By Richard Javad Heydarian

(Part II)

As Nobel Laureate Economist Joseph Stiglitz once remarked, sometimes our fundamental problem is that we focus on the wrong problems.

In many ways, this seems to be the case in countries like the Philippines, where pundits and politicians often highlight all sorts of problems and offer corresponding solutions; yet, what’s often lacking is a fundamental understanding and sensible diagnostic of systematic deficiencies.

This is why it’s first important to grasp what is the problem that we are trying to solve in our country. And how charter change per se could pave a path forward for national redemption and transformation.

As I discussed in part I of my federalism essay series, our primary challenge as a nation – above everything else – is our oligarchic political system.

Yet, nowadays, one often hears the argument that what lies at the root of our national failure is our societal culture. Thus, as the argument goes, no matter what form of government we adopt, we are destined to fall into the same trap of national mediocrity or worse.

The policy implication, of course, is that discussions over charter change and shift to a federal-parliamentary system are nothing short of a futile exercise in self-delusion. But is culture our problem? Let’s first dispense with incorrect theories.

American writer James Fallows’ essay ‘A Damaged Culture’ is definitely a frustrating and well-written essay on how supposedly culture of dependence and corruption should be held responsible for the despairing conditions of America’s (former and sole) Asian colony, the Philippines.

However, what the essay fails to explain is how that supposed ‘Filipino culture’ has continued to persist, or even worsen, in recent history — as if culture is something eternal and static.

As Edward Said trenchantly notes in his groundbreaking book Orientalism, the tendency among Western observers (and even modern social sciences) is to view non-Western races as static peoples with ahistorical, defined characteristics or “essence.”

In his seminal book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max Weber, widely known as the father of modern sociology, provided arguments on the relationship (or correlation) between “culture” and “economic productivity.”

As an established economic analyst, Weber was interested in understanding why protestant nations of the West — with the United States figuring on the top of his mind — emerged as not only the harbinger of capitalism — the epochal transformation in the means and scale of material production — but also the forerunners of industrial expansion and growth.

The thrift, sheer hard work, communitarian values, and (religiously-grounded) appreciation for material prosperity among Protestants, Weber argued, explained their central role in pushing the boundaries of capitalism towards ever-greater strides in industrial output and financial success.

After the Reformation, the Protestant states, beginning in the 1700, clearly overtook their Catholic peers in economic terms, enjoying, on the average, a 40 percent edge in per capita income. Even the colonies of Protestant states, on the whole, outperformed their Catholic counterparts.

Weber was not, however, confined to a comparative analysis between protestant and catholic states within the West. In his sequel to The Protest Ethic, Weber, in Confucianism and Taoism (1916), tried to differentiate between China and the West by examining how Confucianism emphasized “adjustment” to the world, as opposed to Western rationality emphasizing “mastery” of the world.

Weber’s work inspired a whole literature on the correlation between culture and development — a cottage industry that survives up to this date with much vigor. But he was, in many ways, flatly wrong.

As British economic historian Niall Ferguson puts it, Weber’s analysis lacked correspondence with important facts and developments on the ground. Aside from (mistakenly) dismissing the Jewish people’s entrepreneurial success and contribution to the expansion of capitalism, Weber, “was also mysteriously blind to the success of Catholic entrepreneurs in France, Belgium and elsewhere...”

To the contrary, Ferguson explains, “Much of the first steps towards a spirit of capitalism occurred before the Reformation, in the towns of Lombardy and Flanders; while many leading reformers expressed distinctly anti-capitalist views.”

Ferguson cites at least two empirical studies that show a lack of a strong correlation between “Protestantism” and “economic growth.” A more nuanced perspective, Ferguson explains, looks at how Lutheran thoughts on ‘individual reading,’ self-reliance, and education allowed its followers to take advantage of prior developments, gaining pace during the Renaissance, in technology — all culminating in the scientific revolution, which began in Protestant states, notably Scotland and England.

Mostly importantly, Weber’s work failed to anticipate the astonishing success of East Asian societies, particularly, China, which is widely regarded as the most successful experiment in capitalist expansion in human history.

In short, culture alone doesn’t explain national performance, since culture itself is a fluid and elastic social attribute, which could change for better or worse overtime. And this is why it makes sense to discuss whether charter change could make our political and economic system more efficient and, overtime, transform our culture of dependence and corruption.