Page 105 - Cultures and Organizations

More Equal than Others 87

Impressionistically at least, it seems that dependence on the power of
others in a large part of our world has been reduced over the past few gen-
erations. Many of us feel less dependent than we assume our parents and
grandparents to have been. Moreover, independence is a politically attrac-
tive topic. Liberation and emancipation movements abound. Educational
opportunities have been improved in many countries, and we have seen that
power distance scores within countries decrease with increased education
level. This does not mean, however, that the differences among countries
described in this chapter should necessarily have changed. Countries can
all have moved to lower power distance levels without changes in their
mutual ranking as shown in Table 3.1.
One may try to develop a prediction about longer-term changes in

power distance by looking at the underlying forces identified in the previ-
ous section. Of the factors shown to be most closely associated with power
distance (latitude, size, and wealth), the fi rst is immutable. As to the sec-
ond, size of population, one could argue that in a globalizing world small
and even large countries will be less and less able to make decisions at
their own level and all will be more and more dependent on decisions made
internationally. This development should lead to a global increase in power
distances.
The third factor, wealth, increases for some countries but not for oth-
ers. Increases in wealth may reduce power distances, but only if and where

they benefit an entire population. Since the last decade of the twentieth
century, income distribution in some wealthy countries, led by the United
States, has become more and more uneven: wealth increases have benefi ted
disproportionally those who were very wealthy already. This has the oppo-
site effect: it increases inequality in society, not only in economic terms
but also in legal terms, as the superrich can lobby with legislators and pay
lawyers who earn a multiple of the salaries of judges. This kind of wealth

increase, therefore, also increases power distances. In countries in which
the economy stagnates or deteriorates (that is, mainly in countries that are
already poor), no reduction or even a further increase in power distance is
to be expected anyway.
Nobody, as far as we know, has offered evidence of a convergence of
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countries toward smaller differences in power distance. We believe that
the picture of national variety presented in this chapter, with its very old
historical roots, is likely to survive at least for some centuries. A worldwide
homogenization of mental programs about power and dependence, inde-