Alternative Approaches to Development: Rethinking Modernization in Third World Countries, Summaries of Literature

Download Alternative Approaches to Development: Rethinking Modernization in Third World Countries and more Summaries Literature in PDF only on Docsity! WIDER WORKING PAPERS Modarnizaton anc Its discorterts A Perspectve from tre Socrolray oF Knowledge Tacta Banuré WP 33 Onconber 1482 World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University MODERNIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS A Perspective From the Sociology of Knowledge Tariq Banuri University of Massachusetts/Amherst and WIDER, Helsinki December 1987 I am grateful to participants of WIDER's Conference on Technological Transfer: Alternative Approaches and those of the Conference for a Just World Peacer Paris, and to students of the graduate seminar in Economic Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst for comments on draft versions of this paper. I also thank Professor J.F. Ade-Ajayi, Anjum Altaf, Mike Best, Jim Boyce, Robert Cassen, Ali Ercelawn, Ram Chandra Guha, Nancy Gutman, Arjo Klamer, Frederique and Steve Marglin, Ashis Nandy, Siddiq Osmani, Robert Pringle, and Rob Walker for more detailed comments or discussions and help with the clarification of some difficult points. Art Stevens provided excellent research assistance. None of them is responsible for any errors. Modernisation and its Discontents This essay represents an intellectual journey of sorts. It is at once the product of and an attempt to describe, the tension between the universe of those who study the Third World and the universe of those who inhabit this world. Like most other students of development, especially those from the so-called developing countries, I have long had serious doubts about the wisdom of many aspects of this body of knowledge, but was inclined to regard them merely as minor disagreements over a few policies or actions. Recently, however, I began to realise that these doubts derive from fundamental differences over 'ways of seeing' the world, rather than from a few specifics. It is this shift in comprehension that I shall attempt to develope here in the hope that it is relevant for current debates in the Third World. While I believe, as I must, that the ideas presented here are important for a more complete understanding of the problems of development and progress, I am aware that they would not have been very relevant (and indeed, might not even have taken shape in my own thinking) were it not for the widespread feeling of a crisis in develop­ ment theory. The current uncertainty in the profession has been a catalyst for many new attempts, particularly 1 2 in Third World countries, to develope alternative approa­ ches which can take into account more centrally the problems and failures of the process of modernisation. This essay is one more attempt in this direction. Simply stated, I argue that in order to understand the current crisis we have to look at the impact of the entire corpus of Modernisation and Development Theories rather than at particular instances of their application. As such, the ultimate objective of this essay is to provide a critical perspective on the development of modernisation theory in the last half-century. The essay also seeks to shift attention towards the intellectual, philosophical and moral bases of the theory, and away from specific policies or actions which emerged from it under different circumstances. This is done by seeing modernisation theories as artefacts of the culture which produced them and which contributed to their strengths as well as their weaknesses. To preface the succeeding remarks, I see a particular assumption - 'that impersonal relations are inherently superior to personal relations' - to be the distinguishing element of the modernisers' world view, and one which places them very firmly within 'Western' culture. This elegant and pedigreed assumption, which I have taken the liberty of labelling the impersonality postulatef intro­ duces a powerful asymmetry in the analysis of social 3 issues by concentrating intellectual energies only on those aspects of social behavior which can be encompassed within an objectivist matrix. Alternative proposals, such as the one presented here, can then be interpreted as attempts to replace this asymmetry with a more balanced approach. To avoid mis-understanding, I should clarify here that it is not my contention that the wise and able social scientists engaged in what appeared to many people as a wholly admirable endeavour, namely the economic and social modernisation of the Third World, were less than well-intentioned, or that they sought willingly to bring about the pathologies and crises that have so stymied the profession today. My argument is that one cannot look at peoples' actions in most situations without taking account of the social, moral and political contexts in which these actions take place. This is also true of those development theorists who, notwith­ standing their noble motives, may also have contributed unwittingly to a host of problems. Since the use of the term 'West' in this connection is likely to be misinterpreted, a clarification is in order. I use this term as a label for the 'ideal type' of the 'West,' that which is presented as a model for Third World societies as also for recalcitrant members of 'Western' societies/ I decidedly do not mean to refer 6 democratic institutions) , and the inculcation of a particular set of development-enhancing "modern" (i.e., of course, "Western") values and habits among the people of traditional societies. The early days of this project were characterised by an unalloyed confidence in the ability of social scientists to help the people of Third World countries banish their inherited problems and construct a new social reality from scratch-. Of course, even in that age of unbounded optimism there were several voices of doubt and dissent regarding the sagacity, desirability or feasibility of such a gigantic endeavor; but the self-assurance of the theorists was so unequivocal and belief in their nostrums so widespread that doubters could readily be dismissed as irrational and misguided 'cranks' if not as malicious mischief-makers. Accusations of failures could similarly be disregarded as resulting from weaknesses not in the theory but in the application, because of the endurance of backward behavior, values and institutions in the countries concerned, or (at a later stage) from the inefficiency or veniality of politicians and bureaucrats. Matters have changed, however. Although it may be too early to begin writing an epitaph for development theory, it is certainly not inopportune to record the passing of the era of blind faith3. 7 Today there is a crisis in modernisation theory. Hardly a book or journal on development issues comes out which does not express disappointment, disillusionment or dissatisfaction with the ability of what Ashis Nandy has called a 'secular theory of salvation,' to live up to its promise to expand human freedoms^. Many factors have contributed to this emerging crisis. The most obvious one is the extremely uneven record of development: of the persistence of poverty amid increasing affluence, of the increase in unemployment despite expanding production, and, in general, of the failure in ameliorating the condition of people in the poorest countries of Africa and Asia. A second reason is the increasing association of modernization and development with ecological disasters: the devastation of tropical rain-forests and mountain watersheds, the deleterious (and unanticipated) ecological consequences of large dams and large irrigation systems, the loss of subsistence agricultural land to desertification in Africa and to waterlogging and salinity in Asia, and the high energy-requirement and vulnerability of modern technologies. Another contributory factor is a similarly increasing association of development with higher levels of conflicts and tensions in much of the Third World, in almost all parts where the developmental project has been under way for a significant period of time, where 8 such conflicts as wars, civil unrest, civic and ethnic violence, political repression and urban crime appear to have increased tremendously^. Responsibility must also be placed at the door of a fourth consideration namely the onset of a period of confusion, muddled groping and search for new paradigms in Economics as well as Political Science, the two mother disciplines of development theory". Notwithstanding the importance of each of the above, however, it seems that the single most important reason for the spreading disillusionment is a 'loss of hope' as Mary Kaldor once put it, an erosion of the myth that development can create a just and humane society. This erosion has also permitted the increase in popularity and self-assurance of non-Western (and often anti-Western) social, cultural and political movements in Third World countries. Some of the above reasons can be summarised here. 1) First, there is growing recognition that it is not possible, given the earth's resources, for the entire planet to be able to emulate the consumption pattern of Western countries. 2) Second, tremendous unanticipated social and political problems accompanying development have raised the concern that, even if it were possible to 'become like the West,' attempts to do so in the shortest possible time could be socially harmful. 3) Third, growing familiarity of Third World citizens with the mode of existence in the West has created serious reservations about SECTION 2 Towards a Sociology of Knowledge Towards a Sociology of Knowledge There are several strands in contemporary moderni­ sation theory. Each strand, while reflecting an indepen­ dent literaure, and often an independent area of expertise, supports and is in turn supported by the assumptions and conclusions of the others. The motivating idea behind these different literatures is a search for explanations of the massive differences in income and productive capacity between Western countries (with Japan recently admitted as an honorary member) and countries of the so-called Third World; and the use of these explanations to discover methods by which the disparities can be overcome. Although some changes have occurred in recent years, the explicit objective of most such writings continues to remain one of teaching Third World countries how to 'become like the West, ' and how to do so in the shortest possible time; disagreements between various writings derive mainly from differences over the proper definition of the 'West', and over efficacious means of reaching this goal. The list of sub-disciplines in this literature would include: (1) Development Economics , the cutting edge of the endeavour, with its competing paradigms" of institutionalist mainstream, neoclassical and structural approaches9. (2) The Political Economy1^ approach rooted 11 12 in the Marxian tradition, including the World Systems approach11, the Dependency school12 and non-dependency Marxists1^. (3) Political Development, concerned with issues of state-building14. (4) Finally, Social Modern­ isation theory which perceives 'correct' social values and behaviors as necessary prerequisites of development1*. While there are significant and profound differences between writings in the various sub-fields listed above, there are common grounds as well. These include1 . 1) A linear view of history, in which Western countries are further along the path of progress than Third World countries, notwithstanding significant differences over the attractiveness of the contemporary social conditions in the former countries. 2) Again, notwithstanding significant differences over ultimate causes of the dramatic economic progress in the West, there is broad agreement that the proximate cause was the unfettering of rationality: the application of science to production, an objective view of social rela­ tions, and an increased emphasis on efficiency. 3) Broad similarities in the analyses of core values, such as freedom, justice, equality, creativity, or even power as experienced and defined in the West. 4) Finally, although once again there are very significant differences over this issue, there is an implicit positivist assumption in a broad subset of these writings that the means for achieving social ends are separable from the ends themselves/ and often also that moral considerations apply primarily to ends rather than to means. The subject of our analysis are precisely these common grounds: how, despite tremendous internal differ- 15 provides a means of addressing and assimilating this challenge19. Similarly, while the 'external' critique often seeks to undermine the theory by attacking its moral base, the 'internal' critique seeks mainly to complete a theory by extending it to areas hitherto ignored. The discussion would be helped by a brief digression on the two types of critiques. 2.1.1 'Internal' and 'External' Critiques 'Internal' critiques of modernisation, i.e. forms of criticism which accept the underlying moral argument for modernisation and which are, therefore, assimilable into existing theories, include: (1) Intra-Paradiamatic criticism, i.e., the questioning of the assumptions and propositions of theories within the framework of a given paradigm20; and (2) Inter-Paradigmatic debate, i.e., the criticism of writers in disciplines related to the impugned paradigm, who may share its world-view though not all of its maintained assumptions21. 'External' or 'alternative' critiques, on the other hand, are resistant to assimilation into modernisation theories because they reject the basic notions of welfare and behavior implicit in such theories, particularly those deriving from a presumed superiority of Western values and institutions. These can be either purely (3) intellectual challenges to modernisation, or examples 16 of (4) socio-political resistance and protest which undermine the certitudes of the regnant theories. Intellectual challenges, i.e., 'alternative' intel­ lectual or scholarly formulations of the problematic of social change and progress, includes, in addition to the writings with a specific Third World focus- , the literature which looks primarily at the problems emerging in Western countries after two or more centuries of capitalist development without any explicit reference to the concerns or predicament of Third World countries^. Socio-Political resistance includes, on the one hand, instances of political mobilisation, resistance and protest which challenge the attitudes and institutions supporting and enforcing modernity; and, on the other hand, examples of socio-psychological dysfunctioning or other non-intellectualised manifestations of popular disaffection with the results of development and modern­ isation. Besides the various religious and ethnic revival movements, examples of such protest would include popular environmental movements (such as the 'Chipko' movement in India), non-governmental organisations [sic] including various social welfare movements, women's movements, or movements of cultural interpretation and articulation (such as the 'Lokayan' movement in India), or the formation of 'base communities' around the liber­ ation theology teachings in Latin America^. 17 2.1.2 Challenge and Response What emerges from this discussion is that there is a hierarchy of critiques when viewed from the perspective of a single paradigm. At the farthest remove in this heirarchy is political resistance and protest as well as popular disaffection with the results of modernisation, manifested in the form of socio-psychological dysfunc- tioning. The next level is that of intellectual and scholarly critiques of modernisation, those which reject the notions of welfare and behavior implicit in development theories and thus challenge the assumption of the super­ iority of Western values and institutions. Next come criticisms within the modernising world view, but from outside a specific paradigm. Lastly, there are the criticisms of policies or simplifying assumptions from within a paradigm^. It can also be noted that each successive level of criticism brings the argument closer to a given paradigm; 'alternative' theorists interpret popular dissatisfaction and make it intelligible to Western intellectuals; sister paradigms make intelligible and manageable the criticism from extrinsic sources; and intra-paradigmatic critiques provide means by which such sisterly strictures can be assimilated and responded to. SECTION 3A A Review of Modernisation Theory A Review of Modernisation Theory In the next two sections, we use the notion of the 'external' critique as the Ariadne's thread which will help us trace the evolution of modernisation theories in the post-World War II period. This exercise relies on a highly schematic construct of stages of intellectual challenge and response, the stages being: (1) dualism, (2) the role of values, (3) the 'meaning of development', (4) political development and political stability, (5) political participation versus organization, (6) approp­ riate technology and the social role of knowledge, (7) ecological, environmental and natural resource questions, and (8) the cultural critique. Each stage represents a different challenge (or a modification of an earlier challenge) to modernisation theorists from political and social developments and/or from 'alternative' intellectual criticism, and invites a different response. A simplified picture of this evolution is presented in a table on page 2 and in narrative form on pages 3-4. Although the following description will, at times, read like a chronological development, such is not the intent. First, many of the developments, particularly in stages 5-7, were more or less concurrent with each other and could have been presented in either order. 20 21 Schematic Description of Modernisation Theories | St-| Title I External | Political | Response j I age| I Critics | Event 1 of Theorists | | 1 | Dualism | Boeke, j Political | Harmonious 1 j j j Furnivall j Independence | (Economic) j | j j Anthropology j I Dualism j | 2 j The Role of j Scott, Wolf j Peasant Wars j The Rational j | j Values | Hobsbawm | j Peasant j I j I Myrdal, | I Modernising | j j I Hirschman j | Values etc. j | 3 | Meaning of | Myrdal,Goulet| Political j Distribution j | | Development | Schumacher, j Conflicts, | Poverty | | | I Berger j Civil wars j Basic Needs | | 4 | Political | Dependistas | Political | Political | | | Development | I Instability, | Development, | I | I Anthropology | Civil Wars | Stability | | 5 | Alienation, | Schumacher | anti-systemic| same I | | dis-enfran- | Berger, Gran | movements | Rural Dev't | | | chisement | Gramscians j (NGOs) j Participation! | 6 | Technology, | Appropriate | NGOs, ethnic | Wrong Prices | | | Social role | Technology, j violence, j Technologist | | | of knowledge | Geertz | unemployment | State action | | 7 | Environment | Ecologists | Ecological | Externalities| | | and Resources| Greens | movements | Managerial | I | I Club of Rome | anti-vivisec-| Neo-fascist | I I I I tionists | I | 8 | Culture and | Nandy, Geertz| Indigenous | Neoclassical | | | Resistance | Uberoi, Fanon| Revival | medicine | | | | Freire,Dumont| Movements | Gang of Four | 1 | I neo-struct/ sm| I example | I | | Shariati | 1 Paradigm | I I 1 1 1 1 24 search for prescriptions which could enable the latter to transcend their unenviable situation. One of the earliest explanations of the above differences was based on the observation that industria­ lised countries were sufficiently homogeneous, while the so-called developing countries were characterised by 'dual' societies, in other words by the co-existence of a 'stagnant' traditional sector alongside a 'dynamic' modern sector which reflected conditions in Western countries. Accordingly, development was seen as a process in which the modern sector expands until it fills the entire social space. However, the normative and prescriptive content of 'dualism' has gone through very important changes since its inception. In particular, it seems to have changed from a 'conflictual' model of dualism to a 'harmonious' version more in accord with the imperatives and needs of development policy. The term ' dualism' was coined originally by the Dutch economist J.H. Boeke in his study of pre-Independence Indonesian development, to refer not to the co-existence, but rather to 'the clashing of an imported social system with an indigenous social system of another style [emphasis added].'27 While Boeke provided a name for this conflict, the idea itself was not new. In a recent book, Ian Little (1982) traces another version of this notion to colonial economists like J.S. Furnivall who, unlike modern develop- 25 ment economists, considered 'development' (i.e., opening up of an area for economic exploitation) to be antithetical to, and indeed inimical to, 'welfare' (i.e., the well-being of indigenous people)^°. Seen in the above light, assertions of dualism were a form of an 'external' critique, intended to bring out the deleterious effects of development on the local populations because of the underlying cultural conflict. The response of development theorists to this assertion is very interesting. Rather than interpret dualism as a clash of two different life-styles, it was immediately transformed into a 'displacement,' as Henry Bruton was to put it later, of a backward and undesirable life-style by a dynamic and desirable one. In other words, the concept which had hitherto been a reflection of the conflict between development and welfare, was transformed by the development profession to represent instead a congruence of the two concepts. As a result, current development literature invariably uses the concept of 'dualism' to mean the inferiority of the traditional mode of existence. An innovation development which is of particular importance in this context, and without which this transformation from 'conflictual' dualism to 'harmonious' dualism may not have been possible, is the 'linearisation' of the concept of development. In the first place this 26 occurred with the emergence of 'measures' of development, the most important of which, deriving from Simon Kuznets' earlier work, was the notion of national income or output. This allowed the construction of a linear scale on which industrialised countries were unequivocally ahead of the Third World, and the 'modern' sector similarly unequivocally ahead of the 'traditional' sector within the Third World. Another contribution to the 'lineari­ sation' of development, though not with the same mathe­ matical precision was Walt Rostow's influential theory of the Stages of Growth. The timing of the shift from ' conf lictual' to 'harmonious' dualism is particularly interesting. It coincides with the achievement of independence of erstwhile colonies, whose new indigenous elites would need such justification in order to be able to defend the notion of development and its attendant policy aspects to their supposedly emancipated compatriots. Less cynically, it is related to the fact that after independence the 'modern' sector was no longer purely expatriate but rather was increasingly composed of indigenous elements who had evolved from their earlier 'backward' status. As such, the earlier conflict between foreign and local interests could now be argued to have metamorphosed into the problem of transforming the rest of the society in 29 industrialized countries in ways analogous to the devel­ opment theorists' perspectives on 'traditional' and 'modern' sectors respectively within one country. In a like manner, the development (or underdevelopment) of the Third World is argued to be the result of a dynamic interaction with the imperatives of the industrialised world. The dependency approach raised many other important issues, most notably with regard to the relationship between local and foreign elites, and the role of the state in peripheral societies. 3a.2 The Role of Values The next stage in the evolution being traced out here is in response to two stimuli. First, there was a strong external critique of the desirability as well as the feasibility of the displacement of the traditional sector, by writers who asserted the existence of the 'rationality' and even the moral 'superiority' of tradi­ tional ways. These included Eric Wolf, and later Eric Hobsbawm32, jim Scott and the 'Subaltern Studies' school in Indians, and from a different perspective Albert Hirschman. The arguments of Wolf and Scott, derived from a Marxist perspective, are aimed at re-discovering the moral nature of the traditional (peasant) economy. They assert the existence and functional importance of such values as multi-stranded ties (particularly of the 30 patron-client type) between individuals, of the corporate nature of the village and of social guarantees of economic and social security through mechanisms of resource sharing and reciprocal exchange. To get a little ahead of the story, these assertions about the peasant economy fall into the category of the 'personal' cultural map discussed in Section 4 below, and were intended as a critique of the unquestioning acceptance of the instru­ mental and 'impersonal' values of modernity. These 'external' critiques of modernisation derived their legitimacy from the fact that the introduction of 'modern' institutions and practices into 'traditional' societies was strongly resisted, particularly by peasants in the form of peasant rebellions, which seemed to belie the assertion of harmonious processes of change. This resistance, political as well as cultural, was particularly noticeable in South East Asian countries (Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, and later the Philippines and Indonesia), but it was also visible in South Asia and Africa. Looked at in another way, the intellectual critiques of dualism were attempts to make intelligible to modernisation theorists, in scholarly terms, the values and aspirations which rural people in Third World countries seemed to be expressing in the form of political and social resistance. In addition to overt political resistance, there were also examples of diffuse social and cultural resis- 31 tance because of which the posited change was not proce­ eding apace. Examples of such resistance would include the reluctance of traditional people to send their children to school (or sometimes even to burn schools), or to act upon various incentives (such as those for modern investment) provided by the government. 3a.2.1 The Rational Feasant In response to these criticisms, there have been three different developments in the modernisation field. Writers of the so-called 'Rational Peasant' school (Sam Popkin, Theodore Scultz, Sol Tax, Raj Krishna) have tried to show that behavior and values in peasant societies can be interpreted along the lines of conventional economic theory, and that therefore there was no difference in the morality to be ascribed to the peasant as opposed to his or her more modern counterpart. The literature on the 'rational peasant' can also be seen as an attempt to interpret behavior and institutions in non-Western societies along impersonal and functional lines, and thus to assimilate the concerns expressed by the first 'external' critique regarding the imperfection of moder­ nising theory. It may be noted that the 'alternative' theorists also insisted that the peasants were 'rational,' but they claimed that there were 'different' forms of rationality, all of which were equally valid. 34 dissonance they introduce into the lives of constituent citizens. 3a.2.3 Theorists' Values Lastly, some writers (Gunnar Myrdal, Albert Hirschman) used this debate to assert the need for a sociology of knowledge of development theory, and particularly for the development theorist to become conscious of his or her own motivations in prescribing value changes or other policy prescriptions which derive from their own values, and will often reward those who share these values. This takes us directly into the next stage of evolution of modernistic theories, where the issue was the meaning of development, and whether it was possible for social scientists to have an objective view of the aspirations of people in developing societies. 3a.3 The Meaning of Development The debate over cultural values raised many issues, among which an important one was the relativism of the values of the theorist himself or herself. GunnarlYtyrdal, among others, pointed out that the cultural alienation of theorists could be due to the geopolitical situation of western countries vis-a-vis the Third World, and that it was exacerbated by their haste in applying pre-determined approaches to new-found problems. The mid-1960s, when 35 these questions were being raised, was also a time of increased political conflict and tension in many rapidly growing economies (Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil)^' . The resultant instability revealed not only that there was latent dissatisfaction with the direction of social change in the countries concerned, but also that rapid growth could be self-defeating if it led to a subsequent slowdown. The first concern became expressed in various writings on the 'meaning of development,' which asked whether the assumed goals of development policy were indeed the ones sought by people who were supposed to benefit from this policy. The second concern led to questions on political evolution in third world countries and to the emergence of the sub-discipline of 'political development,' which is discussed in the next section. The origins of the 'meaning of development' debate lie somewhat beyond Myrdal's criticism. In addition to the emerging political conflicts and tensions in Third World countries, particularly those enjoying respectable growth rates, there were also political and journalistic expressions of disaffection with the targets and goals of development policies. These were largely non-econo- mistic and often expressed in popular rather than scholarly language^". In addition, many economists also challenged the unequal nature of development (e.g., Mahbub ulHaq's criticism of increasing economic concentration in Pakistan, 36 Albert Fishlow's work on inequality in Brazil, or Marxist critiques of asymmetric power relations under capitalism and the consequent effect on distribution of income and consumption). Once again, we can observe an external political critique being translated first into anti-modernity language, and then into anti-development and finally into anti-growth language by intellectual intermediaries. At the scholarly level, the resulting debate on the 'meaning of development' has roots in social welfare theories, and heuristically, it asks whether growth in income increases happiness, and if not, whether the pursuit of this goal is a reasonable human activity. Arthur Lewis (1955), who first raised this question in the development literature, suggested that happiness was not the issue, that what development did was to increase the range of choices available to a certain society. Other writers (Paolo Freire, Denis Goulet, Kenneth Wilber) were to ask whether development was the means to enhance peoples' core values, and if so, whether treating values as means of pursuing development was appropriate. At this level, the question was one of larger values of freedom, liberation, or emancipation. However, by the time the debate arrived in the area of development economics, it had been translated almost completely into economistic terms. As such, instead of discussions of 39 to be called comparative political systems, of a new sub-discipline, political development, dealing with the nature of political evolution in Third World countries. As noted by pioneering writers in this sub-field (Gabriel Almond, Samuel Huntington, Lucian Pye and Sidney Verba), the optimistic ('benign line') view of political develop­ ment - that economic development will automatically bring about beneficial changes in the political environ­ ment - was belied by the emerging conflicts and instability in growing Third world economies; and, therefore there was a need to analyse the determinants of stable political evolution. 'Beneficial political evolution' meant, in this literature, a progress towards the 'ideal type' contained in Western political philosophy literature dating back to Locke, Hobbes and Hume. In many treatments, however, this ideal was assumed to coincide with existent political institutions in Western countries, most notably those of the'nation-state': professional bureaucracies, electoral democracy and political stability. An important influence, even if indirectly, was Gunnar Myrdal's notion of 'hard' and 'soft' states4^, the latter referring to the absence of the ' social discipline' necessary for modernisation. Myrdal suggested that due to cultural or historical reasons - namely a 'legacy [of] a set of anarchic attitudes with an ideolo- 40 gical and emotional force deriving from memories of resistance against the colonial power'4^ - many Asian countries had 'soft' states, because of which 'rapid development will be exceedingly difficult to engender.'44 The only exception in Asia, which Myrdal cites approvingly from a traveler's report, are China and Japan4-*. other writers in the political development tradition were to see the difference in institutional rather than in cultural terms, implying that the necessary conditions for modernisation could be created through policy. Accordingly, political development theories focussed on the need for 'state-building,' which includes the establishment of institutions that help 'expand' the level of 'power'4^ in a society, as well as those which increase the legitimacy of its exercise4^. 'Expansion' of power required the strengthening of the bureaucratic machinery, particularly in its coercive activities, but also in technical efficiency, methods, processes, selec­ tion, training and so forth. 'Legitimation' of power required the acceptance of the exercise of state power by the populace. Improved organisation and acceptable mechanisms for recruitment to the bureaucracy would also help in this repect. At a macro level, depending on the specific circumstances of each country, legitimacy could be increased either by expanded participation or by elite dominance. 41 An interesting deviation from this linear view of political development was provided by Myron Weiner (1965) , who pointed out, in his work on Indian political develop­ ment, that after independence two distinct political cultures, the 'elite' and the 'mass,' emerged in that country, and operated at different levels of society^®, and both had their strengths as well problems. In particular, this thesis of 'political dualism' pointed out very clearly the authoritarian bent of the rational and impersonal 'elite' culture, as well as the democratic possibilities of the relational and personal 'mass' culture. It is fair to say, however, that despite Weiner's personal eminence in the profession, the very provocative implications of his line of reasoning have not been followed up in the mainstream development literature. Another impetus for the emergence of political development as an independent discipline was provided by Marxist and dependency theorists' writings (Paul Baran, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Celso Furtado) on the unequal distribution of ppwer between the 'center' countries of the world and those in the 'periphery,' and the distorted nature of political change in the latter as a result. Contrary to the view of the liberal thinkers, these writers saw the state itself as an arena of conflict as well as a reflection of the distribution of power in 44 fairly satisfied, it did not really address the cause of the discontent, and so the popular critique as well as the resistance continued. This revealed, among other things, that the true source of popular dissatisfaction might have had more to do with the process, rather than with the objectives, of government decision-making. The second inference indicated that economists had been mistaken in disregarding the political consequences of their prescriptions and in focussing only on the purely economic effects. The economists were, however, saved the extra effort because of the timely assistance of pioneering political scientists, who set up a new sub-field of development theory, political development, to deal with this issue. But this, too, turned out not to be a satisfactory resolution of the discussion, since it was soon discovered that political development theorists did not have much in the way of prescription, and the little that they did have could be interpreted as attempts to legitimate the impugned actions of the ruling elites. Furthermore, discussion of political stability and development brought to the fore another hitherto ignored issue, namely that of participation in civic or political affairs, which was not observed to increase necessarily with the establishment of the nation-state or even with the introduction of electoral democracy. These concerns were further re-inforced by the legitimation provided by 45 social scientists to emergent authoritarian and repressive governments because of the latters' association with growth-oriented policies. All these concerns were expressed by ' alternative' theorists, and used to challenge basic assumptions of mainstream theory. 3a.5 Participation versus Organization Political resistance to the state can be interpreted somewhat differently. Instead of seeing it is an oppo­ sition to particular policies of the state, or to a particular regime, or even to the system of functioning of a succession of regimes, we can see it as a questioning of the very concepts of the centralised, impersonal and bureaucratically organised nation-state. Political development theory focussed only on the pathologies of particular regimes, not on the idea of the nation-state as such. The emergence of conflict and instability in the Third World was also ascribed, in one way or another, to 'incomplete' modernisation: absence of necessary political institutions, persistence of traditional behavior patterns, or the like; rather than to a resistance to the rationalisation and impersonalisation of social existence entailed in the drive towards the formation of the nation-state. Such an alternative interpretation, however, has indeed been the subject of a substantive literature in 46 the West as well as in what is now the Third World, which questioned the disenfranchising potential of the modern nation-state. A classic example is the argument of writers on 'anarchism' (Godwin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin)^, even though their bias towards individualism created some paradoxes and conflicts^. Despite Marx's important differences with anarchist writers, most notably Proudhon, this also finds resonance in Marx's notion of self-alienation in capitalist social arrange­ ments . Another writer who took up this argument was Max Weber, when he predicted the potential bureaucratisation of capitalist society, mainly on account of the efficiency of the bureaucratic social organisation. In the twentieth century, significant contributions along these lines have been made in social philosophy by the Frankfurt School (Herbert Marcuse, Jurgen Habermas)^4, in political theory by Marxists like Antonio Gramsci and his followers (N. Poulantzas, Norberto Bobbio)", and in economics by radicals like Stephen Marglin (1974), and Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1986). In the context of the Third World countries, such ideas found their earliest expression in the works of writers like Peter Kropotkin^, M.K. Gandhi and Lewis Mumford^7, and later by Peter Berger (1976), Pierre Clastres (1977), Guy Gran (1983), Ivan Illich (1981), Ashis Nandy (1980, 1984), E.F. Schumacher (1973), and Elman Service (1975). 49 states, this criticism tended to undermine the 'hardness' by casting doubt on the certitude of theorists. Finally, and perhaps somewhat paradoxically, some writers re-asserted basically the superiority of the Western model of political development in general, and of the managerial approach to social issues in particular. This relied on the possibility of increased social and political participation through concerted government effort61, through bureaucratic re-orientation (BRO)62, through increasing efficiency of government decisions63, or finally, by shifting the focus of development to areas hitherto neglected6^. The main argument is that not only is it possible for a bureaucratic or impersonal machinery to be responsive to the needs of constituent citizens through the introduction of appropriate checks and balances, but that this is in fact the best means of ensuring the defense of freedom and sovereignty. Once again, this literature can be interpreted as a synthesis of a tension between external critiques of modernisation and the need for paradigm maintenance and moral defense of modernity in the face of such criticism. The primary challenge came from democratic or populist movements, particularly in Latin American countries, where the imposition of rational-bureaucratic governments was resisted, notwithstanding their supposed edge in bringing about rapid economic growth. ' Internal' critiques 50 focussed primarily on the freedom of the market, or else on the question of political stability, rather than on the broader issues of participation and freedom. 3a.6 Technology and Knowledge The existence of civic resistance and protest has been interpreted in other ways as well, particularly as being against the effects of the introduction of modern technology and its attendant institutions into society. Apart from the obvious actions of organised industrial labour, examples of such protest would include broad-based political action directed against the economically powerful groups in society, protest movements against specific projects or activities (e.g., against large dams, nuclear plants, and so forth), and an unwillingness or inability to be subjected to industrial discipline. Actions like these and others have been interpreted by a large number of writers as being an indictment of the process of modernisation. This resistance can be interpreted either, as a protest against the nature and process of work in modern societies, or as a rejection of the outcome of these processes. It is fair to say that the 'alternative' critique has emphasised the former, while the 'internal' critique of modernisation has focussed on the latter. 51 One of the earliest of such critiques is Marx's argument of the alienation of the industrial worker from the product and the process under capitalism65. A key point is the fact that technical division of labour under capitalism increasingly takes away from the worker the control of the nature, the pace and the intensity of work, and that this loss of control is the ultimate cause of the social and political resistance66. Just as the notion of a bureaucratic state can be argued to lead to disenfranchisement, so can centralized and hierarchical forms of economic organisations. In fact, this is the heart of the issue over development and modernisation, since it has often been asserted that modern culture is essentially a way of organizing people, resources or ideas in a more efficient manner than traditional cul­ tures . As such, critiques of organization as a means of disenfranchisement hit at the very core of modernisation. Writers of the Frankfurt School (Marcuse, Fromm, Habermas) used Marx's argument to question the social basis of modernity, namely its technological and organi­ sational imperative, not only in production, but also in consumption, distribution, and in the very processes of creation and dissemination of knowledge and information. This argument has been taken further by Marglin (1987), who sees the problem to lie not only in the institutional 54 'inappropriate' technology (and therefore, of unemployment) in Third World economies. Some writers argue that there is only 'one best way' of doing things, and that the question of appropriate or inappropriate technology is moot. In their view, the problem lies not in science, technology, or knowledge, but rather in the absence of social and cultural factors which encourage enterprise. Those of a neoclassical persuausion argue that the problem is 'wrong' prices, set by government fiat or other political action, which interfere with market clearing. They argue that this problem can be corrected by getting the prices right, which often means lowering wages and raising interest and exchange rates. An alternative view is given by 'technologists,' who think that the public goods character of appropriate technology inhibits research and development, and therefore that the solution is to subsidise research and develop­ ment through government effort. The contrast between these responses and the alter­ native view is based on differing notions of popular sovereignty. The alternative view would consider a technology to be appropriate only if it was under the direct control of the people who were affected by it (cf. A.K.N. Reddy, Rudolf Bahro), or through people who were directly involved in the life of those so affected. The modernising response perceives market competition, 55 governmental control, or legal remedies as suitable and sufficient substitutes for popular control. The connection between this controversy and that over popular partici­ pation should be self-evident at this point, as also would be the connection to environmental and ecological questions. 3a.7 Natural Resources and Environment The concern with the loss of sovereignty was also expressed in relation to a very important aspect of social life, namely the association of environmental deterioration with the replacement of community or social forms of control by bureaucratic arrangements. Similar concerns have also been expressed at the rapid depletion of non-renewable resources (Meadows et.al.) due to the expansionary nature of capitalism. Following Ramachandra Guha, we can identify the alternate critics as falling into two groups, the 'Idealists' (Lynn White, Theodor Roszak, Sunderlal Bahuguna, Rudolf Bahro) , or Ecological Socialists (Barry Commoner, A.K.N. Reddy, C.P. Bhatt) . These groups place the blame for the observed problems on the instrumental, impersonal, and vivisectionist attitudes towards nature in the modern world view. The former group sees these attitudes derived from the Judaeo-Christian ethic of the West, while the latter writers perceive it to emanate from the 56 nature of Western technology, and the asymmetrical social relations which determine this technology. Once again, we can categorize these critiques as derived from 'alternate' perspectives on social arrangements. The alternate writings often connect the notion of environmental decay with ideas of violence. To see this point, one has only to notice the relationship of violence to excess, or of going beyond certain limits. In the behavioristic bent of the modern, impersonal world-view, the idea of internal constraints (relational or contex­ tual limits) on people has been replaced by external constraints (market, state) . However, these external constraints will work only if they are ubiquitous. If not, we will have the situation of 'market failure' or 'government failure'. While examples of these types of failure can be seen in various social inter-actions, the destruction of the natural environment is the most obvious example. To follow this line of argument, the safeguarding of the environment cannot be done as long as the dominant value is one of external constraints. These intellectual critiques of the impact of modernisation have also been related to and supported by popular environmental movements in the West (various anti-nuclear movements, the Greens Party in Germany) as well as the Third World (Chipko Andolan movement in Cultural Critique: The Last Stage Implicit in the discussion so far is the idea that the various challenges to modernisation theory share a few common themes. However, since these different critiques were being made in different spheres of thought and action, they could be isolated and assimilated or dismissed separately because of their lack of congruence with the dominant mode of analysis. The term 'cultural critique' implies a recognition and assertion of the underlying unity of the various strands in the argument, of the recognition of an 'Aquarian Conspiracy' in Marilyn Ferguson's terms. In our view, this confluence is both the cause and consequence of the greater self-assurance generally of people of non-Western cultures, and partic­ ularly of the intellectuals who seek to articulate the world-views of these cultures for a scholarly audience. The emergence of this unity should, however, be seen as the strengthening of a tradition of thought and action with a long and respected pedigree. An academic and intellectual critique of modernisation on cultural grounds has long been expressed by a small but increasingly influential group of writers, who identify, as the cause of many of the problems emerging in Third World countries, the very notion of a human being and human welfare implicit in dominant theories (and by implication in modern 58 59 Western culture) used by the modernising elites of these societies to impose unacceptable and undesirable policies and conditions upon an unwilling populace. As such, these writers criticise the very basis of development, namely the supposed superiority of the institutions, arrangements, or achievements in Western societies. The fact that this literature has found new prota­ gonists as well as a larger audience can be traced back to three reasons. First, the increasing evidence of the dysfunctioning of societies, whether in the North or the South, which cannot be explained satisfactorily by available theories; second, because of the frustration with attempts to make piece-meal amendations in dominant modes of thinking/ and lastly, because of the emergence of powerful anti-systemic and often anti-Western social and political movements of cultural revival in Third World countries as well as in some countries of the West. 3b.1 Social Dysfunctioning A key reason for the strengthening of the cultural critique is an exponential increase in the dysfunctioning of societies undergoing rapid modernisation. Entire regions, previously peaceful and tranquil are now almost unlivable due to endemic civil war, ethnic conflict, political unrest, social and political oppression by 60 militarised states, urban polarisation and decay including a rise in violent crimes, environmental deterioration such as desertification, waterlogging, climate changes, or deforestation. There seem to be similar increases in socio-psychological problems assailing people in wester­ nised sections of the Third World, and rapidly extending to other areas as well. A related reason is the emergence of somewhat similar problems in Western countries, something to which one cane give the somewhat melodramatical title, 'the decline of the West.' Vietnam, Watergate, OPEC, macroeconomic problems (unemployment, inflation), micro- -social problems (decay of cities, quality of life of old people, women, and minorities) in western countries seem to have shattered the myth that people in these societies are in greater control of their lives than are the people in 'backward' societies. Naturally, one of the reasons for the growing disaffection is the increasing familiarity of Third World citizens with the mode of existence of the West, an idea expressed charmingly by a character in ' Mon Oncle d'Amerique,' a French film of a few years ago, 'America does not exist,' he said, 'I've been there.' A similar disillusionment seems to have set in with regard to the Soviet model, with the publicisation of the Stalinist purges, expansion of State control over 63 and traditional value-systems, are quite active in many 70 parts of the globe, not excluding European countries Second, while these movements often involve an explicit and emphatic rejection of Western capitalism, this has not, for the most part, led to a swing towards Marxism, since the conception of the West implicit in this rejection seems to encompass orthodox Marxism as well. Third, whether in the context of Islamic societies or others, the use of the term 'revival' could be a little misleading, since a majority of the population had never entirely relinquished their traditional values or traditional modes of thinking in the first place. These movements are but contemporary articulations of beliefs and values which have long existed in these societies. In many cases, the change is only in the attitude of a Westernised minority which was previously alienated from traditional values71. What this example illustrates is that it would be more appropriate to think of recent socio-political developments in many parts of the Third World, as the result of a sense of discomfort with, or even an emphatic rejection of, the rational-technological model upon which people in the West as well as those in the developing world had pinned their hopes for the establishment of a humane and just society. 64 Among the Westernised elites in Islamic countries, this has taken the form of a rejuvenation of respect for Islamic values and ideals/ in other societies, this has naturally taken other forms. Besides other religious and ethnic revival movements, mention can also be made of popular environmental movements the most notable one being the Chipko movement in India; the rise of non-gov­ ernmental organisations [sic] in various countries of the world, notable ones including various social welfare movements, women's movements, or movements of cultural interpretation and articulation, such as the 'Lokayan' movement in India; and the formation of 'base communities' around the liberation theology teachings in Latin America. It is also pertinent to note that the fears and concerns expressed by these movements have been echoed, and in some cases, anticipated by similar movements in Western countries. Particularly noteworthy in this respect are the Womens' movements, the Peace movement in Europe, and the Greens movement in West Germany. 3b.4 Intellectual Challenges Very few intellectuals, whether in Third World countries or in the West, felt confident enough to jettison entirely the framework and assumptions of the social science disciplines with which they were connected. Nor were most of them ready to take up alternative, 65 'backward', 'traditional', or religious discourses as a means of communicating their ideas. This situation is the one which seems to be undergoing the most rapid change in many Third World countries under the impact of the anti-systemic popular movements'^. As mentioned earlier, however, the intellectual roots of the current challenge to the intellectual orthodoxy go far back in history. In the twentieth century alone, a large literature critical of the multi-faceted modernisation project, has emerged in Western countries as well as in the Third World. While each of these sets of writings are very diverse in their approach, and have raised many different issues which cannot all be summarised here, a common theme can be identified. These writers tend to see the association between modernisation and socio-economic deterioration as endogenous rather than exogenous7^, and supported and strengthened in particular by legitimations provided by 'neutral' social scientists. As a result of these considerations, this group of writers has chosen to focus their analysis on the discovery of causal connections between the project of modernisation and the symptoms of social dysfunctioning. It needs scarcely worth re-iterating, however, that despite their many differences, these disparate critics of the func­ tioning of modernity seem to share, at a deep structural level, an alternate 'way of seeing,' with different 68 -productive for the purposes for which it was intended74. Similar arguments, albeit with less polemic and more reasoning have been made by other neoclassical authors including Bela Balassa (1982), Peter Bauer (1981), Anne Krueger, Ian Little (1982), among many others. The common element in all these writings is the interpretation of spectacular growth in the so-called Gang of Four countries of East Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) , as a vindication of free market policies, and therefore as an indictment of the diriaiste prescriptions of non-neoclassical approaches. The experience of these countries was retro-actively labelled 'export-led growth,' partly to acknowledge their superior export and growth performance, and partly to point to the trade and exchange rate policies which were claimed to have brought about this desirable outcome. The substantive aspects of this argument need not detain us. I have criticised these elsewhere7^ on account of their selective reading of the evidence, deliberate inconsideration of the diriaiste aspects of the South Korean and Taiwanese economies7*>, and the inattention to the dramatic failures of attempts to replicate elsewhere the so-called free market policies of these countries77. At this stage, it might be more interesting to note the effect of the neoclassical argument on development literature as a whole. Since the 'free market' aspects 69 of the 'Gang of Four' economies pertained to their macroeconomic trade and exchange rate policies, it began to appear as if the only relevant question for Development Economics was whether or not the liberalisation of trade and exchange rate regimes was the panacea to all the ills of development as claimed by neoclassical experts. It became a commonplace to suggest that Development Economics had been taken over by Trade Theorists. As issues of trade theory assumed central importance in development literature, there was a concomitant decline in attention accorded to other problems, except to the extent that they had a bearing on the issue of openness" . This development was further re-inforced by the problems faced by many Third World countries (especially those in Latin America) of adjustment to the various external shocks of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Neoclassical writers, particularly those associated with the World Bank and the IMF, claimed that difficulties in adjustment were caused by the inward orientation of the problem economies, and could be cured by the same liber­ alisation policies which had earlier been recommended as solutions for growth problems. Both these institutions initiated programs for financing structural adjustment, which provided additional incentives for the acceptance of these theories by resource-hungry governments. 70 3b.6 Mainstream Response This resurgence of neoclassical wisdom is surprising, coming at a time when even the relatively greater cultural sensitiveness in the method of institutional development economics is being assailed for its alienness. However, the non-neoclassical group of development economists, even though on the defensive, were not entirely silent. As already mentioned, trade theorists in this group engaged the neoclassical school on the latter's assertion of the supposed beneficience of trade liberalisation and other neoclassical measures. Others sought to identify the roots of the larger crisis, and to find ways of addressing them. The most interesting of these responses are in the nature of 'internal' critiques of mainstream development theory by such culturally sensitive writers as Henry Bruton (1983), Paul Streeten (1984), Albert Hirschman (1981, 1984) or Amartya Sen (1983). They have argued, indepen­ dently, that the paradigm of development economics is in need of a drastic overhaul, particularly with respect to the 'mono-economics' claim of some of its sub-fields. They have also identified quite clearly many of the problems expressed in the popular critiques of modernis­ ation. In particular, they have questioned very effec­ tively, the theoretical certitude which often lies behind policies which are pushed to unwise extremes Culture, Behaviour and Values A wit once said that all reviews of Hamlet have a good part and a bad part. The good part is where the reviewer criticises all other theories; and the bad part is where s/he presents her/his own theory. It is time to inflict the bad part of this essay on the patient reader. It is our argument that the many external critiques of modernisation are unified at a deeper level by an alternative 'way of seeing' the world, and that this unity has found expression, naturally, in what is called the cultural critique. In this section, we shall elaborate on this argument in order to bring out more specifically the differences in 'ways of seeing' or 'cultural perspec­ tives' between protagonists and antagonists of moderni­ sation. The object of the discussion is to present at the same time an alternative theory of behaviour, an alternative perspective on values, the alternative view on modernisation theories, and an analysis of the legit­ imising role of these theories in respect of certain values and actions. 4.1 What is 'culture?' In the following discussion, we treat the terms 'culture', 'world-view,' 'cognitive system' or 'way of 72 73 seeing' as synonyms. The use of these concepts is derived from a long literature in sociology, psychology and anthropology which goes back at least to Max Weber's (1931, 1947) distinction between 'rational' and 'tradi­ tional' behaviour and their relationship with the 'problem of meaning,' to Emile Durkheim's work79 on the primacy of social structure in human behaviour and construction of meaning, Talcott Parson's synthesis*^ of these two writers and his own views on the 'structuration' of human agency through meaning systems and the legitimacy provided to existing social institutions by such construction, and George Mead's (1934) analysis"^- of behaviour as a tension between the 'I' and the social roles derived from the expectations of others (the 'me'). In anthropology, these ideas were taken up subsequently in the writings of Claude Levi-Strauss, Louis Dumont, Clifford Geertz and Stanley Tambiah among others. Much of what is said below is not new. The attempt is essentially to synthesise four well-known strands of thought in social science literature: the distinction between rational and traditional behaviour, the role of cognitive systems in determining behaviour, the 'struc­ tured' nature of cognitive systems, and the perception of behaviour as a tension between two aspects of this structured reality. 74 It is appropriate to begin with a definition of 'culture.1. An elegant definition, provided by Geertz (1973), is that of a superstructural system which fills the 'information gap' between 'what our bodies tell us and what we have to know in order to function'°2 or, to use a more recent metaphor, as the human 'software' which fills the gap between human needs and the available genetic 'hardware'^3. This means, in Geertz's words, that there is^^; ' [No] such thing as human nature independent of culture. ... [Our] central nervous system ... is incapable of directing our behavior or organising our experience without the guidance provided by systems of significant symbols. . . . Such symbols are thus not mere expressions, instrumentalities, or correlates of our biolo­ gical, psychological, and social existence; they are prerequisites of it. Without men, no culture, certainly; but equally, and more significantly, without culture, no men.' Culture, this system of symbols, can thus be likened to a 'map' of the universe which we carry in our heads, and which enables us to integrate our values, choices, and actions. It is a 'design for living,' a filter through which we access all experience, physical as well as social, and which enables us to act in situations presented before us. 'All human action,' said George Mead, 'is interaction - with others, ourselves, our natural and created physical world - within culturally defined contexts that determine not only action, but its meaning.' It is scarcely worth mentioning here that these 'culturally 77 time as discrete rather than continuous, and to place the world in a conceptual grid. Not surprisingly, therefore, 'hard' social sciences such as economics and political science focus on relationships of exchange and power respectively, both of which belong in the impersonal sphere. Personal relations and attitudes are manifested in spontaneity, fluidity, and bilateral vulnerability; they must evolve dynamically and have to be flexible, concepts and definitions keep changing and evolving, time is seen as continuous, and attention is directed mainly towards those aspects of social reality which elude the conceptual grid of impersonality. Modern culture is unique in a very special sense. It is the only one which wishes consciously to separate these two dimensions of culture, one from the other, and to place them in a heirarchy in which the 'impersonal' is superior to the 'personal'87. This is what I have called the impersonality postulate of modernity: 'That impersonal relations are inherently superior to personal relations.' Before arguing this point, it would be helpful to have a more detailed description of the three dimensions of culture. With regard to self-definition or ontologyf the 'impersonal' view can be described by what the anthropo­ logist Louis Dumont calls 'individualism,' a character- 78 istic of those (Western) societies, which 'value, in the first place, the individual human being: every man is, in principle, an embodiment of humanity at large, and as such he is equal to every other man, and free.' Dumont contrasts this with 'holism,' a characteristic of those contemporary or ancient societies in which value is placed 'in the first place, on order: the conformity of every element to its role in society - in a word, the society as a whole.'^^ This means, among many other things, that individualism provides a sense of personal identity independent of relationships, and based on such abstract or 'impersonal' elements as abstract rights, attributes, desires, preferences or even professional occupation®^. In contrast, the 'personal' view can be termed 'relationalism', in which the individual sees herself or himself simply as the nexus of a web of relationships90. These relationships and roles acquire a metaphysical and symbolic (as opposed to a literal) quality; the culture tells us what, for example, it means to be a spouse, a neighbour, a friend, a patron or a client, but is silent on what it means to to have preferences, attributes or rights^l. Similarly, in our theories of the universe or cosmology, the impersonal view is represented by what can be called 'instrumentalism', i.e., perceptions of such 79 things as land, the village, the home, trees, forests, animals, stars, goods and even people, primarily as sources of gratification. Alternatively, the 'personal' view would see all these entities in a relational context: a home is not just the place where you are living at the moment, but also an integral part of your history as well as of your future. The 'instrumental' view sees everything as being replaceable or substitutible, whereas the 'relational' perspective finds everything unique and irreplaceable. It follows that 'impersonality' implies the attribution of only a finite set of qualities or characteristics to each object, while 'relationality' sees an infinite dimensions in each in terms of its attributes. Lastly, it is also possible to identify two broad alternatives in the theory of knowledge or epistemology provided by a cultural map. The impersonal view is represented by the Cartesian 'positivism/literalism' which found its most forceful exposition in the works of the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle92. In this view, valid knowledge derives only from the separation of the observer from the object of knowledge, and the expansion of knowledge takes place through its division into separate self-contained divisions with cause and effect relations restricted to each subdivision93. 82 terms, masculine) world-view, or as conflicts between obligations in a relational (or feminine) view. Another version of the psychologistic approach, perhaps more important for our purposes here, is the one adopted by George Mead (1934), who interprets moral conflict as a tension between the (impersonal) 'I' and the (relational) 'me.' This approach is pertinent here because it leads us directly from the discussion of values into the analysis of social behaviour. To follow this line of argument, in every culture a decision, whether individual or collective, represents the resolution of a tension between the conflicting demands of the two maps. This suggests that while all humans are alike in the sense that their actions represent a playing out of the tension between the 'personal' and the 'impersonal,' yet they are all different because each individual (and indeed, each action) represents a different resolution of the tension. In the same sense, all cultures are similar yet different. All cultures manifest themselves in the form of a tension between the two cultural maps, but each represents a unique balance and a unique tension. This point is worth elaborating. Cultures differ from one another because of three different factors. First, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that the 'personal' map is context specific while 83 the 'impersonal' map is universal; in other words, cultural specificity derives in the first instance from the 'personal' map. Second, they will differ also in the relative weight they give to the two maps in different spheres of human activity, in other words in how they blend and balance the two maps in the conscious­ ness of their constituent individuals. Lastly, as has already been noted, the nature and intensity of the tension between the 'personal' and 'impersonal' maps will be different in different cultures. Indeed, the tension between the two maps can be seen as the primary source of cultural and social change. In other words, 'culture' is not a static phenomenon, but rather is something which changes endogenously through the resolution of the tension between its component elements. All cultures can be seen as unique and evolving resolutions of the dialectic between the 'impersonal' and the 'personal.' In fact, it is possible to go even further and to argue that the co-existence of the 'personal' and the 'impersonal' is not coincidental. In fact, the two ways of seeing are necessary as complements to each other. They are necessary for each other, because each helps to limit the excesses which can result from an unfettering of the other96. No human society can exist without both of these maps as components of its culture. 84 4.2 The Impersonality Postulate The project of modernity has, however, taken upon itself precisely the task of distinguishing between the two maps by asserting a heirarchy between them. It has the confessed task of 'rationalising' the whole world, of placing the world in a conceptual grid, and therefore of separating the two halves of human consciousness and strengthening one at the expense of the other. As Polanyi (1944), Dumont (1977, 1980), and others have pointed out, 'modern' culture is unique in a very important respect. It is the only one which creates an explicit dichotomy between the two forms of self-defini­ tion, and, at least in its articulated and conscious form, concentrates only on the imperatives of the imper­ sonal aspect, relegating the notion of personal connections to a supervenienent 'private' sphere. In other words, the 'way of seeing' in modern cultures is motivated by a powerful asymmetry, which we call here the impersonality postulate: 'Impersonal relations are inherently superior to personal relations'. Despite its apparent 'irration­ ality' , this postulate is pervasive as the foundational element of various Western theories, in fact, of the entire sensibility which, without seeking to be polemical, is generally described as 'Western'. 87 metaphysical entities and the environment as an external datum. In other words, instead of seeing behaviour as the result of a tension between the demands of the 'personal' and 'impersonal' maps, with this assumption neoclassical theory allows itself to focus only on conflicts between different objectives within the imper­ sonal sphere alone. This would not be an invalid approach if the imper­ sonal sphere were concede to be clearly dominant, or if the personal side were completely irrelevant for this purpose. In this case, if the various desires of the impersonal self are stable over time then empirical obser­ vation would also lead to predictive ability, which is the claim made by neoclassical economics^ . In a like manner, political science perceives individuals to be in pursuit of power, and political institutions to be the means for the efficient exercise and the legitimacy of power in society. Economic deter- minists see this simply as an alternative way of saying that individuals pursue higher utility, since power may be a means to the achievement of goods which provide such utility. Nevertheless, as a result of this perspec­ tive, political philosophy has helped legitimise the existence of the modern 'nation-state, ' with its impersonal and bureaucratic authority for the regulation of the behavior of its citizens on the basis of reason and 88 consent, as the 'rationalisation' of civil society, and hence as a modernising ideal for the Third World. What is common between both these disciplines is an emphasis on the 'impersonal' facet of society, whether in the sphere of exchange or of power, to use these supposed sources of human motivation to discover empirical regularities in society, and a refusal to look at other sources of motivation even if they are more relevant and of greater predictive value in a particular instance. This approach could be justified on either of three grounds: 1) That the theory is meant to apply only in the limited number of situations where imper­ sonality is dominant. This could mean a demarcation of the area within the purview of theory, as that where relationships are clearly perceived as impersonal-^0 # 2) In addition to (1), that the domain of impersonal relations is the only important area of social interaction, either because (a) other aspects are intrinsically less important, since they do not determine issues like produc­ tion, distribution, or consumption, nor those relating to power; or (b) that the arena of personal connections is not similarly subject to change, and hence can be assumed to be parametric; or, finally (c) that the area of impersonal relations is the most predictable, and hence the most susceptible to control. 3) Finally, that everything is reducible 'in the last instance,' to impersonal desires. In other words, it is possible to interpret even personal commitments as forms of impersonal desires1^1; or, more strongly, that all relations are impersonal. Even though one occasionally finds disclaimers in economic and political science texts to the effect that 89 the theory is not universally applicable, such humility is rare. Economists, in particular, believe that their theories apply to all possible times or places4-u , and that choice is ultimately reducible to a conflict between different impersonal preferences103. In fact, a great deal of effort is expended in proving this type of reducibility. Institutional economists acknowledge the weakness of this assumption, and modify the analysis to allow behavior to be constrained by existing social or political institutions, or to be motivated by considerations other than the pursuit of profit. Yet, in many cases there are problems because of the mechanical way in which institutions are introduced into the analysis. Rather than focus on the conflict between the demands of the 'personal' and 'impersonal' maps, these analyses often refer to the former only as the generator of a set of boundary conditions within which the conflict within the conflict within the latter is to be analysed. While such a concession may increase the predictability of some models, it is not likely to be infallible, since it requires the institution to act as a rigid constraint rather than as the basis of a continuous tension with impersonal desires104. Furthermore, this concession also aims to preserve what may be the hidden target of the alternative critique, namely the right of the outside