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he devotes a good deal of effort to the business of isolating it and
fixing the label "totalitarianism" upon it. This seems to me a waste
of time. The Puritans, incidentally, were not totalitarian, for the good
and sufficient reason that their ideology did not compel them to under–
take a thorough reshaping of the social whole: they contented them–
selves with the imposition of a new set of manners (or rather with
the generalization of manners and customs already prevalent among
their own followers). It is also worth remembering that Puritanism–
or for that matter any other ideology-is a historical product. To say
that Bolshevism "combines" "Puritanism" and "industrialism" is to
abstract from the concrete historical background of all three. It is no
doubt true that there was a puritanical streak in the character of the
early Bolsheviks, and it is arguable that every industrial revolution is
accompanied by an emphasis on hard work and sacrifice. But if we
label this emphasis "puritanical," and then argue back from modem
industrialism to seventeenth-century Calvinism, we are moving in a
circle. The fact is that no one knows why the Industrial Revolution
succeeded in some places and failed in others, though the fate of the
Protestant Reformation in the various European countries supplies a
clue to the answer. Lastly, it is just as well to bear in mind that prior
to 1917 Russian industry was already expanding at a rate it has rarely
exceeded since, and this without the benefit of a puritanical ideology,
or any other.
The whole subject is full of puzzling complexities. The French
Revolution, by promoting social equality, clearly hampered France's
economic development, in so far as it slowed down capital accumula–
tion; yet it also laid the base of a subsequent advance at a later stage,
after the shock had worn off. This, incidentally, renders questionable
the notion that the modernization of backward countries is best pro–
moted by introducing egalitarian social reforms. A strong case can be
made for the proposition that poor countries have to choose between
equality and progress.
If
this is so, it is tantamount to saying that
in
such areas liberal democracy is unworkable. This conclusion can be
grasped
in
the absence of further information about particular cir–
cumstances, the moral standards prevalent in the society, or any other
feature of interest to cultural anthropologists. It is simply a conse–
quence of the political set-up. Similarly, corruption "as an antidote
to fanaticism" has existed since time immemorial. What renders
its
role important today is the part it plays in preventing backward
countries from modernizing themselves. Corruption, by the way, can
take numerous forms, some of them apparently legitimate. Bloated