CHAPTER 9 Lazy Japanese and thieving Germans Are some cultures incapable of economic development? Having toured lots of fictores na developing county, an Austaian ‘ianagement consultant told the government officals who had invited hime My impression a to your chesp labour was soon dislusioned ‘when [saw your people at work. No doubt they are lol paid, but the return is equaly so; to see your men at work made me fel that you are avery saised easygoing rae who reckon time is no object, ‘When I spoke to some managers they informed me that twas mpoe- sible to change the habits of national heritage? ‘This Australian consultant was understandably worried thatthe workers ofthe country he was visting did not have the right work thc Infact he was being quite polite. He could have been blunt and jst called chem lazy. No wonder the country wae poor — not ditt ‘poor, butwith an income level that waslesthan a quarter of Austral. For thee par, the countrys managers agreed withthe Australian, but were smart enough to understand that the ‘habits of national heritage’ culture, cannot be changed easy if a all As the ath- ‘century German economist-cu-socilogst Max Weber opined in his seminal work, The Protestant Work Ethic andthe Sprit of Captain, there are some cultures ik Protestantism, that are simply better suited to economic development than others. ‘The country in question, however, was Japan in iis? Ie doesn’ feel quite right that someone from Australia (a nation known todsy for it bility to have» good time) could cll the Japanese lazy. But this i bow most westerners saw Japan a century ago. Inhis:90sbook, Evolution ofthe Japanese, the Amerian missionary Sidney Galck ober that many panes ‘ge an impression ff beng lary and tery indfeen t he passage of ine Gulick ‘easno cv obra Heli in pan fo 35 ers (89-99, Imsted the epanese lngvage and taught ia Japanese universe. ‘Mer is euro the US he os known fo i campaign ora Guay on bal of Asan Amercan Neverthe sw ame ‘entrain of the clara stereotype ofthe Japan a a ‘ay thing tnd ‘emotion? people who ponewed aii ie ighnes [thet eden om all ant the fre, ving che fr te preent The sinlityBeween this servation and that fo Ac nhs ne bya Ann hima - Dani Brounen Manguale, 2 Cameroonian engineer and writer ~ i sting The Aca, chore in is pasa altri so comenced thatthe past ean iy spe tut he woris only spercily abot ee fre ower, without a dynamic peeption ofthe futur, thee 0 Png no foresight oseearo dng: other wad no poly toe the cour of eens Ifer hex tow of Ai in 1s-1912,Beace Web, the famous reader of itis Fabian socal, exribed he Iapenese 8 hving ‘cbjectionable notions of lee and & quite intolerable personal independence She sid tn in Japan, there i evden no dese to teach people to tink! She was even more sting bout my AP, thoaton Ske eseribedthe Keres lions of iy degrade. yt Sol any and elinles sages io slouch aboot in diy white ames ofthe mos inept Kind and who ive in thy mut? ovwondr she thought hati anyon can sie the Koreas oat i thi present tao arbaram think he apes wil deste ber athe low opinion ofthe apes “Tis so jut a ws pe gain exer peoples The ih wed toy simi things abot the Genman. Bere thet tconomic lef inthe doh centr the Germans were ply ‘eed bythe rts rs dl an hoy eal nde was 2 ‘ord tat sequently soca with the Gere nate Mary Shel the ult of Poke wae i expert fe: 2 pt Sul frstratng alteration with ber German. coach der: he Germans never hurry It was jus the British. A French os Psa6 4 smanuficturer who employed German workers complained that they ‘work a and when they plasé™ "The British also considered the Germans to be slow-witted ‘According to John Russel travel writer ofthe i255, the Germans were a‘plodding, easy contented people... endowed neither with iret acutenes of pereption nor quickness of felng In partiuls, according o Russell, they were not open to new dest is ong before {a German] can be brought to comprehend the bearings of what is new to him, andi is difcalt to rouse him to ardour in its pursuit”) No wonder that they were ‘not distinguished by enterprise or actvity, ‘as another mid-soth century British traveller remarked" Germans were also deemed to be to individualistic and unable to co-operate with each other. The German inability to co-operate ‘was inthe view of the British, mos trongly manifested inthe poor ® But there isa limit to changes that can be made through ideological exhortation alone. Ina society ‘without enough jobs, preaching hard work will not be very effective 98 in changing people's work habits. n a society with Kite industry telling people that disparaging the engineering profesion is wrong wil not make many young people chooge to pursue it asa carer. In societies where workers are treated badly, appealing for co-operation ‘wil ill upon deat, if not cynical, ears. Changes in attiudes nced to ‘be supported by ral changes ~ in conomic activities insistions and polices. ‘Take thefbld Japanese culture of eompany loyaty Many observers belive it isthe manifestation of an ingrained cultural trait rooted in the Japanese variety of Confucianism emphasising loyly. Now if true such an atitude should ve been more pronounced 5 we go back farther in time. Yet, a century ago, Beatrice Webb remarked tht the Japanese havea" quite intolerable personal independence indeed, the Japanese workers used to he pretty militant bunch unt fry recey. Between 1955 and 296, Japan Tost more days per worker in strikes than Britain or Prance countries which were not exactly famous for co-operative industrial relations a the time Cooperation and loyalty came about only because Japanese workers were given in tutions such a6 ietime employment and company velar schemes Meologcal campaigns (and government bashing of militant comme nist trade unions) did play a role, but they would not have bees cnough on their own. Sim despite its cutent reputation for peacefl industrial rel- tions, Swede used to have a terrible labour problem in the 15208 ¢ Jost more man-hours per worker due to strikes than any other county ‘Batafte the corporatis compromise ofthe 190s the1938Saljobaden Agreement), it all changed. In rerun for worker restraining their ‘wage demands and strike activites, the countrys capitalists delivered {generous welfare state combined with ood retrining programmes. ‘Weologicl exhortation alone would not have been convincing, ‘When Korea started is indutilization drive in the 19605 the {government tried to persuade people to abandon the traditional Confucian disain for industrial profesions. The country needed more engincers and scientists. Hut with few decent engineeting jobs, not ray bright young people wanted to become engineers. So the ovement increased funding and the numberof places in univers 99for engineering and science departments wile doing the revert (in relative terms) in humanities departments. Inthe 19608 there were only 0. engineering and science graduates fo every humanities rad tute, but the ato became one-to-one by the eri 9808 Of course, the policy worked ultimately beeawse the ecomomy was industraliing fast and, as result, there were more and mote well-paid jobs for engineers and scientists, Iwas thanks tothe combination of teolog ical exhortation, educational policy and industrialzation ~ and not just promotion of ‘progressive values and sttude ~ that Korea has ‘come toboast one of the best-trained armies of engineers inthe world, ‘The above examples show that ideological peeusson is important bu not, by itself, enough in changing culture. Ie ha to be accom panied by ehanges in policies and institutions that can sustain the ested forms of behaviour over an extended period of time so that, that they turn into ‘cukura traits, Reinventing culture Caltireinfiuencesa country's economic performance. Ata given point intime,a particular culture may produce people with particule bea ‘ual tris that are more conducive to achieving certain socal goals, Including economic development, than other cultures At this abstract level, he propesition sems unconttovesa Bat when we try to apply this general principle to acral cases, it roves elusive. Its very difclt to define what the culture ofa nation 's Things re complicated further bythe at that ery diferent cultural trations may co-exist in single country, even in alleged homo: geneous ones like Korea. All cultures have multiple characteristics, some positive and others negative for economic development. Given allthis tis not posible, nor uel to ‘explain’ country’s economic succes or fire in terms ofits culture, as some Bad Samaritans have teed to do, ‘More importantly eventhough having people with certain behav ‘oual traits may be beter for economic development, «country does not ned a ‘cultural revoltin? before it can develop. Though cure nd economic development influence each other, the casi i far stronger from the later to the former; economic development 10 large extent create culture that t needs, Changes in economic stra ture change the way peopl live and interac with one another, which, in turn, changes the way they understand the world and behave. As have shown withthe cases of Japan, Germany and Kores, many ofthe ‘behavioural tats that are supposed o expan economic development (egshard work, timekeeping, frugality are actualiits consequences, rather than ite causes, Saying that culture changes largely asa reslt of economic dvel- opment isnot to say that culture cannot be changed by ideological persuasion. Actually tis is what some optimist cultural belive, ‘Underdevelopment i sate of mind; they declare For them there fore, the obvious solution to underdevelopment isto change the way people think through ideological exhortation. I dont deny that such tm exercise may be helpful or even important in certain cases, for changing culture. But a ‘cultural revolution’ wil not ake eoot unless there ae complementary changes in the underying economie struc- tures and institutions So, in order to promote behavioural traits that are help for economic development, we need a combination of ideological exhor- tation, policy measures to promote economic development and the insituional changes that foster the desired cultural changes I's not an easy job to get this mix right, but once you do, culture can be changed much more quickly than is normally assumed. Very often hut semied like an eternal nstional character can change within couple of decades if there ae sufficient supporting changes in the underiing economic sructre and institutions. The rather rapid dlsappearanc ofthe Jpancie national heritage” of lasnes since the vga, the quick development of co-operative industrial relations in Sweden since the 1930 and the end of ‘Korean tie’ in the 990s are some prominent eamples, “The fact that culture can be deliberately changed — chrovgh economic policies, institution building and ideological campaigns ~ gvesushope. No country iscondemned to underdevelopment because ofits cule. But atthe same time we must not forget that clare‘annot be reinvented at will —the failure wo create the‘new man’ under ‘communism it «good proof of tha. The cultural 'eformer'stil has to work with existing cultural atitudes and symbols. ‘We need to understand the role of culture in economic develop- ‘ment in its true complexity and importance. Culture is complex and dificult to define It does affect economic development, but economic development affect it more than the other way around. Culture is ‘ot immutable. It can be changed through: « mutually reinforeing interaction with economic development ideological persuasion; and ‘complementary policies and institution that encourage certain forms ofbehavious, which overtime turn into cultural traits. Only then can ‘we flee our imagination both fom the unwarranted pessimism of ‘those who believe culture is destiny and from the nave optimism of| those wo believe they can persuade people to think differently and boring abot economie development that ay. EPILOGUE Sao Paulo, October 2037 Can things get better? Lis Soares isa worried man. His family engineering frm ~ Soares Tecnologia, S.A. which his grandfather, Jose Antoni, founded in 997 ison the brink of collapse. “The fist years of Soares Tecnologia were dificult. The igh interest rate policy, which lasted between 396 and 2009, severely constrained it ability to borrow and expand. Bu, by 20, It had grown into @ solid mid-sized fiem producing watch parts and other precision guipment, thanks to Jose Antonio's sls and determination, In2oss, Lia's father, Paulo, came back with a PhD. in nano-phyics {Gorn Cambridge an persuaded his father to setup 2nano-technology| division, which he headed. That proved a lucky escape. The Talinn Round ofthe WTO concluded in 2017 abolished all industrial tariffs ‘except fora handful of reserved sectors for etch country. As result, ‘most manufacturing industries, other than low-teehnolog, low-wage ‘ones, got wiped out in mest developing countries, inluding Brazil. “The Brain nano-technology industry survived the so-called Tain ‘sunam only because it was one ofthe ‘Yeserved! industries. aul’ foresight paid off Soon after he took over the firm in 2033, afer Jose Antonio's yacht sank in a freak hurecane inthe Caribbean (ares of global warming. they sid) Soares Tecnologia launched & molecular machine which converted sea water int freshwater with eater efficiency than its American or Finnish rivals It was 2 bg hit im a country that was suffering from increasingly frequent droughts «se to global warming ~ by that time, the Amazon forest was barely 40% of its 1970 size due to lack of rin (with a helping hand from 203