Culture and Developing Nations

Introduction
( This was updated a bit in this post: http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2014/03/culture-is-key-to-development.html)

I have been puzzling about economics and developing nations since I first visited Africa in 2000. I visited Tanzania twice, and Nicaragua 7 times - and I was still puzzled. Why are these places so poor, and what can we possibly do to help? I have since discovered that many researchers and authors tie culture to economic development, and this has been general knowledge for over 15 years. The culture of a people, the way they think about the world, is a critical factor in determining the success or failure of many human endeavors, including economic development and democracy. My question now is, why didn’t I learn this more quickly? And why is it that this information is not well known among our elected leaders and entities like the World Bank who are trying to foster development?

I am no expert, and this is not an original research paper.  My intent is to pull together the key ideas I have gleaned in the past decade of reading about the topic of culture and development.  I hope that I can expedite the discovery process for others.

It is abundantly clear to me that democracy as we practice it has little chance of ever thriving in the cultures currently prevailing in most of Latin America, Africa, and Arab countries.  Why then, does our nation persist in trying to install it in Iraq and Afghanistan – at great cost to ourselves and those countries?  Similarly, economic development as we know it is so hindered by the cultural thinking present in most of Latin America and Africa that it is highly unlikely they will succeed at the traditional model without a major change in their culture.  We should focus our resources on that change, or we are wasting our time and money.  To quote that great Canadian Sage, Red Green, I believe that “we are all in this together”.  I do not want the world to give up on these places, but we need to seriously reconsider what we are doing there.

For one very modest example, my parish has been working with a community in Nicaragua for over 25 years.  We have been doing things the “right way” – justice, not charity.  We are trying to help them to determine their own future, to help them decide what they need for economic development, and help them to accomplish that. We have attempted many things over the years – projects, donations, etc.   Now I realize that the key thing we should be about is helping them change the way they and their children see the world.  We have made some progress on that, but not much.  I think we could move ahead a bit more quickly if both we and they recognized that their “world view” or culture is one of the major inhibiting factors.

These are the key insights of this paper:

• Culture here means the way we think about the world, not a collection of norms or habits.
• Culture in this sense has a profound influence on every human activity.
• Culture develops over long time frames, and does not change easily.
• Some aspects of a cultural are NOT friendly to development; some are not friendly to democracy.
• It is very difficult to change a culture.

Culture As a World View

By the word “culture”, I do not mean a collection of norms and habits, customs, dances and food.  Culture as used here is the “world view” of a people.  We all grow up with a world view that is taught to us by those around us.  They tell us that the world works this way.  We are not generally even aware of the way we see the world, until we encounter someone who views it very differently.  At that point, we wonder, “What is wrong with that person?”  

A few stories can illustrate this idea.  In 2000, I was visiting a small town in Tanzania, on the edge of the Serengeti.  In the 70s, the Austrians had built a hospital about a mile away.  They installed a generator, and a well.  There is no electricity in this area, and generally, no wells.  They ran a single pipe from the hospital to this settlement – about a mile.  That pipe was the only source of water for the town.  One morning, the water stopped.  No water.  I was talking to the local leader, and he confirmed that the water had stopped.  I asked him, what do you do for water if the water from the pipe stops?  He replied that they walk down to the river to fetch water.  They would carry it back about half a mile, because no one had a vehicle.  By the way, the British, at some point in the past, had built a small concrete barrier in this small stream, and had instructed people to take water from above the small dam, and to let the animals drink below the dam.  The idea was to avoid contaminating the water with animal waste.

Then I asked, “Well, in the past when the water stopped, what was the problem?”  Our friend replied, “Oh, someone broke the pipe near them so they could have water, or something like that.”  It was pretty clear to me that no one was going to set about fixing the problem.  I wanted to fix it, but that thought did not occur to them.  The water pipe was not theirs.  It arrived one day, and now it is gone.  That is how life is.

In a similar vein, a Canadian volunteer had constructed a rope swing on a tree.  The children loved it – they would swing on it all the time.  One day, one of them pushed the swing hard and it got stuck in the branches.  The Canadian told me he decided to wait and see what would happen.  Each day the children would come by, look up at the tree, and say, “Ah, no swing.”  They had watched the Canadian put it up, they knew where the ladder was, and, in fact, they could easily climb the tree without the ladder.  But they did nothing.  It was not their swing.  It arrived one day, and now it is gone.  That is how life is.

They see all of life this way.  They are not in charge of life – life happens to them.  Things come, things go – they are not actors in the story, just passive recipients.  They see AIDS the same way.  They know what causes AIDS, they see the consequences of it, but they do almost nothing to avoid contracting the disease.  It happens to them.  They are not responsible for it.

By contrast, the United States has a world view that says we are in charge of the planet.  We can fix and repair anything, be it a toilet or a nation.  We think that there is something wrong with people who are passive about problems.  I personally have a great need to fix any running toilet that I encounter on my travels, whether it is mine or not.  I know how to fix it, and I generally will, without being asked.  Needless to say, people whose culture is different wonder what is wrong with us, that we cannot stop meddling in other people’s affairs.

Culture Has A Profound Effect
People are generally not conscious of their world view.  They see the world this way because that is how things are.  They learn it before they are 8 years old, and it doesn’t ever really change.  The best work I have found to help understand this is by Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations.  Hofstede is a Dutch sociologist.  He was hired by IBM to help them resolve conflicts across national boundaries, across cultures.  He conducted a study of 65,000 IBM employees on how they viewed reality – their cultural awareness.  Human cultures have many dimensions, but he simplified the results of his work to four cultural dimensions, and then added a fifth for the Asian perspective.  All of them are very insightful.

One cultural dimension he calls “distance” or “hierarchy”.  It seems that humans have a basic, biological need for hierarchy in our society.  We survived by following strong leaders in our numerous conflicts, and our need for a leader is very deep.  But it is flexible.  Hofstede ranked nations on a scale according to the distance they perceived from the top to the bottom of their society.  In general, the Scandinavians have the lowest sense of hierarchy.  He illustrates this with a story taken from the daily newspaper.  This article appeared in the Dutch newspaper NRCC/Handelsblad, December 23, 1988.  (Hoffstede, p. 47)

Stockholm, December 23.  The Swedish King Carl Gustav this week experienced considerable delay while shopping for Christmas presents for his children, when he wanted to pay by cheque but could not show his cheque card.  The salesperson refused to accept the cheque without legitimation.  Only when helpful bystanders dug in their pockets for one-crown pieces showing the face of the King, the salesperson decided to accept this for legitimation, not ,however, without testing the cheque thoroughly for authenticity and noting the name and address of the holder.

I can just see this clerk in the store.  “I don’t care if he’s the king, if he doesn’t have a check card he can’t write a check.”  When they show her his picture on the coin, I can just hear her say, “Fine. But he has to write down his address!”  I doubt that the US President will ever find him or herself in this predicament.  The Scandinavians, as a whole, have a very low Power Distance.  They rank 47th or 48th on a list of 53 countries studied.  The US ranks 38th on that list.  At the top of the list, we find Malaysia, Guatemala, Panama, Philippines and Mexico.  The point is, no one taught the citizens of Sweden that the king is not that big a deal.  It is how they see the world, and how they all react.  The king is a servant of the people.  He is one of us, and he does our bidding.  I have some theories as to why they see the king so differently, but the difference is profound.  They will not change that view if they emigrate to another country.  Their children may, but they will not.  It is simply how they see the world.

Culture matters, and almost nothing else does!  That is the major conclusion of the book cited above. 

Culture Endures Over Long Time-frames

Culture is formed over centuries. The Scandinavians endured bitter winters, survived by forming close knit tribes, and all understand that they depend on each other. When they thought they needed a king, they created one. Those of us whose culture formed somewhat closer to the Mediterranean and within the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, have the impression that God or some higher power installed our fearless leader. Our power distance is much greater. Hofstede theorizes that the difference noted between the Scandinavian Countries and most of the rest of Europe comes from the influence of the Roman Empire. They were never part of that empire, so they never adopted this top down, hierarchical view of society to the extent it was adopted by the Romans and their successors. Other authors point to the dominant influence of Catholicism for the hierarchical views of much of the former Spanish colonies.

In another example, Hofstede notes that Costa Rica is unique among Latin American nations with respect to many cultural values.  He thinks the difference relates back to colonial times, when many people of Jewish extraction fled Spain to Costa Rica.  That influence has endured for 500 years!

Some Cultural Aspects are not Friendly to Development

When I get to this point, my wife always objects:  “You are saying that some cultures are inferior or lacking.”  That is clearly counter to the multi-cultural value system which prevails in the U.S.  We have been trained, acculturated even, to see different cultures as basically equal.  One type of music or another, one type of painting or another, one language or another – they are all equally valuable and should be protected and supported.

I have two responses to that.  In the first place, this is not judging an entire culture.  It is just pointing out that certain aspects of a culture appear to be not supportive of economic development.  In the second place, there are clearly better or worse ways to sing songs, paint pictures, form ideas into words, and run societies.  It would be truly simplistic to think that our predominantly western culture is the best possible blend of all of these. We are a work in progress, as are all cultures.  We have come a long way, but we have many miles to go, in my mind.  Sometimes I fear that we are slipping toward the abyss, when I compare our culture to the Scandinavians.  We are divided and at war within ourselves, compared to their sense of community and common purpose.  This wonderful experiment called Democracy has improved immensely since 1776, but it has a long way to go.  Some of us seem to think that it was created perfectly at the beginning and should never change. 

That said, what are the key aspects of a culture which support or inhibit development?  Lawrence E. Harrison has produced a series of works that provide a clear insight to the influence of cultural traits on development.  To simplify things, I would start with just one book, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, edited by Lawrence E. Harrison & Samuel P. Huntington – 2000.  This is a collection of conference papers, and some of the opinions are from the other side of the argument – but they are all illuminative.  There is one particularly insightful chapter on Africa by an African, Daniel Etounga-Manguelle, “Does Africa Need a Cultural Adjustment Program?” p. 65.  In this chapter, the author begins by recognizing that it appears to be almost impossible to produce a single description of the culture of Africa.  The continent has many nations, hundreds of languages, many races, immigrants, etc.  Based on his experience, he believes that the continent share some key cultural traits.  And that these are mostly negative to economic development.  I can only give a very brief summary of his insights here.

·         Hierarchical distance is large – this is a trait shared by most tropical climates where survival does not depend so heavily on human intervention to survive the cold winters.  In this view, the culture tends to be static and centralized, with most wealth concentrated in the hands of the elite.  Generations pass with little new learning or change.

·         Uncertainty is accepted as normal, and community structures support people.  There is little initiative to conquer the future, or remove problems that threaten.  Africans accept what is, with little concern about tomorrow.  Only God can modify the world.

·         Time is not precious.  The glories of ancestors are celebrated but nothing is done to prepare for the future.

·         Religious and state power are unified.  “It is common for African leaders to claim magical powers” (p. 70).  Power is quickly corrupting, and changes in social standing are not accepted.

·         The community dominates the individual.  The concept of individual responsibility is very weak.

Cultural Factors that Influence Development

With that basis,  we can examine some of the factors which other authors put forth as being unfriendly to human development.  There are many lists of these, and I can only going give you a sampling.  You can find more detail in the publications cited.  Harrison’s list on p 299 of Culture Matters is an excellent start.  There are potentially hundreds of important attributes that affect development.  But it appears that a small number of human traits are essential to development: innovation, initiative and hard work.  Where the culture supports those, development has prevailed.  In addition, a stable infrastructure is also important, so that profits can be made and retained, trade is possible, and individual rights of ownership are not at risk.

Here is my short list.

1.       Who is in charge?  OR Control over uncertainty.  OR Control over Fatalism.
Where people think that they themselves are in charge of their world, they make things happen.  When they believe that someone else is in charge, development is slow.  This someone else can be fate, a deity, government, the rich, powerful foreigners, or some hidden conspiracy.  This view tends to inhibit individual initiative.  Many cultures think that life is something that happens to them, and they have little control over it.

2.       Hierarchy. 
A society which sees the world as top down, with most of the power at the top, is less supportive of development.  The ones in charge are at the top.  This is a world view from the social and religious world that prevailed before the Enlightenment.  Much of the Spanish speaking world inherited this top down view from the Catholic Church.  The flatter the society view, the more likely are individuals able to flourish and produce wealth.

3.       Sense of Time – Long Range vs. Day to day.
Where a culture can look down the road and plan for the future, they tend to make future investments that produce wealth. Where life is hand to mouth, and day to day, little creative development occurs.  Witness the difference between the Scandinavian peoples and most of Africa.  If your food can be found with modest daily effort, why plan ahead, why worry about the future.  If life depends on having enough food to last through 6 months of winter, then you have to work hard and with creativity just to endure.  Where the past is exalted, development does not prosper.  Where the future is held to be something we create and can improve on, development is supported.  Hofstede found that the prevailing African culture has a very short time frame perspective.

4.       Hard work. 
If the prevailing world view, or the view of those in charge, sees work as demeaning, development is slowed.  If hard work is regarded as a means to get ahead and rewarded, this is supportive of development.  Protestant Christianity in Europe seems to have been very supportive of hard work, in spite of its emphasis on the role of the deity.

5.       Source of Wealth.
Where wealth is seen as “found goods”, something in limited supply, there is little incentive to develop.  In this world view, the way to gain wealth is to get it from someone else.  Either they share it with us, or we take it from them in some fashion.  Where wealth is regarded as something created, and as virtually unlimited, then motivation is stronger to create it.

6.       Moral Guidelines / Circle of Trust.
When morality is regarded as an unattainable goal, people will ignore it for selfish reasons, and the stable value system required for economic development is not present.  When moral guidelines are regarded as basic requirements for human interchange, then development can prosper in the stable relationships it provides.  A fairly large circle of trust is essential to economic activity.  Economic development requires the ability to work together, to develop a common bond of trust, and a legal and judicial system that supports rights and initiative.  Any kind of trade is difficult to instill in a “primitive” culture where no one can be trusted.  An economics based on only the tribal circle of trust is not very robust.  Even nationalism ultimately interferes with economic growth.  Those cultures with the view that “we are all in this together”, tend to flourish the most.

7.       Dissent.
Where differences of opinion are celebrated as a search for truth and innovation, development proceeds.  When new ideas are suppressed as heretical, it is difficult to foster innovation.

8.       Education.
Real education supports development.  Development is inhibited if there is a lack of education, or education is merely the rote repetition of rules and old ideas.  As people understand more of their world and how it operates, they are more creative.  It is particularly destructive when virtually half of a society is denied any opportunity for learning, as many women are throughout the world.

9.       Justice.
When the prevailing view of social justice includes future generations, it tends to support more development.  If it is limited to those currently alive, development is more limited.  It has to do with the time frame and justice or honesty issues.

How to Change a Culture

At this point, if we are persuaded that culture has a great influence on development, then, we need to figure out how to help developing nations modify their cultural values. But let’s be really clear here – this is not a simple task. Culture forms over a very long time frame – hundreds of years – from many sources, and it is very resistant to change. But change it does. So how can we help? This quote is relevant:

"There can be no cultural transformation without the widely-accepted belief that there is indeed something 'wrong' with the (culture) and without a systematic effort to discuss ways to fix it. For culture to matter, there must (first be) a realization that it needs fixing."  (Latouche, Daniel Culture and the Pursuit of Success, p. 12, as quoted by Lawrence Harrison, The Central Liberal Truth, p. 158.)

Well, how does one set about that? I have only a few suggestions, gleaned from the above authors and my own limited experience.

Cultural Development NOT Charity
We should evaluate the impact of every project on the culture, not just on the physical well being or the products it generates. Does it empower, educate, enable? If it does, the result is less important.

Education NOT Assistance
Educate, liberate, empower, not feed and donate. Educate and liberate the women. Eliminate superstition and religious control through education. Formal education should start at about age 2, before the prevailing culture has a chance to form the way a child thinks. At a minimum, for some portion of their day, get those who are raised in poverty out of their world into a supportive one that reflects the broader culture that supports development. A child care subsidy on a sliding scale would enable many women to work, and at the same time also expose their children to a different view of how things work.

Fund Research on World Views
Our understanding of the influence of culture and development is just scratching the surface. There is abundant data available that could be mined to further persuade our leaders and the general public about this. We also need to research how world views change, perhaps with a more experimental approach. We have very little education that is focused on supporting or modifying the world view of people. If the leadership understands what is required, and how to go about it, a formal program of national culture building might work wonders. I understand that this might appear to be “mind control”, but just consider how much of elementary education goes into something called "civics". We are teaching our children one thing or another – let’s focus on the things that can best support our economic and political health. We don’t hesitate to provide information in schools about health and environment - let’s focus a bit more on how things work – like basic rules of economics, etc. A formal discipline of cultural awareness could provide the credibility that this has value.

Capitalism NOT Utopian Socialism.
Capitalism that energizes the basic selfishness of the individual works really well. Socialism is a Utopia reserved for those societies that no longer need the motivation of individual profit. That is a long step up the social evolution ladder. Our developing nations that are trying to reach this socialist nirvana in one grand step are doomed to corruption and dictatorship and failure. It takes a whole culture to raise up a people – not one or two enlightened leaders. I like what the Scandinavians have accomplished, but even the rest of Europe cannot get there in one giant leap. You might point to China as an exception to this. Their most recent leaders have been very supportive of development - but they have also dropped most of the claims of the ideal socialist society. They are more focused on centralized authority for government than for economics.

Conclusion

This feels particularly unsatisfying as an ending.  I may have alerted you to the problem, but we are a long way from any solutions.  It seems clear at this point that culture has a tremendous effect on economic development.  Things don't work well in those cultures, without the mental framework, and without the stable support system of courts, contracts and ethics. There has been a lot of progress in the past few decades, but it appears that it may take many more before the bulk of human kind can escape the brutality of poverty.

If you are aware of other research or publications in this area, please point me to them.  We ARE making this up, and we need all the help we can get.  We are all in this together.

Bibliography

Harrison, Lawrence E., The Central Liberal Truth, 2006, Oxford Univ. Press.

Harrison, Lawrence E., Who Prospers, 1992, Basic Books.

Harrison, Lawrence E., Huntington, Samuel P., Culture Matters, 2000, Basic Books.

Hofstede, Geert, Cultures and Organizations, 1991, McGraw Hill.  The more recent editions of this book have expanded its scope considerably, but I like the simplicity of this edition.