Burton Benedict

Family Firms and Economic Development

Where the family does play an important part in business itis often a reflection of the economic immaturity of the population, the absence of a tradition fimpersonal service in industry and the unreliability of employees who have no kinship ties to the firm. Industrial development cannot but be handicapped byinappropriate standards ofeconomic morality (United Nations 1955:20). E CONOMIC PLANNERS commonly assume that family firms are detrimental to economic development because they are based on nepotism and paternalism which foster inefficiency. Such a point of view assumes that impersonal role relationships are necessary for economic development and that the major economic effort should come from the public sector. It maintains that the private sector must be controlled tofit in with this (United Nations 1951). My investigations have led me to dispute this point of view. This paper contends that the private sector as represented bythe family firm is an important growing point in the economies of low income countries. I do not claim that family firms are suitable for every sort of enterprise r quired by a developing economy but that for commerce, industry, and many types of financial activity they are extremely well-placed to assist economic growth because they combine a number of unique sociological and economic characteristics. This paper examines the sociological characteristics of the family firm. It attempts to isolate a number of variables and treat hem diachronically with the development of the firm. The principal data are drawn from two family firms from East Africa, but material from Europe, India, the Lebanon, and Pakistan isalso used. I hypothesize that family firm organization is more important in the early stages of the growth of the firm than in the later stages. Indeed it seems likely 1 I would like to acknowledge the very great assistance of Mr. Iqbal Mamdani n the preparation f this paper. I must also thank Professor David Apter, Professor Elizabeth Colson, Dr. Charlotte Erickson, Professor Paul Kay, and Professor B.S. Yamey for helpful comments. None of them, however, bears any responsibility for the views expressed in this paper.

Common Denominators: Ethnicity, Nation-Building and Compromise in Mauritius

This book seeks to enhance comparative understandings of ethnicity, to refine theories of nationalism, and to contribute to ongoing debates on multiculturalism, identity politics and creolization. Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island-state with a population of about one million, provides a fascinating focus for this comprehensive study of social identity and political culture. Fifteen languages are officially spoken on the island, and four world religions are represented, as well as a high number of ethnic groups. The author argues that the social importance of ethnicity depends not only on political and economic circumstances, but also on kinship organization, and shows how ethnicity is expressed through the idioms of language and religion. However, it is also shown how ethnic identity may be superseded by other forms of belongingness and politics in the contemporary age. Nationhood, gender, class and individualism are all examined for the role they play in social organization and the formation of collective identity. Multiethnic and peaceful, the pace of social change in Mauritius has been rapid throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The ways in which Mauritians negotiate the relationship between ethnic, national and other identities in forging a surprisingly stable and democratic society, and the peculiar tensions which arise in the interface between the ethnic and the non-ethnic, ought to be familiar to anyone concerned with the future of multiethnic societies.

The plural society in Mauritius

Mauritius is a small island in the Indian Ocean, some 500 miles east of Madagascar and 20 degrees below the equator. In its 720 square miles (an area roughly one-tenth the size of Wales) are crammed upwards of 630,000 people increasing at the rate of over 3 per cent per annum, one of the highest rates in the world. Economically this British island colony is almost entirely dependent on sugar which with its by-products makes up 99 per cent of exports. Basic foodstuffs must be imported. Over-population is the most serious

Man and Aggression.

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