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Richard L. Brinkman: Department of Economics, Portland State University, Portland, USA
June E. Brinkman: Department of Economics, Portland State University, Portland, USA
Introduction
There have been many attempts to relate and integrate the social into the economic and vice versa. The conception and theory of cultural lag is well suited to a blending of the social and the economic. Whereas an analysis of the need for institutional adjustment is outside the paradigmatic boundaries of mainstream economic analysis, institutional adjustment is central to the concept and theory of cultural lag. In their attempts to integrate the social and the economic in an holistic framework, both Thorstein Veblen as an economist, and William F. Ogburn as a sociologist, utilized the conception of cultural lag in their theories related to the dynamics of culture evolution. Whereas Veblen analysed the processes of economic evolution in the framework of culture evolution, Ogburn analysed social evolution in the context of culture evolution (Ogburn, 1966, p. 377).
Consequently, cultural lag does not pertain simply to conception alone, but relates to theory and explanation as well, "I think it better to say that since it is a concept of a relationship, it is a theory. It is therefore more than merely a new term in the language" (Ogburn, 1957, pp. 169-70). As concept and theory, cultural lag helps to identify, analyse and explain social problems as well as to predict and anticipate future problems. More than that, it can also be policy-oriented and direct us to possible solutions. It is noted in the literature that the cultural lag concept and theory has provided one of the most important tools of socioeconomic analysis:"
The cultural lag approach has been one of the master concepts of modern social analysis ... The concept of culture lag, which Veblen used to analyse social processes, has been widely used by American sociologists to account for both social change and social problems (Davis, 1968, pp. 304-5)."
Cultural lag is discussed in most current sociology textbooks as an important aspect of social change. Cultural lag is often critiqued, however, as being too general as to conception. "Once a theory includes such concepts as 'lags'... it becomes so labile and so indistinct that it can be reconciled with virtually any configuration...