The transition to the modern market economy requires an integral and well-rounded study of the peculiar character and factors of contemporary economic transformation. Undoubtedly, the human person is always the main factor in production and in the development of the economy. This creates individual means which become elements that come to constitute an industrial system. Hence the labor force is the key industrial force in society. However, the correlation of industrial factors is changeable. A new technology never appears by itself, but is created by labor. As the newest means of labor and technologies spread, a particular mode of development can take priority for labour is a means for industries. For example, if a commune requires one type of labour, machines require another and the revolution of modern science and technology calls for a third. The important historical role of a democratic society is that it frees creative human resources from social and economic obstacles and enables people to work for their own gains and profit. Motivation and interests must become the principal for forming a modern market economy.

The subjective factors in society are a useful aspect of economic culture. This includes economic policy, the quality of management and the productivity of each person; it determines how socio-economic laws work. Economic culture is under constant reform by people in society working according to their degree of economic knowledge, their qualifications for management and their economic outlook.

From experience some things have been learned regarding the formation and nature of economic culture. In the former Soviet Union this was seen as a synthesis of economic understanding and practical action. Though useful for the theory of the meaning and role of economic culture in society these are not enough. First of all, economic culture was linked with issues of "the development of socialist society", "the communistic upbringing" and hence described from the limited point of view of the Party and of classes. Second, such issues were perceived within the limits of the communist ideology in the framework of subjective voluntarism and could not have a fresh objective character. Third, many questions which have not been sufficiently described or totally worked out need to be identified; for instance, economic culture in general and for persons, its deep meaning, types, motions, mechanism and manners of formation, its function and roles in economic growth, and so on.

Finally, we had not learned from experience that economic market relations are based on a democratic society. We need objective theoretical experience and philosophical analysis of the meaning of economic culture. In democratic societies economic culture means economic relations, creative resources for the development of the economic life of social bodies, specialists and entrepreneurs. All are coordinated as a total economic activity of the people in which a major factor of socio-economic development is work practices and economic behavior. Economic activities and relations which serve people are learned as integral to economic culture. In democratic society among the laws of social development the economic factor plays a sensitive role. That is why economic culture is linked to the development of society, and economic culture plays a main role in providing a satisfying life for people and in developing a new quality of social life. A society is united by its economic culture which acts not only through economic interaction, but also through the economic policy of the state. A democracy requires an industrial force of high quality. As people look for new ways to satisfy their needs, economic culture is an objective requirement for a democratic society and becomes coincidental to the economic policy of the state.

Economic culture changes as society develops. Today an economically cultured person must have economic knowledge, ability to economize on resources, attention to the quality and quantity of production, decision making capability, and care in the investment of time and resources. This is an ideal form of economic practice. Here economic knowledge is a basic element as it enables people to comprehend their own economic and political interests as they develop economic knowledge, theory and public strategy.

The common theoretical economic knowledge needed for economic culture must be completed by concrete information and application, for instance, the economics of this industrial or agrarian sector, the management rules of this company or firm, knowledge of how to use technology and so on. The knowledge included in economic culture are: the meaning, character and costs of materials, their production, exchange and consumption and the means, forms and methods of economic growth of society: all that is learned theoretically. Objective economic laws must be applied to economic life. Economic knowledge is a main element in a culture. The experience and knowledge of specialists, businessmen and entrepreneurs plays a big role in economic growth. As people develop knowledge of the economy, they should learn to use it in practice; their degree of economic knowledge should be reflected in the level of economic activity.

Each person has their individual subjective form of economic life. The economic mind is the main element of economic culture. This understanding of the place of people in industry includes intellect (knowledge) and emotions (feelings). Modern industry and the new economic relations require that people have extensive knowledge. The emotional side of the economic mind is also highly active. People pay great attention to their work in order that it be considered highly by managers and the people who work with them.

The intellect generates economic thought, which means that knowledge with observation and explanation and social relations may be different in different countries: theoretical and practical thinking and discussion, use of terms, analyses and intuition, concrete and imaginative, productive and unproductive. Economic thought appears in the process of the knowledge and explanation of economic activity. Different types of thinking enable one to achieve knowledge of the structure of social relations and thought processes.

Each new generation receives and develops the economic knowledge gathered by the previous generation. From this process each person forms his or her own economic thought and builds his or her own economic activity. For a high quality of economic culture everyone must have economic understanding that can produce results in any situation. Nowadays, for example, decisions depend upon information and business planning and activities which require that persons understand and interpret correctly the present and future economic situation.

Another important component of economic culture is conviction. Economic knowledge of people does not help them to accomplish immediately what they decide. The first thing to do is to fix their aims. For this each person needs their own action program. A program means following a method which serves to bridge decision or conviction to concrete activities (behavior). Conviction is not born with the person, but forms as the person growths in the society and enables effective behavior.

Economic culture also requires experience, talent and practice. Each person develops him or herself as a person. Experience means practice over time enabling people to do things quickly, correctly and automatically. A specialist with high skill and experience can generate great profit. Some activities are difficult and can be performed effectively only by people who are talented. In the end, practice means learning by doing.

The important components of economic culture, then, are economic knowledge, conviction, experience and talent. On this basis it is possible to describe economic culture as a way of creatively forming the economic activity of people, based upon deep economic-technological knowledge connected with their problem and profession, a sufficiently broad sense of the objective laws of socio-economic growth, and conviction based on economic activity and experience.

This description does not claim to be absolute, but includes only the essential traits of economic culture. Such economic culture is a necessary condition for efficient work and a basis for advanced ownership. Labor and natural materials are the basic initial conditions of industry. Work is the activity of people reforming objects of nature. This can be either by physical handling of objects at work, sense perception, or intellectual action in the acquisition of information and decision making. These aspects express the personal factor of industry or the labor force. Its efficiency is based on the experience and interest of people which shows in the result of their work, linking economic culture with the work experience of people. In the present epoch of scientific-technological progress, the role of the person in industry is changing in its fundamental form. In the industrial setting based upon modern technology one has to work with more expensive equipment whose price often exceeds one’s wages. Sophisticated equipment raises the requirements for professional training and experience. The cost of negligence and irresponsibility is exceedingly high. Catastrophes in air, water and railway transportation and in other areas result from such negligence and irresponsibility.

Another reason for the great attention in economic culture is the growing specialization in work. People have to do concrete but very difficult tasks which require considerable professional knowledge, experience and skill. In the modern conditions one’s role and place in the economic process is important. In market conditions initiative in the development of enterprise and the growth of profits, in defining problems and making decisions on personnel questions are of broad range and have legal implications. Independence and responsibility are two sides of self-government and shape the concrete duties and rights of specialists. But it is a mistake to think that initiative always generates efficiency, though generally initiative based on the experience of specialists gives the expected results.

In general, the activity of economically cultured people, with professional knowledge and experience, conviction and interest in their work, when skilled and able-bodied, is highly efficient. The correlation between results and work is connected with economic culture, increases therewith and is reflected in the accounting of labor costs. The increase in productivity is defined by the increase in the quality and quantity of production within a certain time, and its increase depends on the economic culture of the subject.

A number of essential signs of economic culture are found in entrepreneurs and businessmen, but this is not identical with enterprise and business. They are connected and have much in common, but they must be distinguished from each other. Within legal limits one profits from one’s initiative and risk-taking. One proceeds according to a harmony of personal and social interests and scientific-analytic knowledge, and directs one’s enterprise so that no one suffers but everyone wins. Moreover, acting with initiative produces efficient results, useful both for oneself and for society, as one’s enterprise corresponds with one’s economic culture.

But not all entrepreneurs are economically cultured. Unfortunately, one meets people in search of their own profit who pay no attention to society and sometimes cause material or moral harm. Such people do not realize or do not want to know that harming society has a bad influence on their own lives, too. Some entrepreneurs do not perceive the relation to economic natural law or cannot appreciate it. As entrepreneurs and business people are the driving force in the market economy, the importance of giving them an economic culture is evident. The essential elements of economic culture — knowledge, experience and skill, thinking and conviction, activities and initiatives — all are necessary qualities of the entrepreneur and businessman. That is why formation in these qualities parallels economic cultural education.

Hence, formation and education in economic culture is one of the important factors in the development of society.