Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
by particular socioeconomic classes is likely to exclude some of the most able
potential scholars, and thus lower the overall level of academic attainment.
At a general level, there are other criticisms, including the creation of an
“underclass” of welfare-dependent people, especially in those regions where
welfare payments are largest, and the inefficiency of a monopoly provision of
welfare with no competition (Marsland 1996). These negative features are
strongest, or at least most readily seen, in countries such as Britain with a long
welfare history. Perhaps the strongest negative criticism concerns the destruction
of social structures which were in place before state intervention in social
matters. This is the topic covered by Francis Fukuyama.
Trust and the social virtues
Rather than the creation of a dependent underclass, Fukuyama (1995) has
focused on the destruction, in some modern societies, of the existing social
structures that stand between the individual and the state, and which are
necessary for the proper functioning of economic life. He shows that while the
standard view of societies is either as individualistic (such as the USA) or as
communitarian (such as China or Japan), there are in fact many societies with
strong social structures at the intermediate level. These are seen as the most
successful societies, ones in which economic transactions are conducted with
ease because of the trust existing between the opposing sides in the transaction,
and the sharing of information within and between pre-existing social structures.
It is worth listing some of the different kinds of case involved. Japan and the
USA, in fact, are portrayed by Fukuyama as strong civil society countries, where
there are many organizations at the intermediate level (families, firms, societies
and clubs) not dependent on the state. The cases where there has been a very
strong state organization of society in the past, such as the USSR and southern
Italy, and where this has now broken down, have the greatest problems because
their economy is liable to fall into criminal hands, for want of an alternative set of
institutions. The Mafia of southern Italy, a criminal organization filling the
vacuum of legal organizations, is paralleled today by Russian “mafias”. Cases
with a strong family social structure include that of northern and central Italy,
home of the extended family. This structure is valuable at early stages of economic
development, but imposes difficulties at later stages when the firm or
organization becomes too large to be handled by one family. Trust in such cases
has to be extended, and may cause disasters if the trust is not justified, or if
incompetent family members are chosen instead for important posts.
For countries that have suffered destruction of their earlier civil society, like
the Republic of China, France, and southern Italy, there are major problems in
economic development because the state has to step in to initiate programmes,
and often makes mistakes for want of sensitivity to markets and the interests of
society.
