Who Prospers?

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Why do some nations and ethnic groups prosper while others stagnate? Harrison, a former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, finds the answer in a culture's values. In his diagnosis, Brazil's hard-working, family-oriented European and Japanese immigrants spurred that nation's dynamic growth, whereas Mexico's economic disaster and failure to build solid democratic institutions are due to its ``Hispanic value system'' promoting passivity, mistrust of outsiders and an overemphasis on family. The U.S. black underclass's plight, he maintains, is due not primarily to racism but rather to ``a set of values and attitudes, strongly influenced by the slavery experience'' and perpetuated by the ghetto. Featuring success stories such as Japan, Spain, Korea and Taiwan, this study verges on blaming the victim and slights political factors as well as the West's domination and molding of Third World markets and regimes to serve its own needs. Harrison ends with a jeremiad blaming U.S. decline on the erosion of education and the work ethic, TV, a quick-fix mentality and welfare programs. First serial to the National Interest. (July)

Library Journal

Coming at a time of national and international concern about the persistence of poverty, Who Prospers? focuses on the part that individuals' basic values play in advancing prosperity. For Harrison, both national and ethnic advancement are tied to cultures that value work, frugality, planning for the future, ties to the community as a whole, and education--the traditional ethic lauded by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1930). Expanding the ethic to include the Confucianism of Asia and the post-Franco energy of Spain, Harrison, a former director of development programs in Latin America for the U.S. Agency for International Development, reviews the postwar economic ``miracles'' of Brazil, Spain, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. He then examines the experience of Asians, Mexicans, and African Americans in the United States and each group's success or failure at integration into the American economic mainstream. In all cases, Harrison finds the presence or absence of the basic values he has identified to be the decisive factor in development. Harrison concludes with thoughtful recommendations for reform that are refreshing in their lack of dogmatism and their optimism. Recommended for most libraries.-- Mary Jane Ballou, Ford Fdn. Lib., New York