Cultural Explanation Gone Nowhere

In 1977, Mochtar Lubis thought that Indonesians are hypocritical, unaccountable, feudalistic, superstitious, artistic (sic!), and some other bad traits.

In 2009, Rhenald Kasali thinks that Indonesians suffer from ten negative "economic culture" (whatever it may mean). He believes that Indonesians love to: bypass (regulations), engage in conflict, be suspicious to each other, insult each other, be photographed (sic!), mobilize mass violent acts, be shameless, be populist, set unnecessary (bureaucratic) procedures, and procrastinate.

My take: I am not convinced at all -if not to say that I don't buy it- for the following reasons.

First, so far I do not see neat working definition for each of those adjectives they used.

Second, I do not see systematic empirical efforts and findings to justify those assertions --let alone considering they take the nation's population as their unit of analysis.

Third, compared to what (nations at what period)?

Theorizing Chillies

I have never fancied eating chillies for the reason that they merely give you a false sensation. How could you know the real taste of food, if you keep pouring the chillies into it? I even have theory: as chillies only disguise the richness and variety of food's taste, one will consume more of them only when they need to do so --for instance, when I am short of cash and can not afford variety of food like in those college years.

Scientifically, as read in Xmas Specials section in The Economist, my theory seems to be confirmed:

The reason may be that capsaicin excites the trigeminal nerve, increasing the body’s receptiveness to the flavour of other foods. That is not just good news for gourmets. It is a useful feature in poor countries where the diet might otherwise be unbearably bland and stodgy.

But I need more convincing empirical finding, and maybe household survey data could help by showing the relationship between chillies consumption, or purchase, to total income --presumably after controlling the price.

Yet, even if I am right. How could you tell why, as the article suggests, that, thanks to globalization, people in developed countries start to embrace chillies?

Then perhaps, I need to resort a second speculation: The food in developed countries are even more bland than in developing countries. So bland that it cancels out the income effect.

Why Culture Matters

After being scolded by the baristas for doing a crappy job, the Manager dug up her emails to recover the yet-to-be-posted article submitted by one of our favorite guest hosts, Roby. You see, Roby complained that his submission about “toilets and culture” was never posted here on the Café with nary an acknowledgment from the management, which shows just constipated (sorry, can’t help it) our “review” process is (hint: it involves email forwarding and little else).

The Manager finally found the said submission, originally received by the Café in December 2007. The only problem is, instead of “toilets and culture” the post was more about “table manners and culture”. There may be confusion between things that are going in one end and going out the other end, that’s understandable (happens to the Manager all the time). In any case, the post is indeed very relevant to A.P.’s toilet contribution. So here it is, without further ado, an excellent rejoinder.

- Kate, the remorseful Manager

Why Culture Matters

by Roby

It is common to put culture and the concept of economic man in a diametrical term. Taking the risk of oversimplification, the debate can be summarized as follow. The cultural argument argues that people behaviors are largely determined by cultural scripts, not by rational cost-benefit calculations. On the other hand, economic argument insists that individual decisions are independent of cultural factors.

Here I would like to argue that the picture of economic men is still plausible in cultural analysis and culture is a necessary prerequisite for rational calculations.

The key here is to see culture as a toolbox. That is as a set of tools that are accessible for solving problems. People face problems in their daily lives and use whatever they have in their toolboxes to solve the problems. Once they have picked a tool, they can use it in a highly rational way. This rational calculation, however, is only possible when a person has chosen a tool.

For example, imagine a group of people who use their hands when they are eating and another group who use utensils. Now because of health concern, we want to make those who use their hands to switch to use spoons and forks. Economists tend to jump to the conclusion that the whole problem can be solved by finding the right incentive. As they soon found out, however, the former group did not switch even though they completely understood the health benefit of using spoons and forks.

The problem here is that the first group does not consider spoons and forks as eating tools. For them, eating using spoons and forks is as absurd as, say, eating bugs. They just don't do that - despite the fact that bugs have nutritional values. Therefore, persuasion, bargaining, socialization and inspiration can be as much useful as incentive.

If we see culture as tools, then the rational calculation only applicable to available tools. We cannot perform cost-benefit analysis on the tools that are not part of ones' toolbox. Therefore rationality is local instead of global. It is in this sense culture matters for economic analysis. On the other hand, cultural analysis would benefit by applying rational choice to understand behavior in a given context.

Defender of French Culture

Tyler Cowen writes:

The French spend approximately $3 billion a year on cultural matters, and employ twelve thousand cultural bureaucrats, trying to nourish and preserve their vision of uniquely French culture. They have led a world movement to insist that culture is exempt from free trade agreements.

Creative Destruction, p.2

Twelve thousand bureaucrats to defend a culture.

But my question runs deeper: first, what is the so-called French culture? Hanging out in a cafe thinking about existensialism, deep-fried potatoes, or a certain smooching technique?

Second, what is a culture --the thing to preserve against free trade-- anyway?

Addendum: I think Asterix would be the best possible answer for my first question. Or Tanguy et Laverdure.

But I don't think Asterix and Obelix need any help from the government's bureaucrats. They know, if they are indeed competitive, thanks to their very own magic potion, even the mighty Romans would give up.

The Western's Wealth

So we don't think that the western's virtue is George W. Bush, or for that matter Paris Hilton. But I guess it is fair to say that the western has been having a great wealth of knowledge, making technological progress, and taking the lead in term of economic income.

The question is why Europe, the western?

David Landes asserts that in Europe the knowledge accumulation, and its subsequent peak of industrial revolution, had been characterized by the growing autonomy of intellectual inquiry, development of (scientific) method (including verification method and common language), and routinization of research and diffusion.

All came from not-so-noble reasons. Autonomy from dogmatic religious authority emerged from the patronage of science from political rulers pursuing pragmatic aim, that is, advantage over rival. Development of scientific method and research routinization was spurred by fame motive and contest for priority.

How The "Seurieus" Misunderstands Jazz

Now you have pretty rough idea on the musical preference of your barristas here. AP's for classic rock, the likes of Megadeth, Stryper, and Van Halen. I prefer jazz of Bill Evans and Brad Mehldau. Aco's fond of Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis, and, if I make no mistake, Koes Plus. Sjamsu plays The Police. And The Manager loves jazz, and until recently, hip-hop.

So you may say that we have different taste of music, and sometimes, it changes, like The Manager's swing preference to Beyonce. But do we really have different taste --and anything that refers to the term is better left to non-economist, say, psychologist ?

Gary Becker and George Stigler of University of Chicago said no. The taste neither changes nor differs significantly among people. In other words, my musical taste has no difference with AP's, and The Manager's taste on music doesn't change from pretentious jazz to cool hip-hop. Taste remains the same for everyone and at anytime.

Sound outragoeus? Not so, if you care to read their classic paper "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum", AER, Vol 62, No.2, 1977. In their framework, the reason why I like jazz but not classic rock like AP does is not the difference of taste between us, but consumption capital accumulated for jazz. I happen to have more jazz consumption capital (and less of rock music) than him.

Having more jazz consumption capital, my marginal utility (additional leisure) of time allocated to listen to Evan's Waltz for Debbie increases --and higher than my marginal utility of listening to any of Megadeth's album. Because of that, I'd say that I prefer the former than the latter.

In the case of The Manager, her taste doesn't change, but her capital consumption on hip-hop now goes up, probably because she's watching MTV more or read gossip news about Beyonce lately, or her new guy Charlie happens to be a hip-hop fan.

So next time you hear the "Seurieus"'s lyrics "Daripada musik metal, lebih baik musik jazz" (liberally translated: In comparison to (heavy) metal, jazz's better), think again.

Che and On Being at Twenty-Something

You may have ever heard this variation of Guisot/ Clemencau/ Churchill's quote:

Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.

The quote comes to mind when I read the leader of this week edition of The Economist denouncing one of well known socialist's icons, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, as a fighter against freedom and democracy.

Well,..err.., perhaps, uhm...I don't know (scratching my head).

But I'll take a liberty to say that some of the baristas here were bunch of socialists (or at least had a flavor of it) when we were twenty-something undergrad students. And I can testify that Che, along with Iwan Fals and sometimes Ahmad Wahib and Soe Hok Gie (before the movie), somehow sent (some) students to go down to the street those days. It was a symbol of courage against tyranny and social injustice.

Such a powerful symbol that it tells you why even today you can still see Che's picture from Havana to London's Portobello to PSS Sleman fan's T shirt. While on the other hand, as Alex Tabarrok once wrote, no one goes to the barricades (and die, my word) for efficiency.

Who cares about efficiency at twenty, anyway?

Nationalism

They were talking over coffee when I interrupted. I asked them what they thought of nationalism. Here goes.

Aco: Nationalism? An idea to identify yourself -- so you can have passport and olympic games.

Ape: (For supporters) -- an idea to identify yourself so you can have a 'national team' that you and your rival supporters can watch together. (For players) -- a situation when you can play in the same team with your rival players against your club mates.

Ujang: With a nod (or apology perhaps) to Ben Anderson, nationalism is an idea often times better left imagined

Sjamsu was not reachable at the moment, while Rizal's trying to settle down in Virginia.

Happy independence day!

Update: Rizal just sent his version, "Nationalism is something that you don't really feel until you leave the country. A melancholy, for good or bad reasons."

I'm starting with the man in the mirror….

Frequent visitors would know that the hosts of the Cafe rant about anything from protectionism , ill-informed journalists, silly concepts, halal labels, to government paternalism. In a moment of self-reflection, Puspa, a friend of the Cafe's and current guest-blogger questions our shared angst about things not completely right in our beloved country. She suggests that we ought to look closer. Much closer. - Manager

I'm starting with the man in the mirror….
by Puspa

A couple of best friends and I have a peculiar post working-day habit. We love to get together, chit-chat and unwind, in one of the most frequented coffee shop chains in the city (you known, the one known for its Latte Index), that is situated in one of the city's central shopping centers. Peculiar, you say? To be doing what almost every other middle-class Jakarta citizen is doing to kill evening traffic while trying to relax? Hold on a sec, I'm getting there.

The coffee shop has a table, with three very comfy chairs, that overlooks the shopping centre's busiest corridor. Simply put, a very strategic position that gives you ring-side seat to the who's who that are visiting and walking to and fro and crossing the shopping centre. If you are a person who enjoys people-watching as much as we do, you'll probably have an idea at what I'm hinting. It is so damn entertaining to see 'peculiar' habits of the passer-bys, observe outrageous outfits and accessories mall-goers assemble, and how people of various walks of life and of differing sexual orientations demonstrate 'I'm seeking for companionship' behavior. We also compared notes on how attractive or interesting certain passer-bys of the opposite sex were.

Fun, innocent, rather juvenile but interesting activity, no? Well, that's what I thought…Until today. I was brought into my better senses when I saw three very young men, fashionably dressed, probably college students, who were sitting in our favourite seat and doing exactly the same thing that we were. Suddenly, it didn't look nice so nice, the vision that I was seeing. I thought, "D'oh , this is quite childish, actually……"

When is it that we actually do get to that point? I'm talking about a point of reflection, where you actually realize that something's wrong and needs to be changed. It's not easy to get there. Sometimes you won't get there unless you see someone very close to you experiencing hardships. In some cases you won't get there without experiencing some hardships yourself. Most importantly, when the 'something wrong' is just so ingrained in your system, you can only see it when you are able to detach yourself from the system and put things in perspective.

I recall an earlier opinion I often used to assert. This country is not in a deficit of ideal, true-to-their-heart intellectuals and public figures that are capable of seeing the 'something wrong' in this country. Yet many of them, when inserted into the system as direct actors fail to deliver, fail to implement the necessary actions to get this country out of the 'strutting' and 'muddling through' phase that has been going through in the past five years or so. Some of those who used to be on the outside looking in, are having a hell of a difficult time creating that critical mass to tip the balance over and initiate change. What lurks behind this inertia? Can change then, only be pushed from outside of the system?

My experience as a life-liver so far tells me that human beings, even rational individuals are bad at anticipating personal crisis, even when they know that the consequences of their actions may be horrific. A smoker rarely quits until he/she is sentenced with 'bronchitis' or 'pneumonia.' Efforts to establish some kind of world order did not gain ground until country leaders got tired of saw their people die from never-ending war. Early warning natural disaster systems are rarely designed and installed until a country is hit by natural disaster of great scale.

Do we really want to see disaster unfold, before realizing that something is wrong and needs to be changed? Do we really want to be stuck in 'muddling through' for the next five or ten years, while our neighbours out-develop us? You tell me. Perhaps Michael Jackson had it right all along.

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror….
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer…"

... at a diner on the corner

Having breakfast or brunch at a diner is something I particularly missed. Diner is a specific American culinary culture – the East Coast, or Northeast, to be more specific. The choice of brunch menu at every diner is quite typical. That’s a kind of place I can find a burger, a true one, not the junk food version, good pancake, and coffee. Just coffee; no latte, au lait or frappe. I don’t know the local equivalence for diner in Indonesia, but maybe Warkop is the closest one.

Unfortunately, not many diners around the Harvard Square part of Cambridge, Mass. I had to go to Davis Square, Medford, or Brighton Avenue on the way to Waltham. There are more choices in New York City. My friend used to take me to one near NYU, in the Union Square neighborhood. And of course, the famous Tom's Restaurant on the corner of Broadway Avenue and 112 Street, Upper Manhattan, near Columbia University. This place had been the regular meeting place of Seinfeld and co. It was also featured in Suzanne Vega’s single hit, Tom’s Diner, in the late ‘80s (I am sittin’/in the morning/at a diner/on the corner).

Last long weekend, my wife and I found one ‘American Diner’ (that’s what the place claim itself) in Kemang, about five hundreds meters down the street from my high school (as well as Sjamsu’s and Ujang’s). They do offer diner-type menu. The taste and quality was OK. Not great, but not bad. However, it was not the type of setting I expect from a diner. For one, the place was too fancy, too colorful and too decorated for a diner. And the guests, I think they are over-dressed to go to a diner.

But maybe it is just me. It is Kemang, and it is ‘American’ gitu loh… Expecting informality and casualness from the place is perhaps too much, or too few. And maybe it will be the same thing if sometimes Warkop becomes a global culture, or a place for socialites.

Does culture matter for growth? (2)

Following my previous posting, culture may influence economic development indirectly through another channel. Shulz and Williamson (2003) argued that the channel is financial and commercial institutions. The authors argue that the reason for relatively poorer performance of Catholic economies was because the incompatibility of institutions in Catholic countries with modern capitalism. For example, the medieval church regarded charging interest as a kind of economic transaction where “one of the parties would not be taking advantage of the other because of greater bargaining strength,” hence they tended to restrict interest. On the other hand, the (Calvinist) Protestants “viewed the payment of interest as a normal part of commerce, thereby making it possible for modern debt markets to develop.”

Catholic and Protestant countries also differed in their attitudes towards protection of creditors’ rights. The authors found that countries which main religion is Catholic tend to protect the right of creditors less than the Protestant countries. Catholic Church regarded private property and economic as subject to the good of society. That implies that some to a certain degree private property is a ‘common goods.’ However, the Church has an authority to define what goods considered as ‘common.’

On the other hand, as the authors argued, Protestantism reform led to a better protection for creditors because of the philosophy that:

Individuals were responsible for their actions and that they had to live up to the contracts they entered into of their own free will … there was no role for higher legal or religious authorities to step in and change contract terms for the good of society or for laws to be approved that would hinder individuals from entering contracts.

Consequently, according to the authors, protection to private property was higher in Protestant countries because the definition of the common good is passed down to the individual members rather than decided by a centralized power of Church.

The lack of compatibility to modern capitalist institution was also the reason for underdevelopment in the Middle Eastern Islamic world. This is the main point of a study by Timur Kuran (2003). According to Kuran, there were two main issues with the Islamic commercial institutions. First, the Islamic business partnership law came in a package with the inheritance law that provides a mandatory inheritance shares to all sons and daughters. While this kind of partnership was well suited the medieval economy in which it developed, it raised the costs of dissolving a partnership following a partner’s death. This has kept Middle Eastern commercial enterprises small and short-lived. Second, on the contrary with the Islamic system, European inheritance systems facilitated large and durable partnerships by reducing the likelihood of premature dissolution. As the result, European enterprises grew larger than those of the Islamic world.

The two studies above offered an alternative view on the role of culture in economic development. Culture, specifically religious norms, shape institutions. And the commercial institutions affect economic performance. Analyzing institution as the channel through which culture affect the economy can strengthen the argument that culture matters for economic development. However, there is still room to argue whether culture is the only variable, or the most important one, that explains how institutions were shaped. Such approach also can not explain what makes culture change, and how it changes overtime.

Does culture matter for growth? (1)

"If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all the difference. … Witness the enterprise of expatriate minorities – the Chinese in East and Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews and Calvinists throughout much of Europe, and on and on." David Landes (1999), The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.

When discussing about the impact of culture on economic performance, one can not avoid discussing Max Weber’s Protestant ethics theory. This is no doubt the most influential theory in the area. Among different values and attitude that shape a culture, Weber argued that Protestantism, more specifically the Calvinist branch, has promoted the rise of modern capitalism. As Landes wrote when explaining Weber’s view, “Calvinist Protestants believed in the doctrine of predestination: one could not gain salvation by faith or deeds, but by hard work, honesty, seriousness the thrifty use of money and time.”

Furthermore, Landes implied that the Protestant Ethics help explaining why the Catholic world (the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese), who were the pioneers in exploring the new world, facing their decline entering the 18th century. Conversely, the Protestant economies, namely Netherlands and England, were rising. The problem with Spain, Italy and Portugal, as Landes argued in the Weberian framework, was they got rich very easy. Meanwhile, the Protestantism doctrine produced a new kind of businessman who did not aimed at riches. Simply, the Protestant valued work highly, and becoming rich is the by-product of it, not the ultimate goal.

There have been many rebuttals to Weberian thesis regarding the influence of religious culture in economy. Historian Harry Tawney (1926) argued that the English economy took off in the sixteenth century only after the religious influence diminished, and the society moved into a more secular one. Later, Amartya Sen argued that Weber’s thesis only useful in explaining what happened in the past, but not really powerful in predicting the future. He pointed out the fact that, by the time Weber’s book was published in the early 20th century, Protestant economies was in a declining trend. On the other hand, the Catholic region Latin America was growing fast. Furthermore, Sen also mentioned that Weberian perspective can not explain well the Confusian growth miracles in the 20th century: Japan after the World War II, the East Asian tigers in the mid-1980s, and latter China. Later on in the end of the century, India also joined the fast growth club.

Weberian supporters can reply back by saying that one does not have to be a Protestant to share the Calvinist ethics. Japan, China and the East Asian tigers have something in common with 16th century Calvinist: hard working society and willingness to save for the future. But if culture – namely hardworking ethics – is the reason, then what took China and the East Asian tigers so long to take off, and remained poor for centuries? Interestingly, why Chinese had been very successful as immigrants but perform poorly as a country for a long time? Moreover, if culture is the reason behind the performance of these economies, how can it explain the collapse of East Asian miracles in the late 1990s, and Japanese slow-down since mid-1990s, which continues until today?

Same thing also applies for India. Cultural explanation somewhat failed to explain India’s recent turn around. The modest performance of Indian economy during 1950s-1990s was attributed by many to the Hindu culture (even the 2-3% consistent annual growth rate was branded the Hindu growth rate). Surely, cultural explanation can not be the reason for India’s near-to-miraculous performance since the late 1990s.

produk kultural

Hari ini, 1 November 2005, Financial Times memuat tulisan tentang produk kultural RRC. Tertulis bahwa pemerintah Cina sejak tahun 2000 aktif mendorong tumbuhnya industri kultural dari mulai seni vokal, fashion, erotisme (ini rasanya unofficial), media, sampai sinematografi. Singkatnya, koran itu bilang kalau "Chinese are no longer willing to play manual to the west's mental labor"

Tiga bulan lalu, kafe Gelatto di Dharmawangsa Square, gue terlibat obrolan dengan seorang budayawan/dosen Pelita Harapan dan seorang antropolog/calon S-3 sosiologi Kyoto Univ. Yuka, si budayawan bilang kalo secara budaya dia milih menjadi bangsa seperti Cina ketimbang menjadi bangsa kayak Indonesia sekarang. Alasan dia, secara kultural kita tereksploitasi, secara ide kita terkooptasi, secara materi kita kere. Secara umum menurut dia globalisasi menggiring kita menjadi pengemis. Dia bilang perlu rasanya revolusi kebudayaan Mao Ze Dong dibawa ke Jakarta supaya anak2 muda kita yg keleleran di mall, sok asik separo-separo berbahasa Inggris tau apa artinya memiliki bangsa. Hipotesa dia adalah dengan revolusi kebudayaan, secara bangsa Cina akhirnya bisa melahirkan sinematografer sekaliber Wong Kar Wai dan John Woo. Sementara secara kultur kita masih macet sebatas film AADC, iklan obat masuk angin, dan sinetron bertemakan orang kaya atau demit.

Dave Lumenta, si antropolog, nggak terlalu setuju. Satu, dibandingkan jaman kolonial, dia bilang Indonesia mengalami de-globalisasi. Dulu batasan negara kabur, orang gampang pindah2 antar batas wilayah tanpa memusingkan batas kenegaraan. Kedua, invasi kultur pop Jepang dan to certain extent Korea dan juga Cina adalah bentuk rebelion terhadap budaya pop barat. Lah ? "Cool Japan" sudah meng invasi sentra budaya dari New York hingga nadi eropa kontinental seperti Paris dan London. Komik anime, manga, sushi lounge, game sudoku, musik J-Pop, menjadi sesuatu yg sangat cool. Belum lagi fenomena dan trend gadis2 Shibuya yg akhirnya menjadi patokan riset perusahaan besar seperti provider ponsel Vodafone. Intinya, Dave bilang kalau Asia punya interpretasi lain terhadap pop kultur barat. Karakter Britney Spears, Spice Girls, dicerna oleh Asia lalu terus diinjak2 lewat karikatur anime dan diludahkan kembali ke muka publik barat lewat film Kill Bill.

Ok, fine. Gue tanya, "kita Indonesia ada di mana?" Yuka ketawa sinis, Dave cuma narik DjiSamSoe. Kita ya itu, macet di film Eiffel I'm in Love, iklan-2 obat masuk angin, sinetron dukun, dan so what gitu loochh