| A series of lectures given by Howard Richards at the University of Baroda,
Gujarat State, India, in August and September of 1995
| Comment on
Howard Richards'
Nehru Lectures
by Anand P. Mavalankar
Professor of Political Science
University
of Baroda
Gujurat state, India
Howard Richards' opening statement in the Nehru lectures
sets out the overarching purpose of his project. He observes:
My only desire is to say something that will serve to
relieve the unnecessary suffering of the poor. I believe that a great part of
the suffering of the poor is caused by conceptual mistakes, which those of us
who are in academic life are responsible for and can
change.(1)
Professor Richards posits a theory of "constructive
development" with an ultimate objective of transforming the contemporary world
order.
His knowledge of a range of academic disciplines
(representing various human sciences) facilitates in generating a discourse on
reconstructing contemporary social reality. Being deeply critical of the
tendencies of "acquisitive society" within the dominant western civilization,
Richards seeks to recover and rely on the social bases of effecting cultural
action in various communities of the world.
His vision of mobilizing resources to meet needs of the poor
sections of the global society of the planet earth remains crucial to his
enunciation of a theory of constructive development. Since he is cognizant of
the implications of the basic structure of the contemporary global political
economy, his interpretations of contemporary social reality need to be
understood within the context of the evolving reality of global
capitalism.
The first part of this note offers a brief interpretative
exposition on the key ideas discussed by Richards in the Baroda lectures. In the
second part, we shall attempt a few criticisms by way of an overall critique of
the issues raised by the author.
The scope of the author's Baroda lectures is indeed quite
wide and multi-dimensional. His focus on "constructive development" runs through
these lectures, which provides an agenda of cultural action having
cross-cultural validity on this planet earth. The phrase "constructive
development" is consciously employed by himself, notwithstanding the misgivings
outlined by the author with respect to the term "development" as well as the
critique of the "developmentalist ideology" noted in a wide variety of
contributions among social scientists.(2) Given the wide usage of the term
"development," Richards prefers "to stay in touch with the mainstream while
trying to change its direction."(3) His justification implicitly endorses the
underlying logic of developmental imperatives of the modern state. Perhaps it
would have better served the intellectual purpose of the author if he had
reconceptualised the term in light of the more recent experiences of the
countries of the southern hemisphere. The author seeks to introduce the word
"constructive" to redeem the word "development" and suggests that the "social
construction of reality" can be consciously attempted and that cultures have
autonomous impact on the basic structure of the global political
economy.
The idea of "structure" is built into the word
"constructive," which refers to making a structure; while the word
"restructuring" suggests changing a structure. The author provides two meanings
of "structure" - firstly, it refers to an ordered whole, and secondly, the term
draws from Piaget's book, Le Structuralisme and Anthony Wilden's book, System
and Structure. Drawing a distinction between the "biological" and "cultural"
structure to the guidance of human conduct, Richards singles out "culture" as
one which provides instructions for human practice.(5) It is considered as a
broader term which includes norms, values, conventions, customs, etc. This
remains the baseline on which the author builds his overall argument. According
to him, the idea of "cultural structure" "is that which education for
constructive development reconstructs."(6) As the "human ecological niche" (a
phrase coined by Clifford Geertz), culture is learned, while biological
structures grow. The basic difficulty of proceeding on these lines, however, is
that the distinction between "cultural structure" and "basic structure" hardly
works in the dynamics of the contemporary world order. The interface of
"culture" and "structure'" is so intertwined that distinct patterns of its
actual manifestations are hard to isolate for the purposes of developing a
rigorous understanding of the global political economy. Further, individuals and
sovereign states are often subject to a range of diverse pressures emanating
from the global political and economic system and are unwilling to decondition
themselves for the purposes of transformative cultural action.
As regards the defining characteristics of "cultural
structures," the author identifies them as ordered whole, cultivated entities
and normative constructs. With regard to the idea of "basic structure" of the
global economy, the author refers to the modern economic society which imposes
its characteristic legal and economic forms everywhere on the planet earth.
While considering the main sociological traditions for explaining the rise and
expansion of modern economic society, the author finds the more recent school
associated with Wallerstein, Braudel, the French Annals historians (7) to be
more persuasive. According to him, the main lesson of this school relates to the
explanation that "the mechanism for the creation of the global economy was the
exchange of money for goods on a large scale."(8) In other words, exchange for
money is the most striking feature of the basic structure of the global social
reality.
The interface of "culture" and "global economy" is
underlined by the author with the observation that "every culture in the world,
at the present moment, is enmeshed in the global economy."(9) But, the author
does not provide necessary linkages that could illustrate and even explain the
relationship between "cultural structures" and "basic structure" of the global
political economy.
Further, Richards identifies the "need to continue to work
to overcome the inherent structural limitation of a system whose mainspring is
the investment of money for the purpose of making more money."(10) He goes on to
say, "Some needs go unmet either because nobody invested the money to produce
the required goods and services, or because the persons who need the goods and
services lack the money to buy them."(11) The model of money augmenting itself
in advanced capitalist societies and competition of capitals are both
acknowledged by the author.(12) Being concerned about the limitations of the
basic structure, Richards posits the idea of "constructive development" which
considers the overarching role of social norms and values in transforming the
prevailing state of affairs in the modern economic societies.
According to Richards, "Constructive development aims to
meet more needs more competently and more effectively than can be done using
economic incentives alone. Constructive education will bring out the power of
those other incentives"(13) He further states, "Constructive development relies
on cultural action to strengthen the motives that supplement economic incentives
with other incentives."(14) The net consequence is that it restructures the
social reality which imposes cultural restraints on reform. By resorting to the
educational processes of cultural action, norms can be created which will
correct the tendency of the mainspring of the basic structure to leave human
needs unmet whenever it is in any way challenged. Instead of solely guided by
profit motive, it involves a plea for channeling social surplus in public and
non-profit sectors of the economy.
As regards criteria for the evaluation of a "constructive
development" project, Richards identifies three main elements. Firstly, it
relates to the constructive and transformative purposes of the project.
According to him, "A constructive project will seek to create the culture of a
viable tomorrow by empowering people, by finding and tapping reserves of
positive energy, by strengthening norms of co-operation and sharing and by
weakening norms that allow exploitation."(15)
The second criterion for "constructive development" is that
the evaluation should determine whether and to what extent the project is
empowering the target group. He is absolutely correct in maintaining that
"empowerment of communities to solve their problems is a necessity in a world
where for structural reasons, many needs are not fulfilled by either the private
or the public sector."(16) In this connection, he considers family and church as
two main forms of self-help and acknowledges their role in empowering
communities However, there is no detailed discussion of how these institutions
could deliver goods in the present moment of contemporary capitalism. Richards
pointedly refers here to the role of social science "as assisting people at the
grassroots to empower themselves, both in order to be able to support each other
with the resources they have and in order to be able to take control of more
resources."(17)
The third criterion refers to measuring the post-economic
component of the project's achievements. His definition of the component "is the
desirable behavior it elicits which is not motivated by economic
incentives."(18) Here Richards raises the question "whether it is in principle
possible, under conditions of modern high technology mass production, to
organize production in such a way that the products can be mobilized to meet
needs, without hindrance by the limitations imposed by the competition of
capitals and the need to create favorable conditions for capital
accumulation."(19) The author finds the answer in the principles of the methods
of economic planning pioneered by Piero Sraffa in his book, Production of
Commodities by Means of Commodities.
The basic idea here is that economics can be considered as a
cultural structure superimposed on the physical structures needed to produce
goods and services. The suggestion here is that the neoclassical economics can
be replaced by another school of economic thought, which can be characterized as
a different cultural structure. Unlike the Marxist scheme of things, Sraffa's
model, in principle, does not need economic motivation as the driving force for
all-round development. As Richards observes, "Constraints imposed by economic
reality are movable constraints. They are products of cultural structures, and
they can be moved if we can improve our cultural structures by strengthening
post-economic incentives. We can evaluate every social project by measuring its
contribution to building a post-economic culture."(20)
The compelling necessity to measure the post-economic
component of a project has to be tied with the overarching imperative to
transform the basic structure of the contemporary global political economy.
Embedding economic incentives in a context of social values,(21) Richards
insists that what the world needs now is a restructuring of the global economy.
Elsewhere Richards dwells upon the word "world" to refer to "the shapes of the
relatively small worlds in which people play out their lives." Since "world" can
be a place where people live subjectively, he believes that "social reality is
socially constructed in such a way that large socially constructed realities,
such as the everyday buying and selling where money is exchanged for
commodities."(22)
Perhaps the most significant formulation of Richards relates
to his conceptual framework of "post-economic society." Although the Third
Lecture of the Baroda Lecture series dwells at some length on this point, a more
articulate version is found in his letter No. 61, entitled, "Who will Change the
World?" In the said letter, he provides a conceptual distinction between
"economic society" and "post-economic society." Basing his formulation on
Heilbroner's idea of "market society"(23) he offers a succinct definition of
"economic society." According to Richards, "economic society is that society
which with respect to the production and distribution of the basic necessities
of life, sets out systematically to harness self-interest to make it serve the
common welfare, and does so in this particular way among others: by obliging
(most) people to work for money in order to live."(24) His definition refers to
a particular historically-existing society, what Wallerstein calls the European
world-system, and here Richards prefers to include both capitalist and socialist
societies in it.
All the same, he asserts that economic society "never did a
good job, at any point in its history, of matching resources to needs, needs to
resources and both to environmental constraints."(25) In one of his letters,
Richards provides a definition of "post-economic society" in the following
words:
Post-economic society is that society which with respect
to the production and distribution of the basic necessities of life, sets out
systematically to harness both self-interest and social motives to make them
serve the common welfare, and does so in whatever ways prove to be best able
to satisfy the needs of humans as members of the community of life on
earth.(26)
Richards further maintains that the emergence of the
post-economic society can be understood as "the critical return to and the
systematic improvement of those ancient pre-economic survival strategies whose
institutional frameworks are kinship and religion."(27) In more recent times,
various social movements have highlighted the importance of religion in
redesigning cultural agendas across the globe. The old forms of
being-in-community are being reconstituted and are made functional in tune with
spirit of the contemporary times. But Richards does not offer transitional
strategies to realize the goals of post economic society.
The author is convinced that "prevailing economic structures
are not adequate for inspiring constructive work, meeting needs, and living in
harmony with the environment." Further, it "implies a selective orientation
toward older practices, which prevailed before the coming of the global market
economy, and which still persist. Some of them deserve to be carried forward
into the future, and some of them do not."(28) Furthermore, this perspective
reflects "a shift in how we think about mobilizing resources to meet needs
instead of thinking first about the need, and then about how to meet it; we
think first about the resource, and then about how to use it to meet
needs."(29)
Formulating a post-economic perspective to contemporary
global order, ties in with a theory of 'constructive development' Richards seeks
to advance in his Nehru Lectures. As he puts it, "I am proposing that we
conceive of the post-economic perspective as a comprehensive and future-oriented
framework for evaluating education for constructive development."(30) Several
points by way of clarification, however, need to be made in this regard. First
of all, one needs to specify the connection between post-economic perspective
and educational processes in the contemporary global economy. Secondly, the
linkage between post-economic perspective and cultural structures has to be
sharply drawn, with a view to outlining the difference achieved within the
post-economic society and its consequences for bringing about "constructive
development" in the contemporary global order.
As regards constructive development, Richards advocates
reconstructing of norms that guide human conduct, at the intersection where
culture and biology meet. His presumption is that in principle humans can be
motivated and hence can be turned into creatures capable of peace and justice.
He asserts that educators could nurture positive motives, so that constructive
development could bring out the best in human nature.
While providing a critique of Freud's account of the
relationship of sex to work, Richards is of the view that human body's erotic
potentials are quite capable of being developed towards motivating work.
Secondly, the author notices that there is no room for a benevolent unconscious
in Freud's system.
Richards identifies several elements that go with
educational efforts, to build a culture of solidarity in the contemporary
society. First of all, he pleads for cultivating benign attitudes and peaceful
practices suitable for man. Secondly, he alludes to the "need to explain how
unconscious drives, and in particular the erotic as it has been socially
interpreted and developed in contemporary mainstream culture, have turned out to
be as non-functional as they are."(31)
In this connection, he makes a critique of the prevailing
cultural structures, in the sense that the erotic has become a perennial source
of self-destruction and despair. Further, he contends that in principle the
unconscious mind in general, and eros in particular, is capable of making
life beautiful. The prevailing state of affairs is attributed to the nature of
contemporary culture that makes the erotic destructive and fails to develop the
constructive potential found in our genes. Patriarchy is identified as the
source of domination in feminist writings. This is contrasted with Eisler's
finding about the equal partners between men and women in ancient Crete is a
case-in-point.(32)
Based on the above evidence and related interpretations,
Richards voices his conviction that education can reconstruct the erotic so that
people would be happy in sustaining their loving relationship, and their present
tendency of taking pleasure in violence and abuse will go away. According to
him, school could be a good starting point where children would find joy in
constructive activities. Posing two distinct alternatives, he wonders "whether
schooling and other educational influences can produce generations of human
beings who live in harmony with each other and the environment, or when the
human species and the planet will suffer the devastating consequences of human
beings being moral midgets equipped with increasingly advanced scientific
technologies remains to be seen."(33) He observes that the present level and
kinds of knowledge indeed facilitate in guiding children and adults to find joy
in constructive work. This is why he is convinced about the potential of
cultural action, in and out of schools, in transforming the basic structure of
the global political economy.
Richards enumerates forms of available scientific knowledge
for purposes of eliciting motivation for "constructive development" under four
headings, namely Developmental Psychology, Moral Education, Sociology and
Theology. Under each of these headings, the author has fruitfully blended
various contributions of theorists and practitioners. By way of a general
comment, we have indicated a few points here to show inadequacies or limitations
in these endeavors for sustaining the momentum for effective cultural action in
human societies. The proposition within the discipline of development psychology
that children whose natural thrust for fun is habitually satisfied through
healthy educational facilities are likely to find pleasure in contributing to
society as adults is not often borne out by the growing incidence of
self-aggrandizement in various walks of life in present times. Besides, it is
increasingly noticed that individually that developed constructive ideals and
sentiments in institutions that demonstrate the norms they teach, often end up
in institutions in their adult lives that militate against such constructive
ideals.
Perhaps the most convincing illustration of cultural action
is found in the realm of applied sociology Richards has referred to an urban
project in the densely populated city of Santiago in Chile, which relates to a
social problem of Machismo. The Chilean sociologist, Manuel Bastias and a
Chilean Psychologist, Rosa Saavendra approached the problem by enrolling people
as couples, and not as individuals. The sociological idea here was that social
roles, and not the persons who fill the roles of husband and wife were
considered crucial to evaluate the pattern of being a couple trying to raise a
family under conditions of poverty. It is an apt illustration of tapping energy
locked up in personal frustrations and channeling it into good work for the
well-being of the concerned family and the rest of the society.
As regards the dimension of theology, Richards highlights
the role of religious beliefs and practices in promoting cultural action in
human societies. His reference to Thomas Berry's observation that fundamental
change is always change "at the religious level, because no other level is deep
enough" is indeed significant. By certain interpretations of their physical
urges, men are motivated to act as per certain myths and symbols of distinct
religious traditions. Besides, religion furnishes a common ground for social
action to various human communities. It binds them together through a common
unifying religious framework. As Richards observes, "The cohesion of human
groups depends on sharing meanings, and sharing meanings depends on sharing
stories. Without a common story, there is no community."(35) Here the idea of a
common Earth Story, in terms of a cultural cosmology capable of uniting the
species assumes particular significance. This exposition of the role of
religion, however, does not pay attention to a more pertinent question of
human consciousness. The effectiveness of cultural action would hinge upon the
nature of human consciousness prevailing at a given moment in the evolution of
human societies.
According to Richards, changing people's behavior turns out
to be the most critical part of a planning process. As he maintains, "Planning
for cultural transformation requires different techniques, which complement
technical planning; and which achieve the changes in human norms that technical
planning notoriously fails to achieve, and often does not even attempt."(36) The
underlying idea is that group norms should he the focus of planning cultural
action to change cultural structures. There are, however, several conceptual
difficulties here. First of all, the basis of group norms may not be identical
in all such situations, especially when group goals may conflict or when group
activity remains well short of affecting prevailing cultural structures.
Secondly, group norms even if realized uniformly, may turn out to be
counter-productive in a changed context whereby the prevailing state structures
undergo drastic political change.
In this connection, Richards draws from a four-part planning
model for cultural transformation, derived mostly from cultural action work in
Latin America. Its usefulness can be measured against a general model of how to
go about planning cultural change within the prevailing cultural structures.
According to him, it can be looked upon as "a method for identifying "growth
points," that is to say, points in the culture where constructive change is
already happening, which we can raise to consciousness with a problem-posing
method, encourage, extend and nurture."(37) The author's stress on
"construction" is meant to suggest (based on the Kantian formulation) that
neither peace nor justice is a natural state for humanity, and that peace and
justice have to be constructed consciously and systematically. Although "growth"
relies on natural processes, "construction" has to be done through a human
agency. As Richards put it, "Nature is just the material we have to work with;
culture is something we have to make, to build."(38)
The four steps of the cultural action planning model
indicate the master-plan of Richards' theory of constructive development. It
makes a strong case for cultural action that has the potential for restructuring
the global political economy. It identifies hidden agenda in various communities
of the world and seeks to uncover and utilize untapped sources of vitality and
talent in the human beings, groups and associations that go with them.
Regardless of the intentions and actions of the sovereign states within
respective civil societies, the independent initiatives stemming from these
civil societies could form a pole around which sincere, well-directed and
sustained cultural action could transform the character of civil societies. Here
we have the blue-print for a comprehensive agenda for transforming the cultural
structures that shape the global political economy for the next
century.
We shall briefly identify some of the key points made by
Richards for the said model. Based on his experience of working with peasants of
Chile, the Brazilian philosopher and educator, Paulo Freire's cultural action
methods, namely, "culture circles," the first task refers to "codification of
the thematic universe." Here the themes are considerable as the meaningful
elements that guide conduct through culture. By learning to participate in
cultural structures through connecting with people on a meaningful level or
relating to people in ways they understand, and to do that one must, in Freire's
terms, codify their thematic universe.
As regards energies, examples of sex and violence are given
by the author. While acknowledging that sexual desire, viewed as a mechanism,
tending to lead to reproduction, must be one of the most deep-seated human
instincts, Richards refers to Nancy Tanner's viewpoint in considering the erotic
as the quintessentially human social emotion, whose main function is not
to induce copulation but to induce bonding.(39) Richards suggests that the flow
of psychic energy in our civilization needs to be effectively put to use for the
larger goal of transformation.
The third dimension relates to the issue of transformation.
As Richards put it, "To speak of cultural transformation is to speak of cultural
form, which can be changed to become another form."(40) Drawing from the idea of
"chains of equivalence" by Laclau and Mouffe(41), he advocates that this theme
of equality, can be profitably utilized by cultural activists to expose and
reconcile contradictions within the culture and establish "equality" in
practice. In the terminology of the Brazilian philosopher, Paulo Freire,
"equality" is transformative because it represents:
(a) "The untested feasibility" - possibilities for
cooperation as equals which are feasible, but have not been tried
yet.
(b) "Problem-solving - the felt humiliation of people who
do not get the respect to which modern cultural norms entitle
them.(42)
The fourth step (or dimension) of "structure" is quite
crucial in the model posited by Richards The most important yardstick for
evaluating a project for constructive development is to ascertain whether they
make a change in the basic structure of the global political economy, and
whether the project builds grassroots empowerment and post-economic norms of
social reconstruction.
Richards contends that by following these four steps of the
planning model, the underlying ideas therein can be considered as "growth
points" which need to be nurtured. This would enable the cultural activists to
overcome the structural obstacles which (in the present world) hamper the
efforts of mobilizing resources to meet needs in the contemporary global
order.
Elsewhere, Richards makes the following observation in this
regard:
The task of finding growth points, i.e., emerging
discourse-guided practices within the present world, which appear to be
leading in constructive directions, and which therefore deserve support. The
task of finding among all of the trends and constructive initiatives that are
present in our contemporary world, those which are growth points leading
toward a viable and beautiful future, is a matter of finding valuable forms of
discourse and practice which attract energy.... Not every social practice
which attracts energy is a growth point - only those social innovations of
revivals which both attract energy and lead to constructive
results.(43)
By way of providing real alternatives to the present human
predicament, Richards maintains that real alternatives, and ipso facto
real growth points, must comply with the following limitations on social
choice:
1. The role of competition in motivating work cannot be
diminished without augmenting the roles of other sources of motivation and
discipline.
2. The role of capital markets and the competition of
capitals cannot be diminished without finding alternative ways to make
decisions about how to direct labor and to allocate resources, which are
equally efficient or at least not hopelessly inefficient.
3. Global processes cannot be managed without global
organizations which can make decisions that will be implemented.
4. No cultural structure is viable which conflicts with
the limits imposed on social choice by ecology, i.e. by nature as a whole
considered as the interaction of the systems studied by biology, chemistry,
physics, astronomy and geology.
5. We cannot simply choose to discourage investment
(which in the existing system is normally done with the expectation of
accumulating greater profits) without instituting equally effective motives
and practices for getting productive activity going.(44)
In the second part of this note, we attempt
certain criticisms on the overall thrust of the argument of the author as
presented in his Baroda lectures. A theory of "constructive development"
advanced by Richards fails to locate his discourse within the "development"
literature, which has consistently grown since the 1940s. Consequently, certain
key theoretical departures and interpretations on "development" relating to
"cultural action" are not systematically blended in his exposition. For
instance, the literature on "basic needs" program (45) which flourished since
the late 1970s does not figure in his discussions. Apart from the intervention
of the sovereign state, it highlighted the role of grass-roots initiatives and
non-governmental organizations in identifying basic needs of the community
concerned and the kinds of strategies suggested by a whole range of
theoreticians and practitioners. Such treatment would have brought out the
distinct nature of Richards' formulations and indicated his fresh conceptual
insights in the wider substantive canvass of "cultural development."
Secondly, the author's quest for a
multidisciplinary theory of "constructive development" would have been more
fruitful if he had isolated the key elements pertaining to the causal linkage
(drawn by him) between cultural action and constructive development, and had
show how they work out in various locations across the globe.
If one employs Richards' discourse to the
post-colonial societies of the world in the twentieth century, one would find
the formulation of "modern economic society" quite troublesome. Whether the
so-called "third world" societies have graduated to the status of "modern
economic societies" is itself questionable. In an insightful formulation, Minhas
had contended that any talk of "basic needs" and "minimum services for all" in a
so-called "third world" country has little or no meaning in either a market- or
state-provided/subsidized context. The services are needed, and the only way
they will ever be provided is through communitarian self-help strategies outside
the framework of the paid employment.(46) So Richards' formulation regarding
post-economic perspective, though relevant, does not render any guidance
as to how it would be translated into actual change in conditions of people in
civil societies.
His linkage between cultural action and
"constructive development" seems to underplay material advancement of the
political economies of respective states. As a matter of fact, people's
abilities and attitudes as well as social and political institutions are other
important variables, which may explain the material achievement of respective
economies. But then, it seems to be of relatively lesser importance in the
author's scheme of things.
Richards seems to virtually ignore the question
of "power," which affects the relationship of "cultural structures" and
"constructive development." In this connection, Goran Hyden's observation on the
larger issue of development comes to mind. According to him, "Development is
largely a matter of power, not only the use of power but also the creation of
power structures that facilitate development."(47) Since this dimension does not
figure in his argument, the questions of collective arrangements and social
forces are not discussed.
As regards his use of post-economic perspective,
one wonders if the prefix "post" serves his purpose in articulating his vision
of "constructive development." It is unclear if the "post-economic" term relates
to the direction of the historical progression of modern economic societies, or
the conceptual change with respect to the content of the economic reality. One
is reminded here of Marshall Sahlins' seminal work, Stone Age
Economics. As Sahlins observes, "It is not that hunters and gatherers
have curbed their materialistic "impulses;" they simply never made an
institution of them."(48)
By referring to "post-economic perspective,"
Richards seems to deconstruct and deinstitutionalize global political economy
and posit cultural structures to aim at "constructive development" of civil
societies. One cannot resist in quoting Sahlins again, as he perceptively
identifies two contradictory movements of the evolution of economy. According to
him,
It is enriching but at the same time impoverishing,
appropriating in relation to nature but expropriating in relation to man. The
progressive aspect is, of course, technological ... as an increase in the
amount of need-serving goods and services, an increases in the amount of
energy harnessed to the service of culture, an increase in productivity, an
increase in division of labour, and increased freedom, from environmental
control.(49)
Sahlins further observes:
The "economic problem" is easily solvable by paleolithic
techniques. But then, it was not until culture neared the height of its
material achievements that it erected a shrine to the Unattainable: Infinite
Needs.(50)
The logic of Sahlins' argument, though relevant to Richards'
line of thinking, differs in respect to the inherent limits to material
advancement indicated by him. Richards, however, relies mainly on non-economic
incentives to correct the imbalances within the global political
economy.
In his Baroda lectures, Richards has relied on the basic
conceptual term "structure" without clarifying its essence and associated
meanings. His use of "cultural structures" has to be understood within the
substantive framework of cultural action. Indeed, Richards' project can be
appreciated in the wider framework of "structuralism" as a method, movement and
ideology. It reflects "a conviction that surface events and phenomena are to be
explained by and are determined - in some sense of the term - by what is
implicit and not obvious."(51) Further, it refers to "the attempt to uncover
deep structures, unconscious motivations, and underlying causes which account
for human actions at a more basic and profound level than do individual
conscious decisions and which shape, influence, and structure these
decisions."(52) The implications of Richards' argument in structural terms need
to be fully worked out, as it would enable us to pinpoint the difficulties where
structural logic does not work in cultural action.
In his quest for restructuring global economy, Richards has
not touched upon the domains of "state" and "civil society." Any state, after
all, reflects institutional arrangements that would ensure good life for its
citizens. Besides, as the codification of political power, the nature and form
of the state affects the level and quality of democratic life in the community.
The role of the state as the principal corporate actor in political, cultural,
social and economic narratives of societies can hardly be ignored. The
accumulation, articulation and exercise of political power greatly depend on the
nature of the state. In fact, states tend to shape the political practices of
societies by constructing the boundaries of the political. So the endeavor of
the state to control the political discourse needs to be factored in the overall
equation of "constructive development." In drawing the linkage between "cultural
structures" and "constructive development," Richards could have discussed this
vital dimension as well.
More particularly, states often transgress the boundaries of
the political and attempt to reconstitute the political. These mediations and
contestations of the state take place on the site at which society enters into a
relationship with the state. This site can be termed as civil society. It lies
between the household and the state, and consists of various social
organizations. In Richards' exposition, one notices intimations that a social
community is capable of organizing itself independently of the specific
direction of state power.(53) Since civil society lies between the economy and
the state, it is constituted by both entities. In Richards' theory, however, the
role of the state is simply ignored.
In positing cultural structures for effecting "constructive
development," Richards relies upon the strength of family and church
institutions to reinforce non-economic incentives within the civil society. The
conscious creation of networks of self-help bodies and social movements to
restructure civil society is implicit in his argument. Indeed, Richards' theory
of "constructive development" considers civil society as "a space which nurtures
and sustains its inhabitants rather than controlling them and their
relationships."(54)
In this connection, it is instructive to quote Gramsci.
According to him, "Between the economic structure and state with its legislation
and its coercion stands civil society."(55) For Hegel, Marx and Gramsci, the
domain of civil society is constituted by the logic of the capitalist economy.
It creates an unequally constructed space, where social and economic practices
function according to the principles of market mechanism and hence individuals
face the space in a hierarchical manner. If this is the case in modern economic
societies, the status of individuals in a post-economic society should improve
with the reinforcement of non-economic incentives and their overall impact on
the quality of democratic life and hence in the overall improvement in cultural
action. This point, however, remains poorly articulated in Richards'
discourse.
The above set of points, in the second part of this note,
are meant to provide a corrective to what Richards aims to convey in his Baroda
lectures. The central thrust of his argument is thus stated:
"We must make deep changes in socially constructed realities
in order to overcome the obstacles the basic structure of the global economy
opposes to our efforts to mobilize resources to meet needs."(56)
He goes on to say, "Deep changes in social reality require
deep changes in the way human beings interpret our
feelings."(57)
The overall purpose of his Baroda lectures is to point
towards such course of action, informed by his interpretation of contemporary
global order and various theoretical perspectives from distinct realms of
knowledge. The corrective I have suggested by way of comments and criticisms is
meant to deepen our common quest for a just and humane global order.
NOTES
01 See Howard Richards, Lecture No. 1, p.1.
02 A critique of "developmentalist ideology" is covered in a
range of literature.
03 See Howard Richards, Lecture No. 1, p. 2.
04 See Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social
Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, 1966.
05 This is suggested in connection with a situation in
biology where instructions for the growth of the human body are given by
DNA.
06 See Lecture No. 1, p. 5.
07 See Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System :
Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the
Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press, 1976; Fernand Braudel,
Capitalism and Material Life 1400-1800. New York: Harper and Row, 1973,
etc.
08 See Lecture No. 1, p. 10.
09 See Lecture No. 2, p. 1.
10 Ibid.
11 Op. cit.
12 See Lecture No. 2, p. 3.
13 See Lecture No. 2, p. 2.
14 Ibid.
15 See Lecture No. 2, p. 4.
16 See Lecture No. 2, p. 7.
17 See Lecture No. 2, p. 8.
18 See Lecture No. 2, p. 11.
19 See Lecture No. 2, p. 12.
20 See Lecture No. 2, p. 14.
21 See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation.
Boston; Beacon, Press, 1957.
22 See Richards, Letter No. 60, p. 4.
23 See Robert Heilbroner.
24 See Letter No. 61. p. 11.
25 See Letter No. 61, p. 13. In this connection, Richards
employs estimates of Wallerstein that economic society has never lifted out of
poverty more than ten to twenty percent of the total population of the world.
See I. Wallerstein, "Development LodeStar or Illusion," in Unthinkinq Social
Science Oxford: Polity Press, pp. 104-124.
26 See letter No. 61, p. 14.
27 Ibid.
28 See Lecture No. 1, p. 12.
29 See Lecture No. 3, p. 2.
30 See Lecture No. 1, p. 13.
31 See Lecture No. 4, p. 5.
32 See Riane Eisler, Sacred Pleasure - Sex, Myth and
the Politics of the Body. Harper: San Francisco, 1995.
33 See Lecture No 4, p6.
34 See Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth. San
Francisco, Calif: Sierra Club Books, 1988.
35 See Lecture No. 4, p. 13.
36 See Lecture No. 3, p. 4.
37 See Lecture No. 3, pp. 5-6.
38 See Lecture No. 3, p. 6.
39 See lecture No. 3, p. 9.
40 See Howard Richards, Lecture No. 3, p. 14.
41 See Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and
Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso
Press, 1985.
42 See Richards, Lecture No. 3, p. 14.
43 See Howard Richards, Letter No. 60, Entitled: "What the
World Needs Now - Competition, Alternatives to Competition, Limitations on
Social Choice, Growth Points," Nehru Lectures No. 3, p. 30.
44 Ibid., pp. 30-31.
45 See a series of articles on "basic needs program" in the
literature.
46 See B. Minhas in an edited book, Towards a New
Strategy for Development: A Rothco Chapel Colloquium. New York: Pergamon
Press, 1979.
47 See Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujama in Tanzania -
Underdevelopment and an uncaptured peasantry. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1980, p. 31.
48 See Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics. New
York: Aldine Publishing Co., 1972, pp. 13-14.
49 Ibid., p. 37.
50 Op. cit., p. 39.
51 See Richard T. De George and Fernande M. De George,
The Structuralists : From Marx to Levi- Strauss. Garden City, New
York: Anchor Books, 1972, p. xii.
52 Ibid.
53 See Neera Chandhoke, State and Civil Society -
Explorations in Political Theory. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995,
p. 26.
54 See Chandhoke. p. 32.
55 See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison
Note-Books, New York: International Publishers, 1971, pp. 208-9.
56 See Howard Richards, Nehru Lectures No. 4, pp. 13
-14.
57 Ibid., p. 14.
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