Flexibility and security: an asymmetrical relationship?
absence of these traits is also self-reinforcing, leading to an equilibrium of low trust and low social
capital — a “miasma” (ibid.). An example of such a “miasma” is provided by Banfield, in his account
of a community in Southern Italy entangled in an individualistic culture (“amoral familism”) that pre-
vents it from developing collective action to escape from backwardness (mentioned in Bell, 2001).
A third broad approach to the question how economic development and culture interact puts
forward the argument that economic development can in fact promote collectivism and coopera-
tion. As people become wealthier, they can afford to act more on the behalf of communal good and
place greater weight on non material values. The same is true at the aggregate level: wealthier nations
tend to implement more redistributive policies, like progressive taxation and public assistance to the
poor (Kuznet, in Bell, 2001). Thus, increases in prosperity tend to strengthen the collective values
of a society. Whether this is the result of self-interest rather than of genuine internalized morality
is open to question. In any case, even if “it is material interest, not moral sympathy, that underlies
social cohesion” (Rosenberg in Bell, 2001), Bell makes the point that overtime, the widespread prac-
tice of cooperation may imbue such behaviour with normative content, so that what has started as
materially motivated cooperation, becomes a moral imperative and generates a degree of genuine
collectivism(Bell, 2001).
A final line of argument focuses on how economic development erodes collectivism and pro-
motes individualism. An influx of wealth or rapid economic growth can either direct a society towards
an equilibrium of high income and widespread cooperation, or, inversely, as many scholars suggest
(Ball, Hirschman and others), it can undermine economic performance, leading to a miserable equi-
librium and self-destruction. According to Bell, the outcome will depend on the rate of economic
growth. If growth is very fast, then the material incentives to defect from the norm of cooperation
become large, before the society has had enough time to accumulate sufficient social capital to deter
opportunistic behaviour. On the other hand, slow growth allows time for the gradual building-up of
social capital, so that a strong norm of cooperation has come to existence (Bell, 2001). However,
even long-term stability of an industrial economy carries within it the seeds of self-destruction as it
allows time for special interest groups to organize and engage in collective action, in order to pursue
their material self-interest in ways that eventually lead to economic stagnation (Olson, in Bell, 2001).
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