In a way it's a chicken-and-egg problem. It's true that progress and modernization seem to be closely tied with ideology that places the rule of law, equality, and individualism as biggest values, while lack of modernization is often associated with corruption, putting family ties and other circumstances above the law, putting the family/tribe/nation before the individual etc. Does modernization cause this different mindset, or does this mindset lead to progress? It's not clear. Maybe in a natural evolution of a society these things go together. Or maybe they can happen in either order.
By the way, there are some other examples of countries that are not too successful and where corruption is widespread, but which don't have this tribal mindset, e.g. Russia and some other Eastern European countries. They have other issues that hold them back. |
