Cultural Transformation in the Light of Modernization

My assignment for a very interesting course on Social Change and Development

The terms ‘underdeveloped’, ‘developing’, and ‘traditional’ gave the West the much-needed currency to continue their exploitation of the Third world countries. In the name of improving the standards of living of the Third world, they could legitimize their involvement in the affairs of these countries, and the ‘White Man’s burden’ became more pronounced. Rostow’s approach to modernization created a dichotomy where the West could feel comfortable in its position as an advanced and developed nation, while the Third world was relegated to the status of being poor and backward. Through this paper, I wish to examine the notion of cultural backwardness of the Third world, and how this justified the expansionist and exploitative nature of the modernization approach.

The negative implications of the terms mentioned above reinforced the belief that Third world countries are backward, and have primitive attitudes, customs, and traditions that are counter-productive to development. According to Rostow (1968 pg. 5), one of the barriers to increasing productivity was the value system of the traditional societies. Parsons’ Functionalist Theory says that having personal relationships or a collective orientation is a way to reduce profitability in the market (So, 1990 pg. 21- 22). One of the characteristics that Levy attributes to non-modernized societies is that they have cultural norms of tradition (So, 1990 pg 24). Smelser goes a step further and provides the example of the traditional family that is large and multigenerational. This multifunctional family takes care of livelihood, education, welfare, and religion, which make it less productive than modern societies who have undergone structural differentiation (So, 1990 pg 27). The classical modernization studies of McClelland, Inkeless, Bellah, and Lipset all had the assumption that Western values were superior and that Third world countries needed to be exposed to Western values to liberate them from the shackles of tradition (So, 1990 pg. 53). All of these studies ignored that much of the Third world had flourishing industries, before colonization plundered them, and were advanced in architecture, textiles, and arts and crafts.

Though the new modernization studies questioned the need to treat traditional and modern as a set of mutually exclusive concepts, and reexamined the notion that traditional values are a barrier to modernization, I think that it did nothing to change the attitude of the Western nations who imposed their model of economic growth on the Third world nations. The new modernization studies still operated with the assumption that all countries were inherently looking to modernize, and that only contact with the Western world could facilitate the process of modernization (So, 1990 pg. 60). Thus, it was relatively easy to thrust the Western model of development to nation states that were just emerging from the clutches of colonialism. By providing a model of development to follow, the U.S. was counteracting against the Communist threat by the Soviet bloc, and at the same time it was getting nations to commit to its modernization approach i.e. capitalism.

As the modernization studies had well established the backward nature of the Third world nations, the Western countries could embark on a rescue mission to deliver these nations from historic poverty, ignoring all along that poverty in the Third world was because of colonialism. Just as colonialism was justified on the grounds of improving the lives of the natives who were backward, development too was justified on the similar grounds of improving humankind (McMichael, 2004 pg.3). A new form of colonialism thus began, where, apart from expropriating resources such as land, labor, raw materials, and markets to profit transnational industries, a dependence on Western technology, aid, and consumer goods was created. To transform the economy of the Third world nation states, individualism, consumption, and privatization were necessary. This meant the breakdown of collective practices such as wealth sharing between communities (McMichael, 2004 pg. 27).

The West had a high economic growth rate, efficient technology, industries, self-sufficiency in food, etc. The lack of these advanced features in the Third world was impetus enough for the Third world to emulate the West because the Third world had to catch up with the high standards of living of the West. Economic policies such as import-substitution, use of capital-intensive technology were implemented to promote growth in the Third world countries. With an urban bias in the modernization approach, breakdown of the traditional farming sector came about. The lack of investment in the agricultural sectors led to mass migrations of the poor from the rural to urban areas in search of employment, which led to the breakdown of families. In modern industries, workers had to adapt to the rules and regimes that were foreign to them (Grabowski, 1989 pg. 511)

Aspiring to the Western model of economic growth, Third world countries felt that they too had to think and behave like their Western counterparts. Inkelles would have been proud of this because he had argued that exposure to the Western values of teachers, Western textbooks, and Western movies helps in acquiring modern values (So, 1990 pg. 43). This made me realize that anything that was attached to the Third world was seen as an obstacle to development. Even the people from the Third world saw it as an obstacle, and hurried to change their outlook to align with that of Western interests. With this notion of modernization, a system was created, where a few elites benefited at the cost of the poor who were the majority. A culture of subsidy and mechanized farming played a major role in the migration to cities, leading to a further decrease in wages, and in turn reinforcing inequality.

Another aspect of the modernization approach that interests me is the inability to recognize that alternate models of development can exist. Instead of creating a culture of dependence on the West, Third world nations could have evolved their own models of progress and development. Rather than blindly following what the West deemed to be correct, developing indigenous models of development that incorporated local values and customs could have possibly followed a different trajectory of growth. Modernization theorists also refused to entertain the notion that Third world countries could progress without Western support (So, 1990). The West could thus use this logic to expand their base in Third world countries for their profit, leading to the detriment of the labor force in these countries. This inherent assumption has led to a world order where the rich have become richer, and while the GDP of the developing nations continues to increase, the condition of the poor deteriorates even further, and this is still called progress.

A.Y. So. Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-System

Theories. Newbury Park: Sag, 1990.

Grabowski, Richard. Development as Displacement: A Critique and alternative. Journal of

Developing Area, 23 July, 1989

McMichael, Philip. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. Pine Forge

Press. Third edition, 2004.

Rostow, Walter. The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge University Press, 1968