Book Review: The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save it From Itself by Lawrence E. Harrison

Around a decade ago, I was in Bangkok, working in the international aid community, specifically in women's issues. About this time, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund had suddenly discovered these "women's issues". "Gosh," their experts exclaimed, “if you give the money to women rather than men it gets used better. Wow, micro-loan schemes really work.” Etc, etc… I remember sitting in a committee room in the main UN building with an anthropologist specialising in women’s issues, both trying not to roll our eyes, and not succeeding. Reading The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change A Culture and Save It From Itself, by Lawrence E. Harrison, I was reminded of that moment.

I was attracted by the book’s central thesis, with which I profoundly agree, that “culture matters”, that unless you address specific social attitudes to say girl children, all the money in the world injected into poor communities won’t ensure that they are properly fed. The author too, is a man who should have interesting things to say about development, as the former director of USAID missions in five Latin American countries between 1965 and 1981.

But after reading this book, I was sadly reminded of the general inefficacy of, in particular, US aid. I haven’t been able to find Harrison’s original academic background, but there’s no doubt that where he’s coming from here, institutionally and in thought, is economics. Decades after everyone else came to this conclusion, the field has finally realised that producing a lot of equations about development based on how you think a whole lot of “rational men” (yes, they always said “men”) who looked an awful lot like themselves, was producing curiously inaccurate results.

So now it has discovered culture. That’s a good thing. Now, however, I fear the economists are going to have to learn that applying the same simplistic methodology to human behaviour as they used to apply to economic figures will not be effective.

It is hard to credit just how simplistic this book gets. It is, for example, sure it has found the answer to the problem of making cultural change happen: “What is necessary is an all-out, coordinated program that involves child rearing, religion and religious reform, education and education reform, the media, civic groups, and above all, strong political leadership committed to the democratic-capitalist model.”

Article Author: Natalie Bennett

Natalie is the editor of My London Your London, an independent cultural guide featuring theatre, gallery and museum reviews, and also blogs at Philobiblon, on history, culture, Green politics and all things feminist. …

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