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mikez73 ha lasciato un nuovo commento sul tuo post "Meritocrazia (by Roberto Buffagni)":

Tra l'altro, una pietra quasi tombale sulla presunta spiegazione "culturalista" del differente sviluppo economico delle nazioni si può leggere nel capitolo 9, "Lazy Japanese and thieving Germans", del libro "Cattivi Samaritani" (pubblicato in Italia dalla Bocconi - DAR!) dell'economista coreano Ha-Joon-Chang, che 48 giustamente non si stufa mai di citare.
A mo' di introduzione:

The British used to say similar things about the Germans. Before their economic take-off in the mid-19th century, the Germans were typically described by the British as ‘a dull and heavy people’. ‘Indolence’ was a word that was frequently associated with the Germanic nature. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, wrote in exasperation after a particularly frustrating altercation with her German coach-driver: the Germans never hurry’. It wasn’t just the British. A French manufacturer who employed German workers complained that they ‘work as and when they please’.
The British also considered the Germans to be slow-witted According to John Russell, a travel writer of the 1820s, the German were a ‘plodding, easily contented people . . . endowed neither will great acuteness of perception nor quickness of feeling’. In particular, according to Russell, they were not open to new ideas; ‘it is long before [a German] can be brought to comprehend the bearings of what is new to him, and it is difficult to rouse him to ardour in its pursuit. No wonder that they were ‘not distinguished by enterprise or activity’, as another mid-19th century British traveller remarked. Germans were also deemed to be too individualistic and unable. to co-operate with each other. The Germans’ inability to co-operate was, in the view of the British, most strongly manifested in the poor quality and maintenance of their public infrastructure, which was so bad that John McPherson, a viceroy of India (and, therefore, well used to treacherous road conditions), wrote, he found the roads so bad in Germany that I directed my course to Italy’.[…]
British travellers in the early 19th century also found the German dishonest— ‘the tradesman and the shopkeeper take advantage of you wherever they can, and to the smallest imaginable amount rather than not take advantage of you at all. . . This knavery is universal’, observed. Sir Arthur Brooke Faulkner, a physician serving in the British army.
Finally, the British thought the Germans to be overly emotional. Today many British seem to think that Germans have an almost genetic emotional deficiency. Yet talking about excessive German emotion, Sir Arthur observed that ‘some will laugh all sorrows away and others, will always indulge in melancholy’. Sir Arthur was an Irishman, so his calling the Germans emotional would be akin to a Finn calliug the Jamaicans a gloomy lot, according to the cultural stereotypes prevailing now.
So there you are. A century ago, the Japanese were lazy rather than hard- working; excessively independent-minded (even for a British socialist!) rather than loyal ‘worker ants’; emotional rather than inscrutable; light-hearted rather than serious; living for today instead of considering the future (as manifested in their sky-high savings rates). A century and half ago, the Germans were in- dolent rather than efficient; individualistic rather than co-operative; emotional rather than rational; stupid rather than clever; dishonest and thieving rather than law-abiding; easy-going rather than disciplined.
These characterizations are puzzling for two reasons. First, if the Japanese and the Germans had such ‘bad’ cultures, how have they become so rich? Second, why were the Japanese and the Germans then so different from their descendants today? How could they have so completely changed their ‘habits of national heritage’?

Postato da mikez73 in Goofynomics alle 11 maggio 2014 13:48



(...dedicato ai porci autorazzisti che inquinano il dibattito con le loro stantie chiacchiere da bar. Non vi piace l'Italia? Nessun problema. Prima lasciamo che le cose vadano come devono andare, e poi un bel foglio di via non si nega a nessuno...)