Keith Hudson:
> I'm glad you've commented on Mr. Sala-i-Martin's paper on global
> inequality. His analysis implies that it's too simplistic to talk in
simple
> rich-poor terms, so I'd go along with you in suggesting that there should
> be a more detailed set of categories.
>
> However, I'd want to suggest that new categories based on relative grades
> of wretchedness instead of rich-poor still have a patronising air about
> them -- that is, that our western culture and values are those to be
> aspired to and that most of the rest of the world are somehow deficient.
> I'm not at all implying that large numbers of the world are not poor or
> wretched -- indeed they are -- but in trying to relieve themselves of
their
> poverty or wretchedness, and even when they envy what we possess, they
> don't necessarily want to emulate our culture or values.
Keith, as I'm sure you and others on the list realize, I used "wretchedness"
in a mood of dark tongue and cheek. My concern was not with whether they
are trying to emulate our culture and values, but with whether they have the
means for relatively comfortable survival, whatever their culture and
values, and however these are changing. What the Sala-i-Martin research
suggests is that we can't really know this because of the way we (or really
the UN) measures things. By focusing on exchange rates rather than domestic
purchasing power, we get a distorted picture.
> Look at Western Europe, for example. Most of the countries have living
> standards that are pretty close to those of America even though they are
> trying to catch up in terms of productivity. Nevertheless, although
they'll
> undoubedly adopt many, if not all, American business methods and similar
> sorts of consumer goods, they certainly don't want to be ersatz Americans.
> In fact, they frequently express themselves pretty forcefully as
> anti-American because they don't want to lose many aspects of their
> cultures (such as long lunch breaks or taking siestas!) which the
Americans
> have lost or never had.
I think one has judge cultural proximity by how comfortable people feel when
they have to fit into another place when they have had not previous
experience of the values or customs. Most Europeans have little problem
fitting into the US or Canada, just as most Canadians and Americans have
little trouble fitting into various parts of Europe. The time taken for
lunch matters less than the availability of familiar standards and comforts,
and the ability to blend in without standing out too much. Given factors
like that, I would consider Western Europe and North America a common
culture or, as Huntington would put it, a "civilization". There are
differences that one has to get used to, but they are surmountable. But
then you're right about nobody wanting to be ersatz Americans. Even
Canadians don't want to be that, though we are in many important respects.
> Even more so, think of the Arab world -- they're not only anti-American,
> they're virulently American haters. Or think of the Chinese -- they're not
> haters, they're just different. If the Pacific rim provinces reach as high
> a standard of living as America in the next decade or so, I'm sure that
> their way of life will only be superficially similar to America's. They'll
> think (as do the Japanese) in quite different ways.
>From what I've read, there are serious inter-generational struggles going
on, with young people wanting to part of the global culture radiating,
perhaps mostly, from the US, and older people in authority wanting to keep
things in check. Apparently the mullahs of Iran are having a lot of trouble
on this score.
> It strikes me, therefore, that it might be better not to use any term
which
> places all countries on a linear scale of wretchedness, poverty or
> undevelopment but to use a term which enfolds the idea of culture as well
> as their economic status. "Region" would do but this is a rather insipid
> geographical term and it doesn't easily incorporate the important strands
> of culture which connect different adjacent countries and which causes
them
> all, despite occasional differences and animosities that might arise
> between them, to underachieve, in similar ways.
>
> The term "gyre" has been in my mind for as a long time now as I've thought
> about the reasons why certain regions of the world such as Latin America,
> or Africa, or the Arab bloc, seem to have such difficulties in adjusting
to
> the methods that they ideally ought to adopt in order to raise their
living
> standards. I'm thinking of gyre in the same sense as ocean gyres such as
> the Sargasso Sea where there is a large body of water swirling about and
> keeping its own identity even though it's not entirely separate from the
> rest of the ocean with some diffusion and intermixing at the periphery.
Again, I remind you that I used "wretchedness" with tongue in cheek. "Gyre"
makes sense if you are thinking in civilizational or very broad cultural
terms. But what the UN is trying to get at, and Sala-i-Martin does a better
job of getting at, is something simpler - essentially, the relative ability
to buy groceries, pay rent, and have enough money left over to buy the kids
a treat. What his(?) research suggests is that more people are able to do
this in various parts of the world than the UN has allowed for. The problem
is measurement, not concept.
> Looking at the world in terms of large cultural gyres such as those
> mentioned above or the Chinese, or the North American (or, better still,
> the Anglo-American 'cos we're far nearer culturally to America than to
> Europe), or Western European, or Central Eurasian, and so on, and then
> looking back through history, we can see evidence that most of these has
> shown evidence in times past of periods of excellence in every way -- of
> prosperity, or wise government, of high skill, and so forth.
Absolutely! Islam far outshone Europe in many important respects from about
800AD to relatively recent times. What I've been able to read on the matter
suggest that the seething anger in the Arab world is not only directed
toward the US but also toward national leaders who are seen as subservient
to US interests and symbolic of the Arab world in decline. Chang Kai Shek
was seen in a similar light in China before the Communists under Mao took
over.
> The biggest mysteries in history are why some of the grandest empires and
> civilisations have failed. We can think of the Roman Empire or the two
> great dynastic periods of China or the Islamic world. Equally mysterious,
> in my view, is why they became great in the first place. So the notion of
> gyre in my mind is not only that there are cultural swirls within regions
> that unite them -- and quite large regions usually -- but also that gyres
> are able to swirl vigorously for long periods and then, quite suddenly,
> slow down and then remain ponderous or even static for long periods.
Or, like China, they can reinvigorate and swirl again.
> I think that we don't give enough importance to the strands of culture
> within regions -- or gyres -- that make it difficult for us (supposedly
> trying to help them) to show how they can develop -- or get their gyres
> circulating again without we in the west appearing to be heavy-handed, or
> exploitative, or patronising, or making them suspicious that they'll
> forever be satraps.
It's a very difficult game. I like your analogy of the "gyre", but we have
to recognize that gyres are very complex phenomena. The kind of gyres we
are discussing can expand and swallow up or impoverish other gyres. The
provision of foreign aid is not without strings. One gyre does not assist
others without expecting something in return.
> Very shortly (in historical terms) mankind will be developing quite new
> production methods for everything we need (in addition to food) which
> depend on biogenetic techniques powered by solar technology. This will
> probably start to occur well within the coming century. As solar radiation
> is received everywhere in the world then a great deal of equal economic
> potential will ensue in situ -- not so dependent on geological resources,
> and not so dependent on other parts of the world. I believe this will
throw
> some of the classic ideas of economics -- the labour specialisation of
Adam
> Smith, the comparative advantage of Ricardo, Malthusian shortages, etc --
> out of the window.
>
> Every gyre will be able to produce everything it needs, and with as almost
> equal efficiency as makes no difference, and will not need to transact
> trade from one end of the world to the other. At the same time, each gyre
> would be able to retain those particular aspects of its environment and
> culture that make it special, that make it such a delight to travel to and
> sense that mysterousness otherness that we can still (just about) see in
> other societies. What a difference this would make to what is happening
now
> where every large city in the world is beginning to be so similar, with
the
> same types of shops and the same branded goods, the same angst and
> preoccupation in the faces of the people scurrying about -- the same
boring
> monotony of the lives of so many in this world of globalisation.
It is to be hoped, Keith, but too many trends point to other possibilities
that are less palatable.
>
> Anyway, let me not insist on "gyre". This ramble of mine has just given me
> the opportunity to talk about the more subtle cultural difficulties that
> seem to me to be persistently foiling any attempts to help the poor of the
> world. Even countries like those of central Europe that are in many ways
> very similar to the Anglo-American world and with similar educational
> standards still seem at least two generations away from catching up. And
> how far away is the Arab world, or Africa? And yet some provinces of China
> seem to be doing so very rapidly. So I think that economists have got to
> take a lot more on board yet to fully understand what the essential
> dynamics of development consist of. It's far more than just financial
> discipline.
Fully agreed to.
Ed
