Page 195 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 171

Masculine culture countries strive for a performance society; feminine
countries for a welfare society. They get what they pay for: in 1994–95,
across ten developed industrial countries for which data were available,
the share of the population living in poverty varied from 4.3 percent in
feminine Norway to 17.6 percent in masculine Australia. In the period
1992–2002, across eighteen developed countries, the share of the popula-
tion earning less than half the median income varied from 5.4 percent in
Finland to 17.0 percent in the United States. The share of functional illiter-
ates (people who completed school but in actual fact cannot read or write)
across thirteen developed countries varied from 7.5 percent in Sweden to
59
22.6 percent in Ireland. In all three cases the percentages were strongly
correlated with MAS. 60
In criticisms by politicians and journalists from masculine countries
such as the United States and Great Britain versus feminine countries such
as Sweden and the Netherlands, strong and very different value positions
appear. There is a common belief in, for example, the United States that
economic problems in Sweden and the Netherlands are due to high taxes,
while there is a belief in feminine European countries that economic prob-
lems in the United States are due to too much tax relief for the rich. Tax
systems, however, do not just happen: they are created by politicians as a
consequence of preexisting value judgments. Most Swedes feel that society
should provide a minimum quality of life for everyone. It is normal that

the financial means to that end are collected from those in society who
have them. Even conservative politicians in northwestern Europe do not
basically disagree with this view, only with the extent to which it can be
realized.
The northwestern European welfare state is not a recent invention.
The French philosopher Denis Diderot, who visited the Netherlands in

1773–74, described both the high taxes and the absence of poverty as a
consequence of welfare payments, good medical care for all, and high stan-
dards of public education: “The poor in hospitals are well cared for: They
are each put in a separate bed.” 61

The performance versus welfare antithesis is reflected in views about
the causes of poverty. A survey in the European Union countries included
the following question: “Why, in your opinion, are there people who live
in need? Here are four opinions; which is the closest to yours? (1) Because
they have been unlucky; (2) Because of laziness and lack of willpower; (3)
Because there is much injustice in our society; (4) It is an inevitable part of
modern progress.” Across twelve European Union member states, the per-