Culture, Consumption and Fundamental Principles

Consumption, other than being referred to as an objective of production, distribution and all other economic activities, when changes noticeably effects all other macroeconomic variables like, production level, savings, employment, unemployment and inflation. In every society various factors are involved in shaping the consumption patterns; most important of them being the culture. In this article, we seek the answer to this question that: What kind of relationship exists between culture and consumption pattern of a society? What are the components, a consumption pattern is made up of and how do they get influenced by culture? To achieve the answers an analytical approach is used and, while assuming the society and its subordinate groups as a “system” and “related sub-systems”, the relationship of components of culture and consumption pattern has been looked into. The findings of this article show that first of all, the components of consumption pattern i.e. consumption level, combination of consumptive goods and the manner of consumption develop in the cultural environment of the society and, the Islamic principles governing consumption also influence each of the three components. Secondly, consumption pattern in our society other than its incompatibility with the production pattern (and consequently its negative influence on development), is also away from the required consumption pattern from the religious viewpoint. And, due to the fact that both the present condition and the required one have cultural roots, it is not possible to create a fundamental change in it through economic tools alone, and its long term changes are essentially under the influence of changes in the cultural components related to it.