Culture... society´s foundation?

The following article was written by Federico Gerstner, who is a Delegate of the South American Business Forum. We thank him for his generous contribution to our blog and we invite the rest of the SABF community to enrich it with your opinions.

Education, worth ethics, saving and investment are considered of high value by some populations. Organization and discipline are the reasons for good development as societies. Perhaps this focus maybe considered ethnocentric but, instead of that, it is a message to be conscious about the present situation in argentine regarding other countries.

I will state some items that Lawrance Harrison highlights as the differences between developing and static cultures. The first one is focusing on the future.

How often do politic leaders “build” from the historical past? The second item is work, which is not only considered as a financial source but as a way to give respect to people. Isn’t this some people´s desire, I mean, the fact of taking out dignity from certain groups of people, creating difficulties to employment or influencing with on the culture of minimum effort? Education and merit are the main keys. On the other hand, in static societies what really matters are families and acquaintances as a medium for development.
Ethics code, justice and “clean” game condemning corruption are ways of thinking in progressing societies. What happens here?

Summing up, it´s not my intention to be pessimistic or tragical but I have the real conviction that quite many people wish to change argentine’s society, that´s the point, a collectivism from down to upwards and not in the opposite way. In order to reach this goal, it´s necessary not to repeat the past and to know where we are going!