Page 149 - Cultures and Organizations

128 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

In the European Values Survey, which preceded the World Values Sur-
vey, representative samples of the population in nine European countries
in 1981 were asked to choose between the following statements:

A: I find that both freedom and equality are important. But if I were to

make up my mind for one or the other, I would consider personal freedom
more important—that is, everyone can live in freedom and develop with-
out hindrance.

B: Certainly both freedom and equality are important. But if I were to
make up my mind for one of the two, I would consider equality more
important—that is, that nobody is underprivileged and that social class
differences are not so strong. 54

This is, of course, an ideological choice. In most of the nine European coun-
tries, respondents on average preferred freedom over equality. The French
sociologist Jean Stoetzel (1910–87), who published a brilliant analysis of the
data, has computed a ratio for each country: preference for freedom divided
by preference for equality. This ratio runs from about 1 in Spain (equal
preference) to about 3 in Great Britain (freedom three times as popular as
equality). The values of the freedom/equality ratio for the nine countries

were significantly correlated with IDV: the more individualist a country,
55
the stronger its citizens’ preference for freedom over equality. Freedom
is an individualist ideal, equality a collectivist ideal.
The choice between individualism and collectivism at the society level
has considerable implications for economic theories. Economics as a disci-
pline was founded in Britain in the eighteenth century; among the found-
ing fathers, Adam Smith (1723–90) stands out. Smith assumed that the

pursuit of self-interest by individuals through an “invisible hand” would
increase the wealth of nations. This is an individualist idea from a country
that even today ranks high on individualism. Economics has remained an
individualist science, and most of its leading contributors have come from
strongly individualist nations such as Britain and the United States. How-
ever, because of the individualist assumptions on which economic theories
are based, these theories as developed in the West are unlikely to apply
in societies in which group interests prevail. This point has profound con-