Among some economists who are concerned with the analysis of economic growth in underdeveloped societies, there has grown up a set of ideas that Myint (1960) has called the 'orthodoxy' of development.2 One might borrow this notion and say that there is also, among some economists, an orthodoxy of the relevant background factors in development. When the tools of economic analysis appear inadequate fully to deal with specific instances of economic change or economic stagnation, the psychology and attitudes of the people concerned are invoked, as is the inertia of indigenous institutions.