All societies are not the same. It’s a mistake to ignore that fact when implementing economic or military policies. Some economists have learned that to their regret over the years. The Bush administration needs to learn it now.
At some fundamental level, all humans are alike. But we collectively interact with each other in different ways. Some 120 years ago, German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies asserted a fundamental difference between “community” and “society.”
In “community,” he argued, individuals are united by kinship, religious faith and cultural assumptions. Custom, reciprocal responsibilities or institutions like craft guilds dominate economic life. Traditional villages represent community.
For Tonnies, “society” is more modern and individualistic. People live together but do not necessarily share the same values. Rational calculations govern their actions. Formal laws and contracts maintain social order. Goods and services are traded in arms-length, market transactions. In this scheme of things, people in wealthy, industrialized countries make up “society” as do some urban residents in poorer countries.
In many developing countries, community predominates. Responsibilities to family, clan or town trump individual autonomy or national identity. Religious beliefs and concepts of honor or shame may be more important than rational self-interest. This is true in much of South Asia. It holds throughout the arc of Muslim nations from Morocco to the southern Philippines. It is true for most of Iraq.
The traditional community/modern society distinction doesn’t mean that conventional economics are irrelevant. Illiterate peasant farmers may allocate their scarce resources as rationally as Iowa State grads. Traditional households may buy goods and services in modern markets.
Nor does it mean that no one in these countries values individual liberty, human rights or democratic government. Many do. It does mean, however, that one must be extremely cautious in assuming that institutions or policies that are successful in Western society will work in countries where traditional society remains strong.
Opening a stock exchange does not mean the country has a functional market economy. Holding an election does not mean there is healthy democracy.
Just because food stamps work in Pennsylvania does not mean they will work in Peru. Just because Catholic and Calvinist parties form coalitions in the Dutch Parliament does not mean that Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis will do the same. To assume that Western institutions and policies are easy to replicate in non-Western countries often is a tragic error.
For those who find Tonnies work too dense, here’s the simpler warning of his British contemporary, Rudyard Kipling:
“And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
“And the epitaph drear: ‘A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’ ”
© 2007 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.