    45

    Poverty With Prestige Is Better Than Affluent Disgrace

    "Gifts make slaves."

                                                       Claude Levi-Strauss

    We Americans have attempted to use every one of the old

    Chinese techniques to establish peace.  Since the 1890's, we have

    repeatedly toyed with disarmament.  (In the 1920's, we actually

    achieved disarmament in a limited form.  The dramatic international

    scaling back of military forces helped set the stage for Hitler.132)  We

    have  extolled  the  virtues  of  diplomacy.    And,  when  it  comes  to  our

    own barbarians, we have used the third weapon in the Chinese arsenal

    of pacification--tribute.  We justify our payoffs to backward nations

    with a new philosophy, one that probably never occurred to the

    bureaucratic sages of the Chinese Empire.  We explain that our gifts are

    development funds, designed to bring peace by uprooting the very

    causes of discontent and war.  We call our new form of tribute "foreign

    aid."

    But in many cultures, giving things to people is a way of humil-

    iating them.  It is a sneaky technique for drawing attention to the

    recipient's lowliness on the hierarchical ladder.  Take, for example, the

    "big men" of Melanesia and New Guinea.  In the days before traditional

    practices were supplanted by western ways, a young New Guinean

    would work like a maniac to raise himself in the eyes of his peers.  He

    would strain feverishly to boost his yield of pigs, yams and coconuts.

    He would recruit his wives, children and relatives to join in the frantic

    race for agricultural productivity.  If all went well, he would take the

    profits and plow them into building a men's clubhouse.  When the

    neighbors--pleased with the clubhouse food and entertainment--were

    sufficiently impressed, the struggling entrepreneur would ask them to

    join his growing army of pig, yam and coconut growers.

    <<  <  GO  >  >>