ABSTRACT
Cultural constraints on socio-economic development may be thought of as being explicit or implicit. Sources of Iran’s stagnation are to be found both in its religion and in the Persian culture. For centuries Iranian society has had an overwhelming predisposition to thoughts and feelings, other than religious, that bars it from Western-type achievements. The development of Western industry has required the preoccupation of a considerable number of people with a disciplined application of reason, an aggressive attitude to nature, a passion for analysing and manipulating cause and effect and an indifference to harsh personal relationships and to ugly sights and sounds. The prevalence of poetry in Iran may be seen from the initiative of a Swiss travel writer, who wanted to make contact with rural people. Cultural barriers to development exist throughout the Third World. Industrialists, having saturated the market in the Punjab, find little outlet in other states, where demand is virtually stationary.
