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670 Economic Development and Cultural Change

Chile, a country whose experience is not considered in the volume,


which has been characterized since 1973 by generally hard-faced eco-
nomic policies, high unemployment rates, and absolutely declining per
capita income. Despite one's expectations in such conditions, Chile's
major social indicators have exhibited remarkably rapid improvement.
Between 1970 and 1985 infant mortality fell from 82 to 22 per 1,000
live births while life expectancy rose from 62 to 70 years. These phe-
nomena suggest the need to pay less attention to macroeconomic im-
pacts and more to the comparative analysis of country experience.
Lincoln Chen's stimulating if thin comparison of China and India
(chap. 12) is the only instance in the volume which employs this prom-
ising approach.
It is not clear to whom this volume is addressed. The authors as
a group have considerable experience as policymakers and scholar-
advisors, and their essays represent familiar mainstream positions
which typically summarize or restate what they have written else-
where. No paper appears to have undergone any significant intellectual
transformation as a result of conference interaction. While the brief
"Introduction and Overview" by the editors identifies the main themes
in each essay and the major disagreements among them, nothing novel
has been added to the mix even there. Consequently, experts who
were not at the conference probably already know most of what is in
the volume. Students, who need to be instructed, may benefit from
the lucid presentations of various matters, particularly the formal eco-
nomic issues-but they will not get the hard, creative discussion that
is needed if they are to understand the complexity of the issues and
become conscious of alternative approaches that were not discussed.
One hopes that the Harvard School of Public Health at another confer-
ence will undertake to explore this range of issues more deeply.

Durganand Sinha and Henry S. R. Kao, eds. Social Values and Develop-
ment: Asian Perspectives. Newbury Park, Calif., New Delhi, and Lon-
don: Sage Publications, 1988. Pp. 336. $27.50.

Lucian Pye
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The publication of this book, the product of a 1987 conference held at


the University of Hong Kong, should be welcomed by all students of
socioeconomic development as a sign that the field may be regaining
the intellectual breadth and dynamism that it had in the 1950s and
1960s. In its heyday development studies attracted people from various
disciplines, and the problems studied were seen as requiring the inte-

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Reviews 671

gration of micro- and macroanalysis,that is, the bridgingof the gap


between the two extremes of individualdepth psychology and general
social systems analysis. It is, therefore,good news that this book con-
tinues the study of the relationshipof personality to economic and
politicaldevelopmentbegunby such social scientists as David McClel-
land, Alex Inkeles, Everett Hagen, EdwardShils, and others.
The subtitle might suggest that the conference papers that make
up the chapters of the book reflect the culturalorientationsof Asians,
but this is not the case because with few exceptions the work is consis-
tent with the highest of internationalstandardsand is in no way paro-
chially Asian. Indeed, most of the chapters are essentially technical
reports by professional psychologists, almost all of whom happen to
be Asians. For the growth of the field it is significant,however, that
such high-qualityresearch is being producedby scholars from devel-
oping countries.
Although the strengthof the best chapterslies in the analysis of
individualattitudes and culturalthemes, all of the authorstry to keep
in mind that their ultimategoal is to explain the psychologicalcondi-
tions that favor or impede socioeconomic development. They look
to psychology to answer larger questions of national development.
Moreover, it is hearteningthat, in contrast to the 1950s and 1960s
when indigenous scholars often seemed hypersensitiveabout any ob-
servations that could be perceived as uncomplimentaryto their cul-
tures, most of these authors are able to analyze dispassionatelyand
critically their traditionalcultures. Indeed, DurganandSinha's essay
on basic Indian values is a masterfuland totally fair-mindedsumming
up of research on Indian character. He does not flinch at stating his
conclusion that the "negatives" dominateas far as facilitatingIndian
economic development. One only wishes that Sinha could have taken
a broaderview of what constitutes "development"and sought to ex-
plain how those same psychologicalcharacteristicsmay have contrib-
uted to India's remarkablerecord of democracy.
Several of the chapterstry to deal with the Confucianculturearea,
but none is successful in explaining why the "four dragons" have
"miracle" economies while China has such a mixed and essentially
poor record. In the three papers by Chung-fangYang, MichaelHarris
Bond, and Henry S. R. Kao and Ng Sek Hong there are sophisticated
attempts to dig beneath the formal doctrines of Confucianismand to
focus on more basic Chinese cultural practices, such as familism,
"minimalself" identity, and the bonds of interrelatedness,or guanxi.
Yet, in seeking to explain the different success and failure rates of the
one-time Confucian societies, the psychologists might have been better
advised to have looked up from their data on attitudes of individuals
and to have paid more attention to the effects of national policies and
political decision making. There is no getting around the fact that no

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672 Economic Development and Cultural Change

amountof properpsychologicalattitudesand motivationsin a popula-


tion can overcome the effects of ruinousnationalpolicies. Yet, sad to
say, Lin Fang of the AcademicaSinica, Beijing,in a superficialchapter
on "Chinese Modernizationand Social Values," seems unawarethat
by the 1980sthe recordof failureof socialismis a generallyrecognized
fact for most politicallyknowledgeablepeople, with the exception, of
course, of the hardlinersin the Chinese CommunistParty. One can
only hope for the sake of China that not many other well-educated
Chinese share his politicized views.
As might be expected, the chaptersdealingwith SoutheastAsian
societies are rich in culturalthemes. VirgilioG. Enriquezpresents a
completerundownof Filipinotermsfor expressingthat culture'ssocial
values. Suntaree Komin examines in detail the Thai value system by
comparingrural and urban differences. Udai Pareek reports on the
views of Indonesianmanagersas to the characteristicsof Indonesian
culture. WanRafaei AbdulRahmanprovidesdata to show thatMalay-
sian Chinese, not surprisingly,score higher than Malays in achieve-
ment motivation tests. In his conclusions he raises the provocative
idea that the Malaysiangovernment'spolicies, designedto reduce the
economic imbalancebetween the two races, may in fact have worked
as a "mild challenge" to the Chinese, making them all the more
achievement motivated, while makingthe Malays even more depen-
dent, therebyreinforcingtheirculturaldifferencesand thus makingthe
policy goals more difficultto realize.
Faced with the fact that there is little that their research can do
in providingimmediatepolicy guidancefor nationalleaders, the psy-
chologists are left with two general ways of being helpful citizens.
First, they can, as most of these authorshave done, seek to identify
the attitudes and social values that will either impede or facilitatede-
velopment, and in so doing help leaders arriveat a more realistic un-
derstandingof their nationaldestinies. Or, second, they can, as R. C.
Tripathiseeks to do for India, redefinedevelopmentso as to make the
goal more compatiblewith existing social values. This is, hov. -ver, a
trickyendeavor,for it involves treadingon the politician'sturfwithout
the discipliningconstraintsof real world politics. The result can easily
become an exercise in rearrangingthe subjective realm, particularly
with respect to spiritualor religiousmatters, and therebylosing sight
of the fact that development, however defined, has to be measurable
in practical, objective ways.
Social Values and Development holds out the promise that a new
generationof Asian psychologists is ready to take up again the chal-
lenge of exploring the human dimensions of socioeconomic develop-
ment. They are mature enough to know that the fear of an earlier
generation that development might obliterate traditional cultural differ-
ences is nothing more than a bogeyman. As Japan and now more and

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Reviews 673

more of Asia has proved, it is the realization of development that


makes nationalcultures blossom. This book is proof that most Asians
have moved beyond the psychological effects of colonialism and are
at peace with their nationaltraditions.It is only the old men of Beijing
who strive to keep alive the nineteenth-centuryfears about foreign
ideas with their repeated campaign against "spiritual pollution"-
seeminglyforgettingthat what they are strivingto protectfromoutside
influences is a foreign import, Marxism-Leninism.

Denis Fred Simon and Detlef Rehn. Technological Innovation in China:


The Case of Shanghai'sElectronicsIndustry.Cambridge,Mass.: Bal-
linger Publishing, 1988. Pp. xviii + 206.

Penelope B. Prime
Carleton College

Technologicalinnovationhas been centralto China'sdesireto modern-


ize, especially since its leadership'sdecision to begin majoreconomic
reforms in the late 1970s. Technological Innovation in China, by Denis
Fred Simon and Detlef Rehn, attemptsto assess what impactChina's
reform policies have had on technological change and innovationby
examiningthe case of electronics in Shanghai.The book is an impor-
tant contribution to our understandingof how the functioning of a
centrallyplanned,bureaucraticeconomy affects the process of techno-
logical decision making. While many of the characteristicsuncovered
are similarto those in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, China's
attempts to reform appear to be particularlyastute in its leadership's
frank recognitionof the problemsand the need for radicalchange.
One theme that clearly emerges in Simon and Rehn's study, how-
ever, is that changes in policy have been much more extensive than
the actual implementationof those policies. The authors argue that
this is largely because other supportingchanges, especially reformsof
the economic system, are needed before the stimulationof innovation
will be successful. This theme is importantconsideringthat the case
study of Shanghai is of the most technologically advanced area in
China, especially in electronics. Shanghaialso has been on the fore-
front of economic reform. Yet even in Shanghaithe implementation
of programs designed to stimulate technological change has yet to
make much of a difference. The message is that Chinatruly has a long
way to go. Nonetheless, in the realmof intent, policies put forwardin
Chinaover the past decade have been innovativeand have recognized
the severe obstacles of introducing dynamism in a bureaucratic,
planned economy. This in itself is more than has been accomplished

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