Módulo 6. Traducir algunas estructuras oracionales del chino

There is a renewal of interest in the relationship between culture and (economic) development. This is manifested in the debate on ‘Asian values’ as an explanation for the success of the so-called tiger economies. Having started their catch-up from a similar level like other developing countries, their much more successful results are often imputed to their favourable culture. Another recent example is the collective volume edited by Harrison & Huntington (2000) which brings together scholars from different social sciences.

Why can it make sense to include culture into an economic analysis? How can this variable be integrated? Where are the shortcomings of such an approach?

A simple but somewhat naïve answer to the first question is to single out which characteristics different cultures possess are most likely to result in socio-economic progress in order to replicate these positive attributes in other cultural settings. The challenge of approaches which stress the importance of culture and other social factors that are non-economic in nature but influence the economy and are influenced by the latter is not merely to impute differences in economic performance to the cultural factors as earlier scholars often did, but to integrate culture as a variable into theoretical models (Klump 1996). An interesting approach has recently been taken by Frederking (2002) who tries to carve out the

substance of the relationship between culture and development in order to achieve a basis for cross-cultural comparisons.

For this purpose, a quite generic approximation of culture has to be found and applied. Later in this chapter, I will use the variables caste and ethnicity. This is an adaptation to the object of study, but could reasonably be part of a broader aggregate of cultural factors. And, although it is not primarily an economic one, focusing on the economic implications of these proxies narrow the scope of this chapter.

At the outset, one has to emphasize how difficult it is to consistently integrate the mutual interdependences that exist with regard to culture (Klump 1996).

Basically, there are two dimensions in this relationship. First, culture can be seen as an end in itself, that is a good which is desirable to be preserved as part of a larger spectrum of goals that should be reached in the course of development.

Secondly, it is also a means to development, both directly through cultural investments and, more importantly, indirectly through values and norms working in a society (Sen 2001). Since the majority of development theorists see culture rather as a means than as an immediate goal, at least in the near future, I will concentrate on this. Then the question is how culture exerts its influence on the economic realm (Ruttan 1988). First, there are the often-cited values, beliefs, traditions and norms. However, they are rarely observable, hence difficult to measure. Therefore the more visible manifestation of culture are actions, behaviour or actual social practices which are usually influenced through norms and values.

Focusing on the relationship between culture and the economy and recognizing the fact that there are manifold problems with the definition of culture (Gupta 1994),1 in order to make it operational in the context of economic development the analysis should be narrowed to economic culture. What, then, is economic culture? Certainly, it is part of the larger cultural setting of a society. The methodological problem integrating culture with economics poses to the economist is that it is difficult do define and quantify separately from other

1 He mentions a taxonomy collected as early as 1952 which gives 164 definitions of culture, presumably there is a multiple of this number today (Gupta 1994, p. 2).

factors, e.g. institutional ones. Economic sociologist DiMaggio (1993: 27) says

‘aspects of culture shape economic institutions and affairs [...] economic processes have an irreducible cultural component’. In the same vein is North’s (1990: 37) statement that Culture underpins the ‘rules of the game’ in any society, and provides ‘the informal constraints on human interaction’.

Instances of the economic culture approach are the concept of social capital (for a review see Fukuyama 2000) or social capability (Abramovitz 1986). The first approach stresses the informal values and norms shared by a small community allowing for trust and cooperation. The latter is more macro oriented and focuses on the ability of a country to innovate and adapt to changing external factors in order ‘to exploit emerging technological opportunities’ (Abramovitz 1986: 406).

It stresses the interplay of different factors ranging from education, institution and openness in enabling a country to adopt new technologies and is related to the literature on systems of innovation (Lundvall (ed.) 1992, Nelson (ed.) 1993), which vary, however, in terms of geographical focus, i.e. their perspective stretches from national to regional and local. The focus of the innovation systems literature is certainly not on culture, but it can be a complementing factor.

The literature dealing with the culture of economic development demonstrates predominantly one line of argument. Most of the authors working on economic culture try to single out those cultural factors that can be positively correlated with development in the sense of modernization and growth (Lal 1998b). Usually mentioned are for example trust, rationality, the value of work and religion (Grondona 2000).2 This reasoning can be traced back at least to Max Weber’s ideal types and has its latest revival in the ‘Asian values’ debate which has been dubbed a ‘neat reversal of Max Weber’s famous thesis’ (Lal 1998a: 2). These values characterizing the highly hierarchical societies of East Asia, however, do not really match the South Asian context. As Amartya Sen (1999) points out, there are ancient Indian traditions and values contrasting those of the sinic societies to the east. An analysis of the principles of the ancient Indian thinker Kautilya show that they are more egalitarian and condemn such authoritarian approaches as of East Asia (Sarkar 2000; Sen 1999).

2 She has a typology of 21 factors.

However interesting the value debate, culture is manifested and observable only though action or social practices. In synthesis, culture can be defined as ‘socially transmitted heritage’, which opens the door for analysis of actual behaviour. The problem with interpreting cultural influences through literature study, or the ‘book view’ is that people often act differently from what they prefer to behave like. An instance of such a ‘preference falsification’, it is argued, might be at work in the caste system (Kuran 1987). This leads me to the Indian situation.