Soft States

Nearly a third of the world's people live in the great arc of eleven nations that stretches beneath the southern rim of Russia and China. From Pakistan to Indonesia, the countries of South Asia seem, however, to have more than two-thirds of the world's problems: grinding poverty, ruinous population growth, feeble economies, the burden of colonial pasts and, in Southeast Asia, armed Communist aggressors. In a new book published this week, Asian Drama, Swedish Economist Gunnar Myrdal suggests that the bulk of South Asia's troubles lie not so much in history or lack of natural resources as in the Asians themselves and their attitudes to ward life and work.

Myrdal, whose American Dilemma, published in 1944, remains the classic study of the U.S. Negro, was assigned by the Twentieth Century Fund to undertake a definitive study of South Asia's problems and prospects. The job took him ten years, including three spent traveling in the area, and his findings fill three volumes and 2,500 pages. Impatient with the Western tendency to defer to the heightened sensitivities of South Asian leaders and thereby pull their critical punches, Myrdal tells it like he sees it. Many of his conclusions will not only depress Westerners concerned about the area's future, but will certainly upset many Asians.

Contempt for Manual Work. All the conditions usually blamed for Asia's backwardness--such as lack of capital, of resources, of education--certainly exist, reports Myrdal. But far more damaging to progress are what he sees as basic Asian character traits and attitudes. In one long sentence that amounts to a Doomsday Book, he lists them as: "Low levels of work discipline, punctuality and orderliness; superstitious beliefs and irrational outlook; lack of alertness, adaptability, ambition and general readiness for change and experiment; contempt for manual work; submissiveness to authority and exploitation; low aptitude for cooperation." The last, Myrdal notes ironically, is a legacy from Gandhi and other Asians who led the fight against colonialism by preaching noncooperation with authority. The battle for independence was won, but now the war for progress is being lost in part because of a noncooperation hangover.

Neither civilian rulers such as Indira Gandhi nor the generals who have taken over from the postcolonial politicians in many South Asian nations have had much success in changing these attitudes. The result is that the best-laid, often Western-tutored, economic plans consistently go awry. Whether military or civilian, nominally capitalist or self-styled socialist, "the various political systems in the region are strikingly similar in their inability or unwillingness to institute fundamental reforms and enforce social discipline. They are all in this sense 'soft states.' " And, adds Myrdal: "There is little hope in South Asia for rapid development without greater social discipline."

Passport from Work. Myrdal is equally gloomy about the possibility of checking South Asia's population explosion. Again, contrary to the usual Western assumptions, he finds indications that birth control in Asia may not "spread spontaneously with industrialization, urbanization and rising levels of living." Even if he is wrong and massive birth control takes hold, the very youthfulness of the present population ensures, he says, that the Asian work force will not shrink for at least a full generation--and therefore neither will unemployment. Moreover, any advantage to be gained by borrowing Western technology to speed up the "takeoff" into industrialization is being nullified by the accelerating pace of the West's own industrial progress. The "pace of history" is working against the Asians.

The emphasis in Myrdal's book is on what is wrong but he does have some ideas about what should be done to set things right. First and foremost, the Asian nations themselves must bring about social reform and impose social discipline. Education, for example, must cease to be a passport to escape hard work. The West can help by mounting a massive research program into the problems of underdeveloped countries and by opening its markets wider to more Asian products. When it comes to agriculture, in which two-thirds of South Asians work, Myrdal echoes the sensible--if not always acclaimed--view that land reform that gives every peasant an equal plot and breaks up large estates may do Asians scant good. Peasants, unless re-educated, tend to continue farming just as when they were sharecroppers; efficient farmers are only penalized.

Most of the development aid to the region is now given by individual nations. Myrdal recommends that most of it should be distributed through such international agencies as the World Bank. That way, it would flow to those who need it with fewer conditions at tached and a greater chance for establishing long-term stability.

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