Customer Reviews

Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case

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Unlike one of the reviewers of this book which declared this book to reek of white supremacy stench, a portrayal which couldn't be further from the truth, I found this book to be very insightful and very well reasoned. I read this book as a recommendation from Thomas Sowell (a noted black economist and author of a trilogy on cultures - and one of my favorite authors and economists) and I found that he was right on the money with his recommendation. There is no reason in the world that any population, with or without natural resources, can't progress and become developed in a generation or -at most - two (as long as they have guarantee of liberty including the iron clad right to own property without danger of seizure from the government). The author reveals very well the stumbling blocks that prevent some countries from developing regardless of the billions given in foreign aid. Culture does play a part in this and in some cases - a major part. As an example, how do two countries of a comparable economic situation (Hong Kong - no natural resources - and Mexico - with considerable reserves of oil - in the early 50s) become so diverse in their development in a scant 50 years? Culture and economic liberty are an obvious answer. Do yourself a favor and read a copy of this book. It'll open your eyes utilizing clear and basic economics as to one of the root causes to third world poverty.

This book was first written in 1985 and revised in 2000. In a nut shell the author looks at the history of Latin America, and argues that the classic explanation of the Dependency theory of Latin America's poverty relative to the United States is wrong. For a long time many people in Latin America blamed their problems on the rest of the world, and often the United States was the source of most evil. This was victimhood on an international level.

Harrison argues that this is wrong, and shows how the legacy of the Spanish and Catholic influences has produced a culture that is anti-progressive. I was a bit surprised at how often he brings up the importance of child rearing practices. This is a very well researched book. It was well written. It was very thought provoking.

This book is so true I thought I was reading my diary. I have lived and worked throughout Central and South America since 1982 and until 1998. I have experienced, in daily contact, each and every situation presented. Unfortunatelly it is a borrowed book and no longer available.

Harrison prepared a careful study of the social, cultural and religious causes of the underdevelopment of Latin American societies, especially Nicaragua's. Required reading for any open-minded student of Central and South America, as well as all Third World countries. Harrison shows how the state-of-mind of Third World inhabitants can result in continued non-development despite massive foreign aid infusions and revolutionary changes.

I read this book a long time ago ...I actually borrowed it from a friend at the USAID office in Santo Domingo and never returned it. It was an eye opener and at the same time a confirmation for a lot of our opinions. This book is ,a very clear
description of the underdeveloped mind...the way of thinking and of viewing the world that we inherited from our spanish colonial era. Not only religion is a burden...but also the
rent-seeking ,oportunistic and corrupt ways of our politicians ....and worst of all...that we the people..don't do a thing to end this mess.

In this book, professor Harrison makes and excellent aproach among the relationship among culture and development. With great sense of the state of development in Latin America and mainly Central America, Harrison argues that the cultural values and attitudes shape development patterns. A must read book for students, academicicians and politicians interest in the development of nations...

The books "Wealth and Poverty of Nations" (David Landes) and "Misadventures in the Tropics" (William Easterly) are actually more recent updates to this book. What makes this book different is that it is the culmination of YEARS of experience in the mentioned countries.

Good Points:

1. This book foreshadows a lot of themes that were taken up at greater length in other very good books, such as differing immigration patterns leading to different results ("Migrations and Culture," Sowell) and differing geographical circumstances leading to different classes of people ("Outliers," Gladwell). He does not get into the topics at great length, but the thinking that led him to his conclusions seems very clear.

2. The whole book can be read over the course of an afternoon, and the writing style is light, clear, and unpretentious.

3. The whole best part of the book is the way that he throws cold water on "dependency theory." One gets SO SICK of listening to theorists/ academics make up ideas (does Marxism EVER die?) and never bother to check the evidence (or just fabricate it) about the actual conditions of Latin America-- and how much of it dependency theory can actually explain. This author did a good job taking some initial steps toward so doing. There was not excessive detail here-- just enough to sketch the outline and tantalize the reader into reading more for himself.

4. The tying together of Marxist political philosophies as a cover for Latin America's failure was an interesting point. I wish he'd done a bit more with it, but what he did do was sufficiently brief and readable.

5. The Reader's Digest version of Spain's instability over the past couple of centuries was also very enjoyable (and enlightening).

Bad Points:

1. Harrison invokes the ghost of Thomas Malthus, who should be dead and buried since he was demonstrated to be wrong so long ago and so many times since then. Something that seems inconsistent with reality is the fact that some of the most densely populated places are also the most prosperous (HK, Macau), and even other places in his book that he describes are very densely populated and yet prosperous (Barbados).

2. He detailed the appalling instability of Spain over the centuries, but it might have been nice if he STARTED the book with that so we could have kept it in mind while reading through the cases that he detailed. In fact, that might have been a better start of the book than a bit of Myrdal quoted in a sketchy way.

3. It might also have been nice if the author had included just a bit of discussion about the chaos of the Philippines (which was administered by Spain for 333 years), and yet is still a mess.

4. The theory in the first chapters seems a bit.....sketchy. It is only because this book dealt with the explication of extant realities that this brevity/ sketchiness can be forgiven. (And in any case, there's not much point in a theoretical framework that goes on for hundreds of pages and predicts, like Das Kapital-- NOTHING.)

There were also lots of echoes of China in this book-- and I don't doubt that this could have been expanded into a book that explained a lot of the chaos that had happened there.

This is well worth the price of a second hand book.

The premise of this book will be despised by anyone accustomed to blaming others for their own poor decisions and personal shortcomings.

The cultures on our planet have different ideas regarding basic concepts such as education, honesty, work, personal sacrifice, productivity, promptness, responsibility, trust, raising children, friendship, welfare, security, the value of life, spirituality and many other characteristics. Each population evolves over time and establishes it's own priorities.

The author examines Latin American countries with early similarities and demonstrates how their progress deviated from one another. Many countries which had early advantages over their neighbors (in terms of geography and natural resources, for example) fell behind in one way or another and continue to struggle.

The author suggests these variable outcomes result from the culture and values that have evolved and become an integral part of every population.
This is a very introspective and insightful examination into the lasting effects of "culture".

As a missionary and previous director of an agency for the poor, I was blown away by this author's grasp of the root causes of poverty - particularly in South and Central America. Brace yourself if you buy into the "victim mindset" and read this book.

The thesis of this book is that the economic disparities between the US, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Haiti result from the superiority of WASP culture. The study of the relationship between culture and progress has a long history dating back to Max Weber. This book offers nothing new except a harsher edge that gives it a stench of white-supremacy. Harrison is clearly aware of the potential for charges of racism. He makes extensive use of quotes from blacks and Hispanics to make points that would be offensive coming from a white person. This is reminiscent of the 2000 reform party's black vice presidential candidate whose job it is to state that Pat Buchanan is not a racist, not an anti-Semite, and not a homophobe. Harrison's book purports to be a book on development, rather than a justification for the disparities of wealth between the first and third worlds. Indeed, there are reasonable policy proposals in this book, as well as a decent refutation of dependency theory. However, there is nothing really new here. Economists almost universally rejected dependency theory long before "Underdevelopment is a State of Mind" was first published. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the development literature will come away with nothing more than the simplistic argument that poor people deserve to be poor because of their inferior culture. The book gives no hint as to the fundamental causes of cultural differences. Clearly culture affects economic progress. However, it is equally clear that economics affects culture. The U.S. has a culture conducive to capitalist growth in no small part because it is a wealthy capitalist nation. Any writer sincerely concerned with improving the welfare of poor people should look favorable upon immigration and cultural exchanges. With the fed raising interest rates to choke off US growth and prevent labor shortages, the U.S. can absorb vastly increased levels of immigration. The success of immigrants from very poor countries makes it clear that it is the institutional and cultural restrictions of poor countries that make them poor. They do not bring their supposed "cultural inferiority" with them. The fact that Harrison's book contains diatribes against immigration shows that his concern is with relieving his own guilt about living better than 90% of humanity rather than improving the lives of the bottom 90%.