ON Sunday I tackled the question of attitudes in development-resistant and development-friendly societies. In that article, I tried to develop a broad analytical framework through which we can develop a sharper sense of the cultural values that both enable and hinder prosperity. Some of the more important elements of the framework are:

1. Development is not merely a function of economics, narrowly defined. Rather, it involves a broad configuration of institutions and practices. The role of culture is one of the most important of these, though one of the most ignored.

2. There is a difference between intrinsic and instrumental values. While all economic values are instrumental in nature, a purely utilitarian approach to culture would stultify development.

3. The classification of attitudes offered (in the article) should be taken as a guide to discussion, rather than a final ‘product’.

With that in mind, it would be helpful to elaborate on some of the attitudes noted. Today, we will examine attitudes to the individual and education.

Trust the Individual: Marino Grondona suggests that “[t]he principal engine of economic development is the work and creativity of individuals. What induces them to strive and invent is a climate of liberty that leaves them in control of their own destiny” (Grondona, 2000: 47-48). On the other hand, Grondona argues that “[i]f individuals feel others are responsible for them, the effort of individuals will ebb” (48).

The question of the individual as posed here is also a question of the type of social system that is desirable. Marx, for instance, (correctly) states that bourgeois philosophy advances the individual as a de-historicised abstract category where each person begins life tabula rasa.

The individual as an abstract juridical subject is at one level, a myth, and at another level an ideological trope. Political conservatives have thus used the concept of the individual to defend inequality as a matter of personal responsibility.

At the same time, social systems that ‘do away with the individual’ usually replace the latter with all sorts of collective and messianic figures.

Two dangers arise here. Firstly, the principle of sovereignty is shifted completely to the state, since the abstract individual is no longer there to enable a system of private rights.

Keep in mind that the concept of sovereignty, say as advanced by Hobbes, did in fact refer to both the sovereignty of the state, as well as the individual.

Secondly, the benefit of ‘reasonable egoism’ is lost. Instead of countless individuals making rational decisions with multiple sources of information, decisions are pushed to a small elite at the top.

Gyorgy Konrad and Ivan Szelenyi once described this as intellectuals on the road to class power.

In development-resistant societies there is a penchant to squander the innovative capacity of individuals by converting them into a broad undifferentiated mass. In development-resistant cultures, success can bring shame.

All too often, success can also make the successful person apologetic for the success he/she has achieved.

In part, this happens because development-resistant intellectuals see success as proof of exploitation, rather than as the reward for effort. Please keep in mind that intellectuals are not only those folks in universities and think tanks, etc.

Education: There are different forms of development-resistant education. Let us examine two forms that warrant urgent consideration.

Firstly, there is view that unless you understand the past, you will not be able to move forward. No one should object to this perspective, and I certainly reject any education that is unhistorical. At the same time, if the fulcrum of education is the past, then the student gets bogged down in a debate about what happened, and what is said to have happened.

This is especially apposite in divided societies where contestations about the past weigh so heavily on the society that it not able to move forward. Look, for instance, at the ways in which many are consumed by what really, truly, definitively, happened in the 1960s in Guyana?

Keep in mind that most of the ‘intellectuals’ who engage in this kind of public education are not professional researches. Columnists and T.V. hosts, for instance, are public intellectuals.

More often than not, the ‘education’ students receive is nothing other than dogma. The problem with dogma is that a small group of people claim to have an inside track with the General Truth, much the same way in which kings and queens once claimed to be the representatives of God.

In development-resistant societies there is a heavy preponderance of dogmatic education. This dogmatic education is a form of cultural hegemony, if for no other reason than the fact that dogma does not allow for questions. The good student is the one who has mastery of the ‘correct line’. His/her career will be assured, and then he/she will continue to dish out the same morbid cocktail to another generation.

In development-friendly societies the focus is on probing, asking questions, and constructing hypotheses, rather than ingesting doses of truth from the appointed truth-teller.

The sprit of innovation is perhaps the single most important element of moving a society forward. Why? Because innovation facilitates doing away with what does not work, and developing new ways – new systems, new procedures, new products, new services etc. The gist of a development-friendly education is to challenge the ‘student’ to think critically. Critical thinking, of course, does not mean to ‘go against’. Rather, it means to recognise that good answers almost always come from posing good questions.

Finally, it should be recognised that while it is good to have education for its own sake, development-friendly societies are especially good at encouraging education that translate into jobs and that will strengthen productivity.

This brings up the question on what kind of education is relevant. In the context of Guyana, President Jagdeo has underlined this point by noting that the old curricula need to be re-examined. While Guyana must make use of its agricultural resources, it must also open up new kinds of economic activity, leading to a new economy. It is for the same reason that the president stated that it makes sense to give 100,000 computers to Guyanese households. I regret that the AFC does not see the wisdom in this move.

A forward moving society should allow individuals to pursue their own economic interests and their own ‘truths’. Some might see this as neoliberal economics and cultural relativism. I am not so sure. Most of us who spent time in various causes of liberty probably discovered down the road that freedom means having the right to pursue prosperity in a secure environment and to be able to freely express our ideas. Of course, we all want the right to exercise our franchise as well. Take these things away and then tell me what the freedom is worth.