The (True) Legacy of Two Really Existing Economic Systems

Abstract

Does socio-political context impact honesty at the individual level? By running an experiment among Germans collecting their passports or ID cards in the citizen centers of Berlin, we compared levels of honesty in individuals exposed to socialism and individuals exposed to capitalism. We find that individuals with an East German family background cheat significantly more on an abstract die-rolling task than those with a West German family background. In addition, the longer individuals were exposed to socialism, the more likely they were to cheat on our task. While it was recently argued that markets decay morals (Falk and Szech, 2013), our results suggest that other political and economic regimes such as socialism might have an even more detrimental effect on individuals' behavior.

Vietnamese Characteristics of Social Consciousness and Values — National Character, Differences between North and South, and Gaps Between the Vietnam War Generation and the Post-War Generation —

“…The results showed that people are more likely to make an immoral decision in a market situation than in an individual situation, supporting Marx's criticism. Ariely et al (2014) also show that a particular type of social system can worsen people's ethics. Their research question asks whether an economic and political system affects people's honesty.…”

“…1) Ariely, Hornuf, and Mann (2014) state that Germans who grew up in East Germany (German Democratic Republic) have different social values from Germans who grew up in West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) even though East Germany was integrated into the West German political and economic system more than 20 years ago. Thus, in this case of the unified Germany we have some evidence that the social system in which people grow up affects their values.…”

Gender Differences in Compliance: The Role of Social Value Orientation

“…Early on in life, men perceive more social approval for breaking rules than women. The argument of learned compliant behavior is experimentally supported by Ariely et al (2015). The paper reports that people growing up in the former eastern Germany socialist system cheat more than people from western Germany.…”

Is Commerce Good for the Soul? An Empirical Assessment

“…Ariely et al () tested 259 randomly selected German citizens on their willingness to cheat at a die‐rolling game. The authors discovered that those who had East German (socialist) roots were twice as likely to cheat as those with West German (capitalist) roots.…”