10 JUNE 2015 – 09:08

We are all products of successful cultures — and yet global developments point to none of today’s cultures being well suited to the future, says the writer. Picture: GCIS

Clinging to past practices tempts disaster, writes Shawn Hagedorn

SHORTLY after the Second World War, many of the world’s top universities closed their geography departments. Scholars had long employed geographic references to argue that certain ethnic groups were innately superior. Spreading such beliefs helped attract public support for imperial projects.

In 1985, facts arrived to overrule perceptions. Genetic decoding showed we all are descendants of one woman who lived in Africa tens of thousands of years ago.

Physical variations among ethnic groups reflect natural selection favouring traits attuned to local circumstances. Such traits are primarily cosmetic and of no strategic importance today. Conversely, technology is conquering geographic barriers such that managing cultural biases and differences now profoundly affects economic outcomes.

Most significantly, extraordinary progress has been made possible through finding accommodations among, and within, eastern and western cultures — however imperfectly. Of the five main cultures to consider, the half of the world’s population spread across south and east Asia is progressing smartly through integrating with the prosperous West. This establishes a global economic core, while Africa, the Middle East and the Russian sphere perpetuate their marginalisation. Common to these outlier regions is geography, geology, and politicised ethnic identities erecting cultural barriers to integrating within the world’s core economy.

We are all related and, ultimately, African. Still, to survive, societies on South Pacific islands must develop cultures suitable to their circumstances. This is equally true of Pakistanis, Parisians and Eskimos.

There were many people alive, say 10,000 or 50,000 years ago and whose genes were not passed forward to the present. Every person alive today is a product of successively successful cultures. Imprudently clinging to past practices tempts devastating consequences….

UNTIL recently, very nearly everyone, everywhere, had always followed in their parents’ footsteps. As such options vanish, young people quickly vanquish their parents’ cultures. Experts expect that half as many languages will exist a generation from now.

Societies had always been shaped by elders and ruling elites balancing the entrenching of their privileges along with the survival of their families and clans. In broadly prosperous regions, science, commerce and political liberalisation have upended this traditional status quo.

Among the truly extreme ways that the world has changed since the Second World War, survival no longer serves as an organising principle for affluent societies, while geographic isolation has been mostly overcome. Africa is the prime exception.

For aeons, the prevailing norm across the world had been that economic and political power was maintained by ruling families controlling large tracts of farmland. Then metal machines fuelled by hydrocarbons replaced carbohydrates fuelling muscle power. Farmland became vastly less valuable.

Industrialisation made political transformations possible and necessary. Leaps of creative genius mixed with insurgencies to replace might-is-right with sovereignty vesting in people, forming nations with individual rights protected by constitutions. An early by-product was the spread of imperialism but that was banished over the past century by two very hot wars and one, so-called, cold war.

Such progress is encouraging, but three overarching developments have emerged globally — and they dominate SA’s reality.

First, the global economy is now defined by a massive core of integrated and dynamic economies. Second, technological crossover points motivated by environmental constraints are poised to further marginalise periphery nations reliant on exporting minerals and hydrocarbons. Third, none of today’s cultures are well suited for the future — timely adaptation has become mandatory.

There was never a golden era and now there are only transitions. Individual rights have advanced smartly — though unevenly — across the West, and later the East, but much less so across Africa, the Middle East and the Russian sphere.

Constitutions and elections are half the battle. History and today’s newspapers document that ruling elites, left unchecked, will strive to maintain their privileges while avoiding investments in people. Diverse cultures make it more difficult to hold elites accountable as they can endlessly play groups off each other.

Perhaps half of today’s young, western adults will underperform their parents economically. They lose at the rat race due to insufficient skills, determination and easily managed opportunities. This contributes to “secular stagnation” — increasing numbers of westerners are de-emphasising material pursuits. Yet rat races profoundly affect local cultures and the global economy. Those with promising careers dare not be satisfied with merely a comfortable income, thus working less, as others will outmanoeuvre them and they will be out of a job.

Second, keeping up with the Joneses emphasises status and material accumulations. Thus seeking possessions propels economic growth while crowding out leisure and meaningful relationships….

AFRICANS and westerners both focus on the pursuit of happiness. But rural African cultures have been far less influenced by how industrialisation advanced modern materialism. Like people on an isolated island, they lack industrial options.

Geography demanded that societies on small islands favour stagnation and leisure over material pursuits. At the other extreme, two large island nations starkly altered the world’s trajectory. The rise of the West traces directly to the UK, while the rise of the East is a product of following Japan’s lead. Their industriousness created an appetite for resources, which provoked aggressive imperialism. Mineral deposits would often be discovered in uninhabited areas, leading to mines and mining towns. When deposits were depleted, often economic nonviability induced ghost towns.

Aside from economic development experts, however, few people realise that huge swaths of Africa cannot be industrialised and once smallholding farms become ubiquitous, commercial farming ceases to be feasible as rivers are lacking and building reliable roads is, all too often, prohibitively expensive.

None of today’s cultures or trajectories remains viable. African countries have constitutions and elections but lack good governance and formidable upliftment. China must reform economically and probably politically. The West needs a rat-race-versus-relationships rebalancing.

As the party of apartheid was voted into power, the top global universities that closed their geography departments began expanding economic departments to include, for the first time, economics development. It is now well established that moving from subsistence to prosperity requires producing surpluses leading to trade and thus cities, specialisation and innovation. Advancement favours those living near ocean ports fed by formidable rivers. Most African communities are distant from harbours.

Johannesburg, probably Africa’s most critical commercial centre, is one of the world’s largest cities not adjacent to a river or port. Its existence traces to geological deposits, which have been largely depleted. It is not at risk of becoming a ghost town; nor is its economic relevance assured. Due to the continent’s meagre purchasing power, SA cannot achieve high growth through targeting Africa for its goods and services rather than the core, global economy.

The Middle East is similarly challenged with the UAE playing the role there that SA should play in sub-Saharan Africa. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are seeking to replicate Singapore’s trade-route-plus-financial-services model. Unfortunately, the Suez Canal permanently downgraded the relevance of SA’s ports in favour of Dubai.

SA’s external problems are extreme, while its internal divisions preclude efforts to develop a promising growth model. Its cultures mix well enough socially but elites exploit ethnic dissonance to dodge accountability. People naturally resist being judged by those from a different culture and SA’s majority party fully exploits this.

Each of us is a product of a successful culture; all of our cultures are dying. If we can accept such basic realities, we can transcend our cultural divisions.

Published by Business Day