ABSTRACT
Perhaps the foremost U.S. writer of Latin American modernization theory was Harvard sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset. His essay “Values, Education, and Entrepreneurship,” which opens our section on modernization, introduced the widely read and influential work Elites in Latin America. In this essay Lipset argues that contemporary underdeveloped countries “preserve values which foster behavior antithetical to the systematic accumulation of capital.” Drawing from Weber, he contrasts the prevailing value systems of North and South America to explain the lag in Latin American development:
The overseas offspring of Great Britain seemingly had the advantage of values derivative in part from the Protestant Ethic and from the formation of “New Societies” in which feudal ascriptive elements were missing. Since Latin America, on the other hand, is Catholic, it has been dominated for long centuries by ruling elites who created a social structure congruent with feudal social values.
According to Lipset, the origins of this feudal value system are derived from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iberian values and institutions that were transferred to and took root in Latin America with its conquest and subsequent colonization by the Iberians. Lipset views these values as having worked against the formation of an entrepreneurial spirit. This lack of spirit was, for Lipset, a crucial reason for Latin America’s underdevelopment and lack of progress. In specifying these values Lipset draws on Talcott Parson’s “pattern variables.” Latin Americans were imbued with the values of a traditional social order and followed particularistic and ascriptive patterns of behavior. They learned to emphasize diffuseness and elitism; to profess a weak achievement 40orientation; and to hold a general scorn for pragmatism, manual labor, materialism, and hard work. These behavioral traits prevented Latin Americans from developing modern, rational business enterprises that engaged in competition, took calculated risks, and developed bureaucratic structures. In this essay Lipset is particularly concerned with showing how the educational system continued to perpetuate such detrimental cultural values.
