17th century. Elsewhere I have examined in detail several other mislead-
ing aspects of the non-metaphorical use of the term ‘market for ideas’(Hodgson, 2020,2021b: ch. 8).
We have ideas, but mostly they are not deemed objects of property under any accepted system of legal
or other rules. The ordinary communication or debating of ideas does not involve agreements with the
shared intention of creating obligations according to those contractual rules. Much day-to-day conver-
sation is not a transfer of specific rights. Certainly, there is competition between ideas and there is
competition on markets. But this does not mean that all transmission of ideas is via a market.
Competition takes place outside markets, as in the sports arena, the TV game show or the battlefield.
Competition as such does not necessarily imply the existence of contracts or markets.
5. Conclusion
Mokyr’s book is inspiring and hugely valuable. It is full of erudition and fascinating detail. But above
all its virtue is to pose serious questions about the sources of modern economic growth and to develop
the analysis further. In important respects, it is a step forward from McCloskey’s(2006,2010,2016b)
massive work in this area. Among other things, Mokyr is much more explicit about the importance of
institutions. He also signals the usefulness of evolutionary thinking –using generalized Darwinian
principles –in this area. One of my purposes in this extended review is to provide some indication
of how this kind of analysis could be developed further. But we are all indebted to Mokyr for the
great advances he has made, in the book under review and elsewhere.
4
See Mäki (1999) for further criticisms of Coase on this issue.
166 Geoffrey M. Hodgson
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
References
Acemoglu, D. and J. A. Robinson (2012), Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, New York:
Random House and London: Profile.
Acemoglu, D., S Johnson and J. A. Robinson (2005a) ‘Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth’,in
P. Aghion and S. N. Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth (Vol. 1A), North Holland: Elsevier, pp. 385–472.
Acemoglu, D., S. Johnson and J. A. Robinson (2005b), ‘The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and
Economic Growth’,American Economic Review,95(3): 546–579.
Aldrich, H. E., G. M. Hodgson, D. L. Hull, T. Knudsen, J. Mokyr and V. J. Vanberg (2008), ‘In Defence of Generalized
Darwinism’,Journal of Evolutionary Economics,18(5): 577–596.
Alesina, A. and P. Giuliano (2015), ‘Culture and Institutions’,Journal of Economic Literature,53(4): 898–944.
Arthur, W. B. (1990), ‘Positive Feedbacks in the Economy’,Scientific American,262(2): 80–85.
Baumgartner, F. and B. D. Jones (1993), Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Berman, H. J. (1983), Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Berman, H. J. (2003), Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Boyd, R. and P. J. Richerson (1985), Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Braudel, F. (1984), Civilization and Capitalism, 15
th
-18
th
Century, Vol. 3, The Perspective of the World, London: Collins.
Brewer, J. (1989), The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783, New York: Knopf.
Cipolla, C. M. (1965), Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–
1700, New York: Pantheon.
Coase, R. H. (1974), ‘The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas’,American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings),
64(2): 384–391.
Coase, R. H. and N. Wang (2012), How China Became Capitalist, London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Corning, P. A. (2003), Nature’s Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind, Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Corning, P. A. (2005), Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics and the Bioeconomics of Evolution, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Darwin, C. R. (1859), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the
Struggle for Life, London: Murray.
Eldredge, N. and S. J. Gould (1977), ‘Punctuated Equilibria: The Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered’,Paleobiology,
3: 115–151.
Ertman, T. (1997), Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (2011), The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, London and New York:
Profile Books and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Gould, S. J. (2002), The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grajzl, P. and P. Murrell (2021a), ‘A Machine-Learning History of English Caselaw and Legal Ideas Prior to the Industrial
Revolution I: Generating and Interpreting the Estimates’,Journal of Institutional Economics,17(1): 1–19.
Grajzl, P. and P. Murrell (2021b), ‘A Machine-Learning History of English Caselaw and Legal Ideas Prior to the Industrial
Revolution II: Applications’,Journal of Institutional Economics,17(2): 201–216.
Greif, A. and J. Mokyr (2016), ‘Institutions and Economic History: A Critique of Professor McCloskey’,Journal of
Institutional Economics,12(1): 29–41.
Greif, A. and G. Tabellini (2010), ‘Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared’,American Economic
Review: Papers & Proceedings,100(2): 135–140.
Hill, C. (1965), The Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hodgson, G. M. (1991), ‘Economic Evolution: Intervention Contra Pangloss’,Journal of Economic Issues,25(2): 519–533.
Hodgson, G. M. (1993) Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back Into Economics, Cambridge, UK and Ann Arbor, MI:
Polity Press and University of Michigan Press.
Hodgson, G. M. (2006), ‘What Are Institutions?’,Journal of Economic Issues,40(1): 1–25.
Hodgson, G. M. (2011) ‘A Philosophical Perspective on Contemporary Evolutionary Economics’in J. B. Davis and D.
W. Hands (eds.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Developments in Economic Methodology, Cheltenham, UK and
Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 299–318.
Hodgson, G. M. (2017), ‘1688 and All That: Property Rights, the Glorious Revolution and the Rise of British Capitalism’,
Journal of Institutional Economics,13(1): 79–107.
Hodgson, G. M. (2019a), ‘Taxonomic Definitions in Social Science, with Firms, Markets and Institutions as Case Studies’,
Journal of Institutional Economics,15(2): 207–233.
Hodgson, G. M. (2019b), Evolutionary Economics: Its Nature and Future, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Journal of Institutional Economics 167
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Hodgson, G. M. (2020), ‘How Mythical Markets Mislead Analysis: An Institutionalist Critique of Market Universalism’,
Socio-Economic Review,18(4): 1153–1174.
Hodgson, G. M. (2021a), ‘Financial Institutions and the British Industrial Revolution: Did Financial Underdevelopment Hold
Back Growth?’,Journal of Institutional Economics,17(3): 429–448.
Hodgson, G. M. (2021b) Liberal Solidarity: The Political Economy of Social Democratic Liberalism, Cheltenham, UK and
Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Hodgson, G. M. and T. Knudsen (2010), Darwin’s Conjecture: The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic
Evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hull, D. L. (1988), Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kitcher, P. (1993), The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions, Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press.
Kocher, P. H. (1957), ‘Francis Bacon and the Science of Jurisprudence’,Journal of the History of Ideas,8(1): 3–26.
Langbein, J. H. (1976), Torture and the Law of Proof, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mäki, U. (1999), ‘Science as a Free Market: A Reflexivity Test in an Economics of Economics’,Perspectives on Science,7(4):
486–509.
Marx, K. (1976) Capital (Vol. 1), Harmondsworth: Pelican.
Maynard Smith, J. and E. Szathmáry (1995), The Major Transitions in Evolution, Oxford: WH Freeman Press.
Mayr, E. (1960) ‘The Emergence of Evolutionary Novelties’, in T. Sol (ed.), Evolution After Darwin (I): The Evolution of Life,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 349–380.
Mayr, E. (1982), The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
McCloskey, D. N. (2006), The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McCloskey, D. N. (2010), Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
McCloskey, D. N. (2016a), ‘Max U vs. Humanomics: A Critique of Neo-Institutionalism’,Journal of Institutional Economics,
12(1): 1–27.
McCloskey, D. N. (2016b), Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
McCloskey, D. N. (2016c) ‘Economic History: Ideas that Built the World’,Prospect, 15 September. https://www.prospectma-
gazine.co.uk/magazine/ideas-that-built-the-world-joel-mokyr-liberalism Retrieved 1 June 2021.
McCloskey, D. N. and P. Silvestri (2021), ‘Beyond Behaviorism, Positivism, and Neo-Institutionalism in Economics:
A Conversation with Deirdre Nansen McCloskey’,Journal of Institutional Economics,17(5): 717–728.
Mokyr, J. (1990a), The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mokyr, J. (1990b), ‘Punctuated Equilibria and Technological Progress’,American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings),
80(2): 350–354.
Mokyr, J. (1991), ‘Evolutionary Biology, Technical Change and Economic History’,Bulletin of Economic Research,43(2): 127–149.
Mokyr, J. (1994), ‘Cardwell’s Law and the Political Economy of Technological Progress’,Research Policy,23(5): 561–574.
Mokyr, J. (2002), The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Mokyr, J. (2009), The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700–1850, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mokyr, J. (2016), A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Moore Jr, B. (1966), Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World,
London: Allen Lane.
Neild, R. R. (2002), Public Corruption: The Dark Side of Social Evolution, London and New York: Anthem.
North, D. C., J. J. Wallis and B. R. Weingast (2009), Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting
Recorded Human History, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Polanyi, M. (1958), Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Polanyi, M. (1962), ‘The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory’,Minerva,1(1): 54–73.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1934), The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry Into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the
Business Cycle, Translated from the Second German Edition of 1926, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1954), History of Economic Analysis, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Tilly, C. (1992) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992, Oxford, UK and Maldon, MA: Blackwell.
Waddington, C. H. (1976) ‘Evolution in the Sub-Human World’, in E. Jantsch and C. H. Waddington (eds.), Evolution and
Consciousness: Human Systems in Transition, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, pp. 11–15.
Weber, B. H. and D. J. Depew (2003), Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cite this article: Hodgson GM (2022). Culture and institutions: a review of Joel Mokyr’sA Culture of Growth.Journal of
Institutional Economics 18, 159–168. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588
168 Geoffrey M. Hodgson
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137421000588 Published online by Cambridge University Press
