The International Dimension of Modernization and Economic Development

that there is a general value system in society that assigns relative importance to economic functions in the whole of a social action system, and considered economic rationality as the economic sector's proper value sphere. Economic rationality as value system controls individual behavior through motivation, through internalization of its tenets by members of the society, and through sanctions which contribute to the stabilization of these internalized orientations and to the adaptation of behavior to specific, changing circumstances. Parsons and Smelser also believed that there is a universal core of economic rationality independent of cultural and environmental variability, though they did not identify economic rationality with purposive rationality. In their view, purposive rationality belonged to society's general value system.

The problem of economic rationality is, therefore, the same as the problem of economic man, a theoretical creation satisfying computational and modeling needs of economists and statisticians. The whole idea of economic man reflects the absolute primacy assigned to the material development of human life, neglecting the embeddedness of economic phenomena in the total context of man's culture and society. This conceptualization even led to the devaluation of all other spheres of human existence compared to economic activities. And economic reductionism went much further. Not only was man reduced to economic man, and not only was meaningful and practical human rationality reduced to "economic rationality," but the latter was also postulated in narrow (and not always compatible) terms correlated with some specific economic or behavioral theories, such as profit maximization, preferred utilities, or consumer preferences.

A more tuned-down, probabilistic version of economic rationality called rational expectations does not take us much further, either. It consists of the supposition that people include in their previsions and predictions some kind of evaluation of what others expect in the future; thus, one can detect a sort of reflexivity in this approach, but, of course, a reflexivity derived from the belief in economic rationality and in the preference orderings of economic man. One must also take into account that one's own economic preferences change, sometimes substantially, even during short lapses of time; such changes are related to one's experiences, values, preferences and unattained expectations, as perspectives (if not life-chances) are invariably pluralistic.

Not economic or sectoral rationality governs human life, but a meaningful human rationality, a matter of environmental conditions and cultural belonging. If human reason is a universal faculty, rationality is culturally elaborated and transmitted; therefore, if methodologies and processes of modernization and economic development are not embedded in the world's various civilizations, economic rationality implanted from a foreign culture will never be an effective instrument.

5. The International Dimension of Modernization and Economic Development

Modernization and economic development became, over the course of the last thirty years, a major preoccupation on the international scene. Approaches to resolve problems in this domain were, unfortunately, confused and muddled because the whole question became politicized. Various pressure groups used it to promote their own political and economic agendas, not least the governments of many countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These economies struggled for survival as the infusion of capital and technical assistance remained unsuccessful, and inefficiency, imprudent policies and sheer incompetence created in those countries explosive social situations.

Decolonization led to the creation of independent and sovereign states, most of which, though having abundant physical (even if agricultural) and human resources, were not economically viable in a modern economy. However, as Jackson wrote in a recent study, "The international change was essentially normative, and basically entailed abolishing international legal disabilities previously imposed on non-Western peoples" [Jackson 1990: 55];¹¹ the new states were incorporated in the Western-style international

11 Further, he explains that the doctrine of self-determination, expressed in the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, "changed the definition of both the collective 'self' and political 'determination'. The self was no longer either historical or ethnic 'nations' but artificial ex-colonial 'jurisdictions' which were multi-ethnic entities in most cases and ironically reminiscent of the old multinational empires of Europe. The 'nation' was now merely all who had been subjects of a particular colonial government and were of different race from their alien

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– Part Two. Disjunction Between the Western and Other Cultural Worlds – Chapter Eight. Modernization as Framework of Economic Development -

system of positive sovereignty with the presupposition that they possess all the prerequisites of such a status. This concerned also all necessary fundamentals for the desired rapid economic and social development, again, of course, in the Western-style.

As the transformation of international relations was made in a voluntarist and constructivist mode, the

"removal of international legal disabilities" was completed by the egalitarian requirement of the right of emerging states to economic and social development. Sovereignty hitherto meant not only the right to political independence, but also to aid and assistance on behalf of the rich, industrialized countries because, so the argument goes, colonialism was the cause of the former colonies' economic and social backwardness, understood in terms of the Western cultural and civilizational framework. The sovereignty of newly independent countries was therefore conceived as having a negative and a positive side -- negative in excluding the interference of others, and positive in the form of a right to economic and financial aid and assistance. The second aspect of sovereignty can be expressed as the right to an equitable share of global resources and opportunities. All the efforts undertaken in the framework of international and bilateral cooperation (UNCTAD, UNDP, World Bank, OECD, the New International Economic Order, the Integrated Commodity Scheme, and so on) were conceived and carried out with the objective of endowing newly independent countries with the requisites of economic sovereignty.

This doubled-faced sovereignty which now governs international relations has several effects which gravely reduce prospects of modernization in a great number of non-Western countries. The first effect is that this type of deferred compensation for damages and sufferance endured by the former colonies creates a sentiment of dependence by the governments and people receiving economic and financial aid. There is an attitude and mentality of being condemned to assistance, perhaps for a long time to come. The so-called doctrine of collective self-reliance (the accent should be placed on self-reliance) remained but a slogan without any concrete effect, except political cooperation efforts at international gatherings. However, the psychological impact of present aid policies and technical assistance is one of the reasons no innovative action has been undertaken to discover new means, for promoting economic growth and social development in a manner sensitive to cultural differences in various regions.

Another one of the distorting effects of the new status of non-Western states in the international community is that all modernizing or developing countries are considered to have uniform characteristics, ignoring their wonderful human and environmental diversity, and also ignoring the differential impact of the civilizations and native cultures to which they belong. They are treated as a uniform, homogeneous mass, instead of emphasizing their differences due to their differential resource endowments and their varying human capabilities and possibilities; in fact, their complete Otherness in comparison to the Western universalistic typification is ignored. An approach taking into account human and civilizational diversity will, of course, have to deny the equality of man as economic performer precisely because of the differing environmental and cultural endowments mentioned above.

Policies in non-Western countries concurrently aim at the construction of a modern economy and a voluntaristic restructuring of the society. At the same time, these policies try, under the influence of the West, to promote equality and equity, imitating the welfare states of the industrialized world without having the means to implement it. In this way, incoming capital and assistance is wasted without creating a sustainable base for continued developmental-cum-welfare policies. The effort of imitation eliminates all incentive for inventiveness and innovation which could take the form, if not of new devices to promote new economic or social policies, but at least of the adaptation to the cultural environment of the concepts and methods borrowed from abroad. In addition, as trade cannot supply the engine of growth (as was the case for Europe), developing countries have to look for other domestic resources by: emphasizing growth of agricultural production for foodstuffs without draining away all surpluses and profits, in order to cover the needs of the state budget overburdened by the cost of unnecessarily large administrative machinery; or promoting industrialization based on domestic raw materials and traditional skills which can only slowly enter into a more intense phase of industrialization.

Finally, the manner in which political sovereignty was transferred from metropolitan countries to their former territories led, in most non-Western states, to a situation in which the current governmental bureaucracy is exclusively in charge of all economic and social developmental policies. The result was the rulers. Indigenous successors to those rulers were by definition legitimate whether or not they expressed the popular will.

Their rights as sovereigns and the human rights of their subjects to determination were one and the same... self-determination was de-colonization." (Jackson, [1990]: 77).

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– Part Two. Disjunction Between the Western and Other Cultural Worlds – Chapter Eight. Modernization as Framework of Economic Development -

complete "politicization" of these societies in the sense that no effort was made to give opportunities to social forces other than the government and the parties supporting it to attain a well-established organizational existence and operational efficacy. It is natural that governments prefer, as a corollary to their policies at home, to imprint an orientation on international regimes and organizations in order to proceed with authoritative rather than market allocation of the world's resources, with authoritative rather than free changes in patterns of economic activities and in flows of trade, finances and invisibles. This orientation also represents a serious drawback to modernization efforts. Authoritative solutions only postpone the moment of real choices and decisions. Such tendencies, however, are understandable in most countries in the non-Western world. The fluctuations and shocks on the world market have resulted in severe economic dislocations, relative deprivation, corruption, or disappointment of rising expectations in these regions. These symptoms clearly show the underlying disparities in power relations.

One can conclude, having reviewed the international dimensions of economic development and the societal and cultural inertia in non-Western nations strongly linked to this international framework, that the development process, in reality, was forgotten by the extraneous bureaucracies: the governmental bureaucracy at home which looks after its own interest and the special interests it is linked to; the international bureaucracy that imposes doctrines without taking into account each country's specificity; and the bilateral, donor bureaucracies which act under the pressure of domestic public opinion, if not in the interest of their own governments. Few really care if the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America finally reach a true economic sovereignty.

VICTOR SEGESVARY : INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE DESTINY OF THE WEST – Conclusions

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions of these investigations follow in a natural fashion from the body of the preceding text, which reflects a coherent and realistic perspective. It is evident that the book and the conclusions here presented will disappoint some of the readers a contextual perspective in inter-civilizational relations, a turn qualified by many as relativistic but what I consider to be a pluralist worldview.

Conclusion One

The fundamental thesis on which this study is based, the disjunction between the Western civilization and the other great cultures of the world, is an undeniable, empirical fact; if it is not recognized as such, it is because most people, even the greatest part of the intelligentsia of non-Western countries, believe that we are marching forward towards a universal civilization which must be modeled on the Western culture, with its undeniable achievements and undeniable destructive forces as well. The disjunction between cultures (which is always judged from the Western point of view) appears as a necessary corollary of the period of transition to a universal civilization.

If one admits that there is a disjunction between Western and non-Western cultures and, consequently, between their respective social structures, technological and economic conditions of life, and their modes of thought construed in context-relative styles of reasoning, if one accepts that there are different "worlds of culture" or "lifeworlds" corresponding to various human groups' divergent evolutionary past, traditional beliefs, values and existential histories, then there can be no other point of departure in exploring the possibilities of a dialogue between these worlds of culture but the effort to reach a genuinely new intellectual and spiritual framework which accommodates the co-existence of these differing cultural worlds.

The review of the ontological/cosmic imagination and problem setting of various great civilizations or culture-areas of the world shows a basic disjunction in comparison to the modern Western outlook. Clearly stated, the worldviews of most non-Western cultures are largely transcendentally motivated or are, at least, dualistically shaped, in contradistinction to the West's physicalist or naturalist monism. This shows that we encounter different "patterns of reasoning" and that the (like the Einsteinian) "coordinate systems" of the various cultures of humanity are diverging and reaching a point of disjunction. In consequence, the first obstacle to any inter-civilizational dialogue is constituted by belief and value systems that reflect a different, fundamental ontological/cosmic framework.

An in-depth dialogue of different civilizations in the contemporary world, and this is the most promising approach for the future, could lead to their mutual enrichment through an exchange of their specific ontological and cosmic views. The outcome of such a dialogue may be, on the one hand, an attenuation of the universalizing, ahistorical, and transcultural as well as epistemological (at the expense of the ontological) and scientific-technological tendencies of the Western civilization. The result may be a reestablishment of the sense of community between man and nature and the renascent and genuine solidarity between human communities. On the other hand, such a dialogue may produce a partial acceptance of the West's epistemic-scientific-technological outlook, based on the primacy of the immanent world, by other cultures, as far as such an outlook can be harmonized with their respective fundamental belief and value systems. An understanding achieved between various civilizations in a common ontological-cosmic framework could then lead to the disappearance of the disjunction between different cultures and culture-areas of the globe, and could contribute in the future to the elaboration of a shared and common lifeworld. This could and should never be universally identical in every civilization, but based on the reciprocal understanding of the particularity of each cultural world.

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VICTOR SEGESVARY : INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE DESTINY OF THE WEST – Conclusions

The description of different cultural characteristics of the uniqueness of man plays a crucial explanatory role. First, it shows that the transcendence of man, the fundamental structure and integrative power of the human mind, produces similar ideas, thoughts, and mental processes in persons belonging to different cultures with different belief and value systems. This proves the possibility of a dialogue between people of different civilizations. Second, the review also demonstrates the enormous diversities in "patterns of reasoning" despite the similarity of mental processes and evolutionary developments because of different human contexts, different interaction-patterns with the environment, and different historical heritage and social conventions. However, it is evident that the most fundamental difference is the one concerning the all embracing, ontological/cosmic framework that unavoidably conditions worldviews of men in all cultures.

From this fundamental disjunction follow the next three conclusions in respect of reality, rationality and the ethical perspective.

The first major conclusion, therefore, is the necessity to return to the ontological/cosmological basis of human existence and formulate a worldview which, through the re-affirmation of the preeminence of the ontological-existential condition of man (as opposed to the primordiality of the Cartesian epistemological position), and the embedding of every cultural phenomenon into nature (understood as the totality of physical and non-physical phenomena) while emphasizing man's unique position in the evolutionary context, acknowledges, in consequence, the necessity of a relativistic reading of realism, rationality and all other aspects of the lifeworld, a multiple, pluralistic ordering of reality.

Conclusion Two

The dialogue of cultures presupposes the existence of other beings and of the world as it is experienced.

Reality encompasses the physical world — organic and inorganic — as well as the mental and cultural worlds, the latter cognitively grasping, emotionally appropriating, and artistically expressing the shared experiences of a community. The realism underlying the dialogue of cultures refers to a reality conceptualized, felt, normatively organized, and expressed by particular types of symbolism. This is essential in founding the possibility of cultural dialogue. Dasein-within-the-world, Dasein-with-other-beings shares this reality with others, who are members of other cultural groups possessing different genetic endowment and living in different environments than him. The reason is that all members of the species commonly perceive reality, through man's belonging to the cosmos and evolving in the bosom of nature.

The facts which are invariably real in man's existence include concepts such as father, mother and child figures, the environment, trees, stones, clouds, and stars. And not only such basic features of the lifeworld but also the emotions related to them, or to any other human beings, and the concern about nature itself.

Beyond such invariant realities which may vary in intensity, direction, or shades as historically institutionalized, reality for man also includes basic human desires not related to strictly biological, existential, or emotional necessities, but to what I call the transcendence in man. For example, the urge to express the world and the self in artistic forms is one such desire.

Though the underlying reality is shared by all members of the human species due to the evolutionary development of man, which entails the same fundamental experiences to all human beings, this same reality is seen differently by each man. Having recourse to the philosophical implications of the Einsteinian relativity, it can be said that each culture, each particular "pattern of reasoning" is like a different system of coordinates which unavoidably leads to differing visions, to different worldviews; this is dialectical realism. It is consistent with the cosmic-evolutionary framework to conceive cultural differences, i.e. the diversities of "seeing as," as positions referring to varying systems of coordinates. Coordinates vary between cultures, between individuals, during a man's lifetime, in accordance with a human being's transcendence as well as his dialogic, symbolic communications and relations with his community. The reference to different patterns of reasoning or systems of coordinates defined synchronously and diachronically by the interaction of various physical, environmental and cultural factors, also indicates the importance of the intentionality of man's nature. Intentionality presupposes its own rationality, interlinked with rationality criteria at other levels.

Individual intentionality and reflexivity as well as cultural conditioning are thus the three crucial elements which make it impossible to infer, as in the natural sciences, invariant regularities and laws from human action, behavior, and thought processes. Therefore, there can be no characterization of man's lifeworld in deterministic terms, indeterminism is the only way to seek to understand and interpret human and cultural phenomena.