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The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It from Itself

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I would hope (probably in vain) that Lawrence Harrison's "The Central Liberal Truth" be required reading for all those involved in the making of foreign policy, especially those within the government of the United States. I specifically mention the United States government, not because other countries need not reflect on their foreign policies but simply, as the world's only remaining superpower, American foreign policy is crucial and virtually defines the status of contemporary international relations. While recognizing that the history of the United States is fraught with foreign policy mistakes and disasters, it must also be recognized that it does not stand alone in this area. The past two centuries have experienced many bullies in the global arena and, at least, the United States has not been responsible for as much human destruction as that brought about by Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and Communist China under Mao. I will not join those who think the U.S.A. is always wrong, the greatest threat to world peace, or the planet's "Great Satan."

Now, with that disclaimer taken care of and before I get into Harrison's book, I need to bring up something which I found confusing at the outset. The book's description includes the following statement: "Harrison rejects the Bush administration's doctrine that 'the values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society.'" I assume that this inclusion had the author's approval. Nowhere in the book, however, do I find a definitive rejection of this so-called "Bush doctrine." The actual text in the book (p. 2) is this and it relates to the influence of "culture": "It [culture] is also a key factor in foreign policy, with particular relevance to the Bush administration's keystone policy of promoting democracy: '[the] values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society.' If culture matters in making democracy work...and as the disappointing experience of the United States in promoting democracy...suggests, then the keystone is likely to crumble under the pressure of cultures averse to democracy, as in the Arab countries..."

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as a "rejection" of such a "doctrine" (or "principle" as I would call it). I agree that making democracy "work" in a country that has no history of democratic ideas or institutions or is fundamentally averse to democracy in the first place might be virtually impossible, but that does not mean that the ideal of the "values of freedom" are not universally "right and true." I would like to interpret Harrison to mean that, while the "ideal" is universally true and desirable, it is not a "realistic" and immediate goal at the present time in the current international situation. After all, it took England centuries to evolve its democratic institutions and the United States itself was built on this tradition and it still took the U.S. many years after its founding to give women the right to vote and grant civil rights to certain minorities. In fact, America is still in the process of evolution in this regard. Bush's foreign policy regarding promoting democracy in the Arab lands may be naive and misguided (as I believe it is), but the ideal, in my opinion, remains viable even though practically unrealizable in the present moment.

The major reason I think this book is vitally important is because it emphasizes "culture" as a prime ingredient in constructing any foreign policy. Harrison defines culture as "the body of values, beliefs, and attitudes that members of a society share," and which is influenced by many factors such as religious practices, educational systems, information sources, interpersonal relationships, and so on. For all too long, in my view, foreign policies have been shaped only by politics, economics, and military considerations. This I believe has led to the disastrous results we see in America's attempt to change other societies into "progressive democracies," particularly in Latin America and the Middle East. What I am trying to say is that churning out a foreign policy without considering the "culture" of the country toward which it is directed is most likely doomed to failure. This also explains, in my opinion, why our current Iraqi occupation is problematic (to say the least!) and will lead to one of two outcomes: (1) American troops will occupy Iraq for many decades and forcibly "impose" a sham democracy, or (2) American troops will be pulled from Iraq and the country will revert to tribal and religious warfare, resulting most likely in an authoritarian government of some sort. (Bush would have been better off consulting philosophers, theologians, and anthropologists before invading Iraq and then deciding it was probably a hopeless cause.)

Harrison's book contains much valuable information. I was especially impressed with the chart in chapter two illustrating a "Typology of Progress-Prone and Progress-Resistant Cultures." Four main categories are included -- Worldview, Values/Virtues, Economic Behavior, Social Behavior -- and these contain 25 items under an appropriate category. The chapter then discusses in some detail each of the items included, bringing together much recent research from a wide variety of resources. Also of particular interest to me was his chapter on "Religions and Progress" which also contains a "Religion Summary Chart" with references to such items as literacy, fertility, freedom, corruption, etc., delineated by religious category and country. He discusses various religious traditions and indicates how they are either progress-promoting or progress-resistent. And he provides the empirical data to support his conclusions and generalizations. There are a lot more good things to say about "The Central Liberal Truth" but, unfortunately, word-count restraints prohibit me from discussing them.

Let me, however, conclude with this evaluation. This is an "excellent" and, moreover, thoroughly "realistic" book on this particular subject. Furthermore, in my view, American foreign policy will not be consummately "realistic" in any sense until the suggestions proffered by Harrison and his colleagues in the numerous studies cited in the book are taken seriously and put into practice. Highly recommended!

I must say that reading this book was a quantum leap from the last several political books that I've read, which were written by pundits. This book is a bit dry at times, but it contains real reasearch about reality.

The "take home lesson" I got out of reading this book is:

First, "Freedom and Democracy" isn't for every nation because a nation, or culture, must have certain values internalized before freedom or democracy can work. This is a rebuke to ideologues on the "right" who think that we can superimpose our style of government on any nation out there.

However, this book is also a stinging rebuttal of the leftist who believes that John Lennon's "Imagine" expressed the ideal for humanity. "Imagine no religion..." No, we really can't afford to "imagine no religion" because it seems that decentralized Christianity (Protestantism) gave the world the most "progressive" culture that has even been. And, we can't "Imagine no possessions" because it is the possibility of home ownership that gives people a stake in their society.

Finally, this book delivers a body blow to "multiculturalism". Some cultures are sick, and this book explains how they can get better.

I could go on, but my point is that an exhaustive study has been completed that ties culture to "progress", and it's probably not what anyone who is narcissistically attached to a particular political ideology wants to hear. However, it is in this book, which I would recommend to anyone interested in politics and culture.

Professor Harrison's book is a well researched, timely and necessary study of why some cultures do better than others and how outside forces may or may not affect change when desired. The cases described within are necessary background for decisions being made today,and I sincerely hope our policymakers will study them. This book is a perfect complement to the Jared Diamond thesis and one should not be read without the other. A pivotal book for our times.

I was cheering on this book through the first two chapters. He was absolutely convincing to me -- culture explains so much better than any other reason why some countries do so much better than others. Harrison came up with 25 possible cultural factors that explain why some countries become developed and others don't. I was looking forward to further discussion and analysis on which factors were most important, using some kind of quantitative analysis.

Then the wheels came off. Harrison dived right into the methodology of changing the cultures of undeveloped countries, without even figuring out which factors truly made a difference. It seemed to me that he wasn't really interested in making a definitive case that culture was the reason for underdevelopment. Harrison was already convinced of this in his head, and he had his own ideas on which of the 25 factors were the most important ones. It was just a matter of figuring out how to change these cultures. He is so caught up in the culture of development economics that he makes the same mistake as everyone else in the field. He knows what is wrong; he just needs to fix it; the hell with more study. I believe the failure of these international economic developers for the last 50 years make it apparent that we need to look at the situation more clearly before rushing in half-cocked.

I was most disappointed in the third chapter, when he discusses methods of changing culture by indoctrinating the kids in developing country schools with First World values. I cringed at this idea for three reasons:
-- Harrison hadn't shown that the values he was trying to inculcate were in fact the values that would bring development to the country,
--He didn't show that schooling of kids in this manner would have the effect he wanted of changing the culture when everything else in society pointed in the other direction
--I was dubious about the ethics of subverting the kids in a country to values in opposition to the adults.

The rest of the book consisted of brief discussions of many different areas of the World, explaining how their culture was deficient for development, or ways to change said culture. The reviews of each area were both too brief to be satisfying, and totally lacking in quantitative analysis and statistics. In other words, the ideas and suggestions were just essays by people in his organization on each area. They were totally subjective and thus not very credible, in my mind.

Harrison never says how the changers of culture will succeed in infiltrating the societies he wants to change. He wants to change the values of the next generation in each country; but why would the current generation that is currently running the country let him in to make these changes? He has several examples of situations where people have gone in and tried to make these changes, but he never explains why the people there let him do it. My guess is that he plans to use Western money to bribe undeveloped countries to let them make adjustments to education, media etc. Kind of like, "We'll give you all this development money if you let us set up these schools." I think this will rarely work in making real change in a country. The governments will take the money and then make sure the initiatives don't work as planned.

I think the only way to get this cultural change to take place is to convince the elites in each country to believe that cultural change will in fact result in economic growth. To do that, someone needs to do a much better job than this book to show the evidence that certain values and behaviors correlate highly with economic development, and that certain other values and behavior do the opposite. This book makes a great beginning thesis, now someone needs to do the quantitative analysis. Of course many elites won't be convinced no matter how good the evidence, but there should be enough to move the project forward. Eventually the success of those following the program will convince more countries to follow along. Certainly this path will be long and difficult, but it will work better than the current haphazard approach of trying to change cultures in opposition to elites. Besides, the imperialistic approach is kind of contradictory to the "progressive" values he is seeking to impart.

This is a great book, especially for those who have read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (as one reviewer already pointed out). It provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the issue as to why some countries are essentially predisposed towards dominating others.
The funny thing, and somewhat contrary to the title of the book, is that it is not exactly liberal friendly (at least in the context of its normal usage). The premise of the book is essentially that culture does matter but some cultures lend themselves, by virtue of their values and ideals, towards cultural stances that do not promote democracy, human rights, or economic development. I reiterate, which some negative reviewers have complained about, is that this book is not liberal in the traditional sense so that those with a cultural relativism stance are bound to take issue with Harrison's views. I enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

If you like books that offer explanations for humankind's big questions, this book attemps such. Depending on how much stock you put in Harrison's well-conceived and sufficiently supported (in my opinion) thoery, it can be construed to either add to or take precedence over Diamond's GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL. I think together these books help to explain the world's current political situation (mess). Unlike Diamond's "geography is fate" analysis, much can be accomplished politically to correct Harrison's "culture is fate" explanation. Culture relativists, hackneyed liberals, and Bushian neo-cons will all take offense - that in itself may be sufficient reason to read it. The writing and editing could have been better, but because there were many contributors this is somewhat excusable.

I found this book to be too diffuse in its coverage to be of much use to me. It tries to cover 25 cultural factors for many situations and is generally lacking in quantitative analysis. I found it hard to see how the various cultural factors are related, and what their importance is in specific situations. Thus I believe that political scientists and sociologists will find the book of greater value than economists. Perhaps it tries to do too much at one time.
The Spring 2006 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives has a symposium of articles on cultural economics, and I found David Landes' article on the development of China and Europe over the last millennium, and the economic analysis of a few cultural factors like "trust" by Guiso et al to be of greater interest to me as an economist because of their specific and quantitative nature. Since Kahneman and Tversky did their pioneering work, a whole new field of cultural or psychological economics has been opened and it may take many years before we have a comprehensive economics based on people as they are and not on "economic man." Certainly "culture matters", but it is too soon for an economic synthesis of the field.

This is a book that's great for people interested in cultural issues. It's based on sound economic facts and makes a good case as how culture can influence a country's fate.

While Mr. Harrison makes some extremely valid arguments in this book , I wish he had also explored why the Anglo-protestant culture , which he holds up as"best in class" went about enslaving the world and what impact this has had on various countries , whom they enslaved.

Perhaps some of the progress those Anglo-protestant societies have made, is due to the fact that they exploited other countries and other peoples and not so much their work ethic as Mr. Harrison seems to suggest

The odd mix of mutually exclusive words in the title was the first thing about this book that grabbed my attention. The meaning becomes clear as you read the various examples in the book: the central truth is that liberal programs don't work. As these programs try to mandate change, they invariably produce consequences that are the opposite of what they were supposed to produce.

Harrison would probably disagree with what I just said, because throughout the book he uses "liberal" as a positive label--and he concludes the book by pushing leftist opinions that don't really derive from the rest of the book. Yes, there's a connection if you want to read that into the book--but the author's "central" conclusion is tacked on, rather than proven.

Let's briefly address this label of "liberal." In the USA, those calling themselves liberals have given us such enormous taxes (128 taxes on a single loaf of bread) that Americans work 50% more hours each week and take 25% of the annual vacation time as their European counterparts to maintain a similar standard of living (yes, we do have big homes and big cars--but that doesn't account for most of it). These people are actually "statists"--they believe that the government really is here to help you. Many statists also call themselves conservatives. Statism characterized the Clinton administration and it characterizes the Bush administration. One was "liberal," the other is "conservative"--both have grown government enormously at great cost, but with no discernable benefit.

Another point I want to clear up is the issue of exporting freedom. The author derides the notion that the USA can export freedom to the Middle East. He states cultural differences as the reason we cannot do this. Well, he is assuming we have something to export. But do we?

The United States spends more on its military than the next five nations combined, but the number of people on the IRS payroll exceeds the number of folks in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines combined. That has some rather serious implications. Try seeing what freedoms you have if these people dig their claws into you. The facts don't matter, due process is absent, the Bill of Rights is suspended, and you could lose your ability to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself.

John Graver has interviewed wealthy expatriates and found that every one of them cited the IRS as the number one reason for moving abroad. Anyone who has been caught up in the machinery of this criminal-infested agency understands why. The GAO reports each year on IRS employee behavior that normal people would be locked up for (such as stealing 4300 computers from their own offices or kidnapping toddlers at gunpoint). And yet, these demonstrably dishonest people have the absolute authority (regardless of statute or principle) to act as judge, jury, and executioner over people being tried for real or perceived "deficiencies." People on trial for multiple homicide have more rights than people deemed "deficient" by the IRS. Another country noted for allowing the morally bankrupt this level of unbridled power over "deficient" people on such a massive scale was Hitler's Germany.

So much for having freedom to export. We are exporting citizens who seek freedom.

The author reveals a bit of his own idealism and naiveté regarding these two issues. But once we get past those, we can see he has dug into an entire body of knowledge that is routinely ignored by people in power--regardless of whether those people are liberal or conservative. And for this we can be thankful.

Harrison looks at broad trends, and--admittedly--draws broad conclusions. But as you look at the cases, you can see these conclusions are, by and large, reflected in reality. Harrison also does a good job of explaining what the effects are of various religions, cultural taboos, and attitudes. He looks at the effects of female literacy, punctuality, and trust--or the lack of these. These various factors flavor the stew that gives a country its culture.

As I read this book, I kept nodding my head: "Yes, that makes sense" or "That's a well-supported point." I kept feeling I was learning how culture is more than a mere factor in the progress of a nation--it's a determinant. Then, toward the end of the book, we see the real reason Harrison had the word "liberal" in the title. Harrison ties the whole book into the standard commentary of the left, just (thinly) disguised a bit.

I have read several books that, had the author restrained himself from needlessly adding in leftist statements, would have been just fine. These authors have an almost Pavlovian approach to writing--no matter what they write about, they have to either lace the whole piece with leftist opinion or write a fine book and then cap it with leftist conclusions that really have nothing to do with the book.

As I said in the beginning of this review, the real problem Harrison is talking about is statism. We get it from the left and from the right. Liberalism is an enabler of statism, not a solution to it. Statism is the belief that the government actually solves problems--and the more government you have, the better. This belief has dominated politics since the early part of the last century. It failed most dramatically perhaps with the Soviet Union. But it's also failed in the United States, and we have the flight of capital and talent to prove that.

If Harrison writes a second edition, my recommendation would be to limit the book to its central topic of culture. Also, the subtitle "How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It From Itself" was not evident in the book--at least, not to me. Removing the Bush-bashing would make the political aspects of this book very minor. Renaming it to "The Central Cultural Truth" would more accurately reflect its contents.

If you are a leftist, liberal, or Bush basher, you'll love this book because it contains the normal party line and you can mistakenly point to that party line as being supported by the book. Similarly, you could point to the ocean, say it's wet, and then conclude that the leftist view is thus well-supported. Either way is about as good. If you are a conservative, you might begin to see that statism isn't helping your cause at all. And on that, the author has plenty of evidence.

If you want to understand the effects of culture, attitude, and other factors on how affluent or poor a nation is, you'll like this book until almost the end. It's got a wealth of good information and thoughtful analysis. Just take the leftist part with a grain of salt, and you'll find this book rather satisfying.



A note on the writing: form is important, as it dictates readability. Fortunately, this book scored very well on substance and on form. This book actually uses Standard Written English (SWE). This was a refreshing change from the Pidgin English that so many of today's authors slop onto our reading palettes. The care taken in writing this book shows that the author and publisher actually cared about the reader. That's a huge plus.