Culture Matters

National Interest, The, Summer, 2000 by Lawrence E. Harrison

THE DECADES-OLD war on poverty and authoritarianism in the poor countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America has produced more disappointment and frustration than it has victories. The deprivation and despair that prevailed in the mid-twentieth century persist in most of these countries, even a decade after capitalism's ideological triumph over socialism. Where democratically elected chiefs of state have displaced traditional authoritarian regimes, a pattern most notable in Latin America, the experiments are fragile, and "democracy" often means little more than periodic elections.

What explains the persistence of poverty and authoritarianism? Why have they proven so intractable? Why have no countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America other than the East Asian dragons made their way into the elite group of affluent countries? The conventional diagnoses that have been offered during the past half century--exploitation, imperialism, education and know-how shortfalls, lack of opportunity, lack of capital, inadequate markets, weak institutions--are demonstrably inadequate. The crucial element that has been largely ignored is the cultural: that is to say, values and attitudes that stand in the way of progress. Some cultures, above all those of the West and East Asia, have proven themselves more prone to progress than others. Their achievements are reiterated when their peoples migrate to other countries, as in the cases of the British in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, who have flourished wherever they have migrated.

The conclusion that culture matters goes down hard. It clashes with cultural relativism, widely subscribed to in the academic world, which argues that cultures can be assessed only on their own terms and that value judgments by outsiders are taboo. The implication is that all cultures are equally worthy, and those who argue to the contrary are often labeled ethnocentric, intolerant or even racist. A similar problem is encountered with those economists who believe that culture is irrelevant--that people will respond to economic signals in the same way regardless of their culture.

But a growing number of academics, journalists and politicians are writing and talking about culture as a crucial factor in societal development, and a new paradigm of human progress is emerging. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan captured the shift recently when he said, in the context of economic conditions in Russia, that he had theretofore assumed that capitalism was "human nature." But in the wake of the collapse of the Russian economy, he concluded that "it was not human nature at all, but culture"--a succinct restatement of Max Weber's thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

A Dismal Record

IN THE 1950s, the world turned its attention from rebuilding the countries devastated by World War II to ending the poverty, ignorance and injustice in which most of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America lived. Optimism abounded in the wake of the stunning success of the Marshall Plan in Western Europe and Japan's ascent from the ashes of defeat. Development was viewed as inevitable, particularly as the colonial yoke disappeared. Walt Rostow's hugely influential book, The Stages of Economic Growth, published in 1960, suggested that human progress was driven by a dialectic that could be accelerated. The Alliance for Progress, John F. Kennedy's answer to the Cuban revolution, captured the prevailing optimism. It would duplicate the Marshall Plan's success, and Latin America would be well on its way to prosperity and democracy within ten years.

But as the century ended, that optimism had been displaced by frustration and pessimism, the consensus on market economics and democracy notwithstanding. Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the former British colony Hong Kong have followed Rostow's trajectory into the First World, and a few others--for example, Chile, China, Malaysia and Thailand--have experienced sustained, rapid growth. Spain and Portugal finally opened themselves to the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the Western values that had driven the modernization of their neighbors in Europe. And like Japan before them, the East Asian dragons rode the Protestant Ethic-like features of Confucianism and export promotion policies to success.

But the vast majority of countries still lags far behind. Of the six billion people who inhabit the world today, fewer than one billion are to be found in the advanced democracies. More than four billion live in what the World Bank classifies as "low-income" or "lower middle-income" countries. The quality of life in those countries is dismaying:

* Half or more of the adult population of 23 countries, mostly in Africa, is illiterate. Non-African countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Haiti.

* Half or more of the women in 35 countries are illiterate, including not only those countries just listed but Algeria, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Laos, Morocco, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.