This book was created as a culmination of some of the most influential minds pertaining to the topic of culture. As a milestone for progress in the new millennium, this controversial debate of the constantly intertwined views. Culture, politics, economics, and democratization takes a subjective view on the achievement or failure of various countries in an ever shifting society.

The author states that culture is, “ The values, attitudes, beliefs, orientations and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society” (Harrison, XV). The idea that the success of society depends on culture and not politics is a concept that is instilled throughout the book as well as the idea that politics can change a culture and save it from falling apart. For example the dependence on culture as opposed to politics is centered to the republican view in our United States government system. Republicans believe that cultural values are paramount to the advancement of society in that, the republicans are opposed to social reform such as gays in the military and gun laws and generally the values that our nation and more importantly our culture has instilled in us since the nati

economies were very similar and yet thirty years later, South Korea developed into the fourteenth largest economy in the world not because of their political and economic power exactly, but mostly it can be best explained in their values or their culture. They valued such things as hard work, education, and discipline to name a few, therefore it can be said, “ In short, cultures count” (foreword).

politics saying that the more laws that are created to challenge the mainstream culture the more acceptance we will have towards their views therefore the more progress towards a changed culture for the better. For example, if they make a law about gays in the military saying it is ok to integrate them into the mainstream of society then over time culture will adapt to the liberal’s view of how society should progress thus making politics the stage for cultural advancement. This argument, politics vs. culture is exemplified in Pye’s article on Asian Values.

Furthermore, to fully comprehend how culture and economic development take place I will take a look at the intrinsic versus instrumental values of economic development stated in Mariano Grondona’s article, “A Cultural Typology of Economic Development” The idea that economic development is, “ An unending sequence of decisions favorable to investment, competition, and innovation that are made whenever the temptation to diverge arises” (Grondona, p.44), is a simple example of the symbolic representation of the individual’s life in society as the nation’s economy. When a person resists the temptation to say stop working because their life long labor has yielded some fruit then the “national economy” will achieve development but if they don’t then we will fall into counter-development and continue a downward economic spiral. Whether we overcome temptation or not again depends on our culture, or our values in society. “ It will do so if certain values prevail” (Grondonap45). This is where intrinsic and instrumental values play a role in economic development. Intrinsic values are the values that stay with you no matter what; such as Patriotism. We uphold these

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