Since the time of Max Weber, culture and how it affects social economic life has been spiritedly debated. Cultural determinists, among whom Max Weber himself is a leading figure, have tried to advance different cultural determinist theories, purportedly to explain socio-economic realities. For them a given set of cultural factors will give rise to a given pattern of socio-economic life.

Rejecting cultural determinism, we want to advance a cultural possibilist thesis in this paper. We argue that:

i) Individuals and human groups can identify elements within their cultures, reconstitute them and eventually change the superstructures supported by the reconstituted cultural elements.

ii) Social reconstruction in Africa will ultimately have to require and build upon cultural reconstruction.

Before we can argue this case, we must sketch the traditional cultural determinist theories we reject, highlighting their major tenets and their short comings; after this we shall proceed to making the case for our thesis.

In order to attempt to advance a cultural theory to account for socio-economic life Max Weber in his various works, but especially in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and then The Social Psychology of World Religions, has attempted to show how cultural elements in religious beliefs influence socio-economic life.

But perhaps much more known in his views on religious determinism were his theories concerning Protestantism and the development of capitalism. Citing the Methodists and the Calvinists, Weber hypothesizes that discipline, ascetism, frugality and individualism — all traits of those protestant sects — were key ingredients in the development of capitalism. Buttressing his point he argued that areas of German and Switzerland which were Protestant were on the whole more economically developed than were those which were catholic.

Environmental determinists have received sharp criticisms from the possibilists, who rejected determinism and saw humanity as everywhere surrounded by possibilities. Weber’s thesis drew a plethora of criticisms, not only questioning his assertions, but casting doubt on the methodology he employed.

For our purpose we will inquire whether Weber’s views concerning Protestants in those areas he studied were universalizable to Protestants elsewhere in the world, and if that were so, whether Weber would go forward to definitely state that Protestant countries were bound to be capitalistic while Catholic countries were bound to be different.

The more serious criticism to be leveled against Weber is reductionism, the view that we can explain a complex social reality like capitalism in terms of religion or any single reality. In this sense the cultural reductionism of Weber is intellectually inimical to our intellectual quest to understand the phenomena of capitalism because it mobilizes bias, leading us to focus attention on some set of factors while leaving a host of others unattended and even uncontemplated. Hence, this paper rejects the religious and cultural determinism of Weber. But this is not all. We reject as well another cultural determinist theory, namely, the social trust theory of Fukuyama to which we now turn.

In contemporary times, Francis Fukuyama has advanced another cultural determinist theory when he argues that societies with higher levels of trust are inclined to be more developed when compared to societies in which there were lower levels of trust. He writes:

Fukuyama’s position has been criticized by scholars who have tried to show that, contrary to his central thesis, some societies which Fukuyama would categorize as "low trust", actually have been able to facilitate the development of large scale corporations. Then, too, China, which according to Fukuyama is "a low trust society", has not only actually been able to create large corporations but also is developing very rapidly.

Further, in advancing his theory of social trust as an all pervasive factor, Fukuyama ignored the role of governmental control and direction. In the case of both South Korea and China, the role of government is an important factor in evolving socio-economic policies. In such a situation development may take a given direction whether the society in question is "low trust" or "high trust".

Another criticism levelled against Fukuyama has been the lack of a global outlook in his analysis. He has for example concentrated on the Euro-Asia cum American social economic experiences and completely ignored the African realities. In Africa, as several scholars have attempted to show, there is a higher degree of social cohesion and trust than perhaps in any other part of the world. Surely, if "social closeness" and "social trust" were the key for corporate development, then Africa could be a cradle of multinational corporations.

But even where social demands did not deter individuals from accumulating wealth, social trust presupposes social homogeneity. In view of this individual achievement and hence distinctiveness is considered ostentatious behavior and creates what Mazrui has called the "Aristocratic effect". Although Mazrui would not subscribe to Fukuyama’s cultural determinist theory, he proceeds to advance his own, to which we now turn.

To go by Mazrui’s thesis that adapting a language for science leads to (technical) development, what is one to say about Arabic on the one hand, in which language at a very early historical period there was a rich scientific and mathematical heritage. On the other hand, today the majority of the Arab speaking world is still regarded as a developing world. Arabic then is not only an old language with a rich scientific heritage, but is now also spoken in many less technically advanced areas?

Mazrui seems to subscribe to the view that Japan and Korea have been successful because they have adapted their languages for science. A careful examination of the facts, however, reveals that such adaptation of the Japanese language was not a cause, but an effect. Although the Japanese language had for millennia been influenced by the Chinese language (which was itself scientific to some extent) transcultural exchange remained largely barren. Only during Meiji times (also known as the period of enlightened rule, 1867-1912) did Emperor Mutsihito issue the imperial charter (April 1869), in which he announced the government’s intention to modernize Japan and to turn to Western countries for new ideas.

In these circumstances, the adaptation of the Japanese language must have been but one of the many programs arranged to carry out an already conceived plan or policy in which the predominant or primordial element was the intent to modernize by obtaining outside (Western) technology. If the scientific adaptation of language per se were enough to engender development, the Chinese language with the largest number of speakers, its imperialistic past and, of course, its scientific heritage, would have led to development much earlier that the Meiji period.

The Korean language manifests even more relevant interrelationships. To start with, as Chamber’s Encyclopedia states concerning the Korean language:

The Korean language underwent scientific adaptation when the Japanese introduced industry to the country after its conquest in 1910. Again here, the scientific adaptation of the language was subsequent to a decision already made.

But the Korean experience raises an interesting point in that Korea was able to develop scientifically precisely at the moment it was colonized. Why was that so and why have African countries continued to use the "colonial excuse" to explain away the failure of development efforts? Did Korea develop in spite of colonialism because of the benevolence of Japanese imperialism, or are we to look for the reasons for Korean development in some internal strengths of the Korean people?

An inquiry into the language factor vis a vis colonialism is especially pertinent to our discussion because the colonial powers in Africa spoke either French or English — two languages rich in scientific terminology. If scientific language was an aid in scientific and technical development, then Francophone and Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa received a rich scientific language transfer. Why then did Africa not take advantage of that rich heritage?

Mazrui could argue that although used by colonial rule, these languages remained largely elitist and were not sufficiently diffused to the grass roots; consequently the relevant technical terminology was not sufficiently diffused in society. But that argument would be spurious at least. There are such countries as India and Malaysia, both colonized by the British, both using English as the official language in schools government and business, and both with a large grassroots populace who have never really came to speak English. Moreover, their mother tongues, namely, Hindustan and Malaya, are not scientific languages in the strict sense of the term. Why is it that those countries have been able to develop?

If hypothetically, Zaire and Uganda were to become 100 percent French and English-speaking in the next years, would they be on the threshold of an industrial revolution.

The few determinist theories dealt with above highlight some of the problematic encountered in attempts to explain social phenomena by relying on broad cultural theories. The first is that these explanations are too general to be considered overall explanations, for they lack the precision needed in order to be taken seriously. What is worse, implicitly they hide the real problematic areas that require identification and analysis and otherwise would be dealt with. By giving surface or superficial explanation, they prevent further scrutiny into the problematic areas. That is tantamount to mobilizing a bias whereby a whole range of possible reasons to account for a given set of phenomena are not looked at because attention is already drawn to some other theory or explanation. There is here the danger of a priori exclusion of possible areas which, if looked at analytically, could yield possibly results.

But such theories also unnecessarily isolate certain specific aspects of life which they then over emphasize as if they operated in vitro. The Protestant ethic, even if true, when over-emphasized ignores the role of other contemporaneous cultural elements. It is quite possible that, alongside the Protestant ethic, there were other social factors not so obvious, but in need of identification. Seen in this way, these theories are isolationist and reductionist.

Having rejected broad theories which attempt to explain socio-economic realities in terms of religion, environment, race, etc., we move on to the more modest task of examining how certain elements within culture(s) can effect social life. If we are to reconstruct social life, we need first to reconstruct those cultural/conceptual elements that support a given social phenomenon in question. As our interest is social reconstruction, in this second part of this chapter we shall argue that there is need to deal with specific elements within cultures (reconstructing them if need be) with a view finally to reconstructing the entire social spectrum. Implicitly, more than seeing a given culture as a determinant of a given social economic life, we see human persons as able to change certain elements within cultures and thereby to reconstruct social life.

What is being suggested here is not a novelty; some philosophers already have attempted efforts in that direction though not yet with sufficient force. What we have in mind specifically is the kind of effort attempted by Wiredu, who in his work Philosophy and an African Culture has tried to identify certain specific negative elements within culture - what he has called "complaints that can afflict society" — that can derail the positive development of society.

He is not attempting a grand theory by seeing anachronism, supernaturalism or authoritarianism as characteristics of a given society; rather he is looking at them as negative elements in themselves and for any society.

Coming specifically to social reconstruction in Africa in relation to culture, we note that what needs to be done is first of all to identify the negative aspects of the cultural and conceptual frameworks that for millennia have supported structures which now need to be reconstructed, and begin by reconstructing them first. This means that social reconstruction at the empirical level can be begun only by cultural and conceptual reconstruction at the intellectual level.

Note that here the starting point of reconstruction is seen as deeply embedded in the sub-consciousness of the psyche of the individual and the body politic. It follows that the reconstructive process cannot be an easy task, accomplished in a short time. Rather, reconstruction requires patient and sustained effort, along with a willingness to wait a long time for any visible benefits to emerge. This is necessary so that people can internalize slowly — and presumably firmly — more acceptable and desirable values and cultural traits, as well as their corresponding intellectual and conceptual frameworks.

Emphasis on the intellectual and conceptual framework here should be understood from the point of view of the need to analyze issues critically, rationally and conceptually, and at a fundamental level. To apply this to the theme of social reconstruction itself requires that one proceed to the deeper intellectual level of asking what social reconstruction means, whether Africa needs it, and why now rather than at any other time in history.

To engage in that kind of critical and intellectual examination is in effect to discard the negative cultural trait of slavish acceptance of whatever is offered so that, freed from such a mentality others will cease to be dictators.

Reflection, introspection and a critical examination of our past may reveal, for example, that behind the specter of war are negative cultural elements related to intolerance. According to the major thesis of this paper, to reconstruct the empirical factors sustaining war we shall need to look closely at the internal cultural elements, now almost part of our moral fabric, and to see how we could so reconstruct them as to foster the positive values of tolerance even as we rout out the vices of intolerance. If, for example, the elders, chiefs, or even husbands have taught their young, subordinates or wives respectively never to answer back as part of a positive moral code, this could be the time to teach a new virtue of listening to the weak, of internally encouraging patient consideration of the feelings of others. These cultural traits, if nurtured increasingly on a broader national and international scale, could help overcome the empirical problem of war. If individuals could in their close environs of family and neighborhoods appropriate positive traits, the task of rebuilding institutions in such wise that they no longer support the empirical factors of war would be made easier.

If, in other circumstances the need for social reconstruction lies in the economic field, the approach would be similar, namely, a careful study of the negative cultural traits that have all the while supported undesirable economic structures.

Africa needs:

- a Marshal Plan, not in terms of finance, but in its cultural, intellectual and conceptual frameworks;

- a close examination of issues like cultural laxity towards work, leanings toward corruption by leaders, and a sober view concerning money and management;

- a check on such cultural traits as lack of accountability, and an instinctive desire to get rich quickly.

A whole complex of negative cultural traits needs to be overhauled.

By talking of reconstructing conceptual and cultural elements we are implicitly rejecting cultural determinism, showing that it is within the people’s power to alter culture and eventually the superstructures erected upon it. Through subscribing to cultural possibilism, we see the human person as ultimately responsible for charting a course for one’s own development and for humankind.

Social reconstruction, which is basically a concrete task, will be meaningfully undertaken only when people, as cultural possibilists, rid themselves of the negative cultural traits supporting infrastructures that need reconstruction and go to work replacing them creatively with positive alternatives.

1. Robert W. Green (ed), Protestantism, Capitalism, and Social Science. The Weber Thesis controversy (Boston: Health), 2nd Edition.

2. George Tatham, "Environmentalism and Possibilism" in Griffith Taylor, (ed) Geography in the Twentieth Century (London: Butler and Tanner), p. 128.

3. Ibid., p. 128.

4. Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); Hamish Hamilton, as quoted in "Cultural Explanations; The Man in the Baghdad Cape". The Economist (Nov. 9th, 1996), p. 24.

5. Ibid., p. 24.

6. A.A. Mazrui has lucidly argued this point in his article "Social Distance and the Trans-class man in Africa". Political Science Papers, 1968/69 (Kampala: Social Sciences Council Conference, Makerere Institute of Social Research), p. 195.

7. A.A. Mazrui: "Development in a Multi-cultural Context: Trends and Tensions" In Ismail Serageldin and June Taboroff (eds.), Culture and Development in Africa, Proceedings of an International Conference held at the World Bank, Washington D.C., Environmentally Sustainable Development; Washington: Proceedings Series No.1, p. 129.

8. Bertrand Russell: History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd), p. 420.

9. Chamber’s Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, SV "Korean Language", p. 260.

10. Kwasi Wiredu: Philosophy and an African Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 2.