Introduction

It is becoming clear that the United States will have to address the reality of current immigration trends and the disintegration of neighboring economies, which the recent natural disasters have only augmented, with approaches that fall short of the long-obsolete standards of complete assimilation and rigorous guidelines for economic convergence. In order for some semblance of cultural and economic convergence to occur (assuming such a thing is possible or even desirable), and certainly for stability and long term prosperity for the Americas subsequently to ensue, we must strive to understand in just what ways Latin America differs from the United States. The weight of history is as powerful as our will; nevertheless, whereas we cannot banish it, we can be aware of it. Consider, for example, the prospect of unleashing upon a feudal mentality the complications of a nationalized manufacturing industry or all-out market economics; yet, that is precisely what well-meaning Western intellectuals have inflicted on the Russian people in this century. It is important that we take into account the character of our peoples; only then can we hope to conceive of truly viable long-term solutions.

In Cultural Conflict in Inter-American Relations, Dr. William Naughton states that, “[m]any failures of North American diplomatic and commercial efforts in Latin American countries result from attempting to apply U.S. approaches uncritically in a Latin American culture.” In the same paper, Dr. Naughton suggests that values shared by most United States citizens are predominantly Anglo-Saxon, while values shared by most Latin American citizens have strong Iberian influence (by which he almost certainly means Spanish — only the Celts and the Basque are really Iberian, and españolismo and hispanismo are different and more recent developments.) Assuming that it is possible and meaningful to make some general statements regarding American cultures, I propose to investigate the heritage of some of their key facets; additionally, I will propose some remedies for the alleged impedance mismatch that will take into account the postulated origin of the maladies.

Maladies

No attempt is made to enumerate all problems, perceived or real, in Inter-American relations; instead, I will limit the scope of this paper to four important realms, a discussion of which follows.

Religion versus Spirituality

As Max Weber correctly points out, the so-called work ethic of Anglo-Saxon culture has strong roots in Protestantism, which construes form as a manifestation of Providential design; this means that the act of work has intrinsic value because, when properly advertised to the community whose favor is sought, it becomes an indication of the worker's predisposition to industry, which is generally thought to be (along with many other things) the proclivity of the chosen. Latin Americans are, by virtue of being Catholic, far less accountable to each other than they are to God, so that professional occupation takes on a very different role in their lives; work, like many other things, is subordinate to what Anglo-Saxon Americans might think are intangible and untenable ideals, such as friendship. In short, Anglo-Saxon Americans are deeply religious, whereas Latin Americans are deeply spiritual. This is not a gratuitous epigram: the influence of this disparity is felt at every level of American inter-operation, from the manner of business negotiations to the character of individuals elected to public office, both of which bear on the nature of Inter-American policy.

The Right Thing

In Latin America, what is right (justo) is more important than what is convenient or practical.[4] Even before the arrival of the Spaniards, what is now Latin America was then a "theocratic" society in which every aspect of daily life was ritualized and given meaning;[3] the incorporation of the Spanish element conferred upon this society an incurable yearning for freedom in the absolute sense – uncompromising and unambiguous [3] – and a propensity to succumb to boundless ideological ambition. Consider Bolívar's dream of a “nation of families:” obviously unattainable in practice but the only option worth pursuing for any self-respecting americano. This is very different from the anarchic situation of the infamous thirteen colonies that gave Britannia the boot: they could only agree to stick together out of necessity.

Authority of Institutions and of Individuals

In Latin America, authority resides with an individual in a hierarchy of individuals more than it does with the laws governing an institution; this is perhaps justifiable when one considers a long history of administrative neglect (starting with the Spanish monarchs), political instability due to identity crises and political ambition, economic exploitation of the underprivileged (one could argue this was the raison d'être for the Spanish colonies), and recently the unsolicited intervention of the United States in what are undeniably domestic affairs. By contrast, the advent of obtrusive government is relatively recent in the history of the United States and the scope of government is comparatively restrained; as a result, citizens of the United States can afford to have some faith in their government's good will; moreover, in recent times, the United States government has begun providing all manner of standard social services to the citizenry as rights, so that the individual can thrive in nearly complete isolation from his fellow countrymen, secure in the knowledge that his interests are defended by long-standing institutions that cannot be easily banished by the caprice of public officials. It is easy to see why, in Latin America, authority is associated with an individual in a hierarchy and why people's allegiance therefore lies with individuals rather than with institutions — the latter cannot be counted on to persevere; it is similarly easy to see why, in the United States, authority is associated with institutions and why people's allegiance lies with institutional dogma rather than with even the most charismatic individual.

Conflicting Legal Systems

In Latin America, legal systems are modeled after the Spanish fashion of the early nineteenth century (Napoleonic), whereas the United States has a legal heritage rooted in (English) common law. Complicating matters is the vastly different attitude toward business arrangements, which Anglo Americans understand almost exclusively in terms of written contractual obligations that are precise enough to be enforced via legal recourse but which Latin Americans view as statements of, and general guidelines for, a reciprocal commitment to the success of the joint undertaking in question. [5] For example, a United States corporation might take the right to arbitration for granted, but Latin American governments are not convinced that this nuisance should become their concern because Latin American businesses prefer to resolve conflict privately, informally, and amicably.

Remedies

I hope to have shown that there does indeed exist a disparity in very fundamental aspects of the Anglo-American and Ibero-American cultures, and that these disparities arise from and bear the weight of a long history. Although we cannot banish these differences, we can account for them in our interactions; what follows is a series of suggestions for the incorporation of this knowledge.

Professionalism

The difference in the priority level assigned to one's professional career by individuals on either side of the Mexican border will probably decrease significantly in the next few years as United States corporations awake to the fact that a balanced life actually increases the productivity of employees; therefore, this particular impedance mismatch is largely self-correcting because it arises from the relative immaturity of the Anglo-Saxon culture and its close derivatives, for which the best and only remedy is time.

Idealism

In the United States, it is generally agreed that idealism is harmless but undesirable much in the way of other so-called “youthful indiscretions,” whereas, in Latin America, adherence to traditional notions of what should be is a highly regarded virtue. In a society that prizes material gain above all, the former is very propitious because it allows the framework of daily interactions to evolve and accommodate the rapidly changing needs of economic life; however, in a society that prizes spiritual or emotional fulfillment preferentially, the “pragmatic” modus operandi can lead to the rapid disintegration of the social fabric and consequently, for reasons explained elsewhere in this paper, to the dissipation of economic momentum. Since the tendency to uphold what is right and just is necessary for the preservation of other traits of Latin American culture, some of which the post politically correct United States has begun to adopt, this perceived shortcoming of Latin American culture should be preserved.

Institutions

The Latin American perception that guarantees offered by an individual are inherently more valuable than guarantees offered by an institution is probably justified by historical circumstances, but I suspect that this prejudice can be mitigated by economic prosperity and the institutional stability continuity that often arises therefrom; therefore, it would be prudent to predict that convergence in this regard can only be attained if the United States makes a significant and sustained commitment to the economic development of Latin America and and resolves firmly not to intervene unilaterally in the affairs of Latin-America, economic or otherwise, so that the continuity and autonomous evolution of native Latin American institutions will be possible. [7, 2]

Legalism

Ironically, it seems that the greatest chance of successful inter-operation is in the area of legal procedure! In the interest of commerce, efforts are under way to familiarize professionals across the Americas with a common legal terminology, and previously reticent legal establishments in Latin America are working to serve a subset of the legal “needs” of United States commercial interests, including arbitration. [6] I see this development as far more promising that other initiatives for two very important reasons:

1. The initiative is serving a true, collective need; it is almost universally accepted that, in order to prosper, we must share our resources. Artificial targets for fiscal convergence and the increasingly controversial War on Drugs, on the other hand, are instances of initiatives that are confounded in premise and implementation and that do not address real needs or even collective needs.
2. This initiative in particular enforces a very limited sort of convergence, prescribing only the types of services that a legal system must make available for the sake of commerce; the fact that the details of the implementation are left up to the individual participating countries means that, rather than an evolutionary convergence of dubious value, we might achieve co-evolution, which is much more desirable because it allows truly diverse systems to coexist and to thrive as a result of this coexistence. Examples of successful inter-operability schemes based on a common specification of basic services include such seemingly unrelated items as the POSIX specification for computer operating systems.

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Copyright © 1999-2008 Alex Laburu