Introduction payhave tot their ss facilitators of cies. Integra ring, ané pro textfifty years jg the past half part one CULTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTif Culture Makes Almost All the Difference DAVID LANDES ‘Max Weber was right. If we learn anything from the history of economic de- velopment, i is that culture makes almost all the difference. Witness the en terprise of expatriate minarities—the Chinese in East and Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews and Calvinists through- ‘out much of Europe, and on and on. Yer culture, ia the sense of the inner val- ues and attitudes that guide a population, frightens scholars. It has a sulfuric odor of race and inkeritance, an air of immucability. In thoughtfal moments, cconomists and other social scientists recognize that this is not tu, and in deed they salute exzmples of cultural change for the better while deploring changes for the worse. But applauding or deploring implies the passivity of the viewer—an inability to use knowledge to shape people and things. The technician would rather change interest and exchange rates, free up trade, al- ter politial instrutions, manage. Besides, criticisms of culture cut dose tO the ego and injure identity and selfesteem. Coming from outsiders, such ari- imadversions, however tactful and indirect, stink of condescension. Benevo lent improvers have learned to steer clea. But if culture does so much, why does it not work consistently? Econo- inists are not alone in asking why some people—the Chinese, say—have long been so uaproductive at home yet so enterprising away. Ifcultare matters, why didn’t ic change China? (We should note that with policies that now en-