Modernization Theory is Hokum.

[condottiere]

It is possible, but it depends on circumstances, the resistance of natives to imported ideas, and how they perceive the source.

The Vietnamese are quite receptive to new ideas that will improve their lives, they'd resist them if it came from a colonial or occupying force where the intent is to tighten control over their lives, as compared to the present policy of exploiting capitalism to advance the GDP, improve the lives of the proletariat and enrich the elite.

Afghanistan requires a critical mass of urbanization to counter balance the warlords and tribal elders who are protective of the influence they command in their bailiwicks, and the Taliban who tap into a deeply embedded independent minded paranoiac patriarchal culture to justify and sustain their insurgency and eventual power grab. Outside of those who are directly bribed by the Americans (Karzai) and those with the most to lose (educated women), you won't have that required bedrock of support.

In fifty years Afghanistan might be comfortable with accepting the benefits of civilization.

[TheCurmudgeon]

It is possible, but it depends on circumstances, the resistance of natives to imported ideas, and how they perceive the source.

I am not sure I totally agree with this. Being an outsider, particularly one that has already been demonized by the religious leadership (Infidels) means that you have a harder time selling your ideas where they differ from the ideas of the population. But if the ideas match those of the local population I think your job is much easier.

An example is roads. Building a road is a "Muslim" thing to do. It benifits the Ummah (population in general). I had a local national tell my XO "you can build your road, but we don't want your religion or your culture."

The Vietnamese are quite receptive to new ideas that will improve their lives, they'd resist them if it came from a colonial or occupying force where the intent is to tighten control over their lives, as compared to the present policy of exploiting capitalism to advance the GDP, improve the lives of the proletariat and enrich the elite.

I am not sure about this. Vietnam doesn't like new ideas even if they come from within the country.

Vietnam restricts social media posts

"Personal electronic sites are only allowed to put news owned by that person, and are not allowed to 'quote', 'gather' or summarise information from press organisations or government websites,” local media quoted Hoang Vinh Bao, director of the Broadcasting and Electronic Information Department at the Ministry of Information and Communications, as saying.

That is not unique to Vietnam, it is the nature of any like situated society (to a point).

Afghanistan requires a critical mass of urbanization to counter balance the warlords and tribal elders who are protective of the influence they command in their bailiwicks, and the Taliban who tap into a deeply embedded independent minded paranoiac patriarchal culture to justify and sustain their insurgency and eventual power grab.

This "urbanization" myth is exactly what I am talking about. Urbanization has existed for centuries. Most city-states were urban. Yet they were not modern democracies. Urbanization is associated with increased income and GDP, but not necessarily required by it. The changes that bring about a more open society are social.

In fifty years Afghanistan might be comfortable with accepting the benefits of civilization.

I am not sure what you mean by the "benefits of civilization", and no offense to the Afghans, but unless they find a way to harness and sell solar power or we make heroin legal, Afghanistan will look pretty much exactly the way it does not in fifty years. Without a steady source of income and a substantial rise in per capita GDP, nothing there is going to change.

[condottiere]

While current regimes and their immediate successors aren't irrelevant, when it's clear that they seem ineffectual or passively aggressively resistant to the policies you want to have implemented, the focus should be on winning the hearts and minds of the next generation, which is a rather long term investment.

This may sound trite, but you want to create a consumer society that wants to connect with the rest of the world, where the kids are indoctrinated to want to drink coke and eat at McDonald's. You might even say corrupting the national moral fibre. With it comes the drive to buy electronic toys and consume media especially stuff that turns out to be very relateable and easily pirated. Essentially, you want the populace to be want what the West has and to be able to live that lifestye.

Gandhi disliked railroads for two reasons. It destroyed his non-existent nostalgic concept of how India should be, and identified it as one of the cornerstones of how the British maintained their rule over the subcontinent, and the facilitation of it's economic exploitation. While I wouldn't know of any community that doesn't welcome a better road system, if one is built, it will allow the world to have a deeper impact on rural life, and perhaps on the tactical side, make it difficult or impossible to set up ambushes or plant IEDs without immediately detecting them.

The Vietnamese government might want to keep the lid down without curtailing economic development, but the Vietnamese themselves want everything the world can give them and get rich.

[TheCurmudgeon]

While current regimes and their immediate successors aren't irrelevant, when it's clear that they seem ineffectual or passively aggressively resistant to the policies you want to have implemented, the focus should be on winning the hearts and minds of the next generation, which is a rather long term investment.

Here we agree. Assuming that non-destructive social engineering is possible it would have to be inter-generational.

I define non-destructive social engineering as things other than genocide, internment camps, re-education camps, or extreme forms of forced change.

This may sound trite, but you want to create a consumer society that wants to connect with the rest of the world, where the kids are indoctrinated to want to drink coke and eat at McDonald's. You might even say corrupting the national moral fibre. With it comes the drive to buy electronic toys and consume media especially stuff that turns out to be very relateable and easily pirated. Essentially, you want the populace to be want what the West has and to be able to live that lifestye.

I think this was the idea behind the Vietnam era modernization theory. They thought commercialism was the cure for communism. I think commercialism comes AS A RESULT of other, more fundamental cultural changes.

[Dayuhan]

They thought commercialism was the cure for communism.

They were very likely right, in the long run. They misjudged the time frame, and they mistakenly believed that commercialism, or modernization, or industrialization, or development, can be inserted into another country, rather than developing organically.

Industrialization, modernity, commercialism do change societies. I don't think there's much doubt about that. We cannot reliably predict what changes will result or how long it will take them to emerge, and we cannot externally impose or engineer commercialism, modernity, development or industrialization.

I don't think anyone can point to a case, anywhere, where meaningful "development" was engineered from the outside. Countries do develop, but they cannot "be developed" by an external force.

[Fuchs]

I don't think anyone can point to a case, anywhere, where meaningful "development" was engineered from the outside. Countries do develop, but they cannot "be developed" by an external force.

Sure they can, even without colonization.
It's just not worth the effort, for the self-sustaining indigenous forces for development are almost free by comparison and more powerful by orders of magnitude.

The question is thus not one of how to push a foreign country to modernity, but whether there's a trigger for making it move towards a certain development direction on its own and how to identify and activate it.

Compare *shameless self-promotion* my text about Germany's post-WW2 recovery, for example */shameless self-promotion*.


A trigger for an average African country - say Zambia - could be to find a way how the powers that be can profit of giving women much more relevance in the non-subsistence economy. Add the Japanese custom of wifes managing family finances (an awesome limiter on alcohol and cigarette consumption as well as whoring), maybe through some African-made movies, bank regulations and the like. This could lead to substantial economic growth.

[Dayuhan]

A trigger for an average African country - say Zambia - could be to find a way how the powers that be can profit of giving women much more relevance in the non-subsistence economy. Add the Japanese custom of wifes managing family finances (an awesome limiter on alcohol and cigarette consumption as well as whoring), maybe through some African-made movies, bank regulations and the like. This could lead to substantial economic growth.

I'm sure it could, but the probability of these changes being successfully introduced or imposed by an outside power approaches zero.

The re-development of Germany and Japan post WW2 may have been supported by external resources, but it would be an enormous stretch to say they were "developed" purely through external intervention, and any comparison to efforts to externally impose development, modernization, etc in environments where these did not previously exist will be strained beyond any possible utility. Re-modernizing and re-industrializing a modern industrial state that has seen the physical basis for modernity destroyed by conflict is a fundamentally different problem than modernizing and industrializing a state that has never known modernity and industry. The former is, essentially, a problem of engineering and finance. The latter is not.