Definition of Development?
For a postcolonial country, development means:
(A) Rising to meet the West as an economic equal
(B) based on the managerial leadership of the indigenes of the country.
China is the latest country to have done that. Others include Japan and South Korea
Definition of Undevelopment?
Underdevelopment is the inability to meet the two criteria of the definition of development. So-called middle-income countries are not considered developed under our definition because their development is led by expatriate agents.
Epatriate definition?
Expatriates are people from the dominant cultures in the West or China who operate in developing countries as transient workers or live in developing countries as permanent immigrants, or have lived there for generations,
Difference between Modernization and Development?
Modernization occurs when a country appears to be developing but without indigenous managerial leadership. Modernization is when only the first criteria of the definition of development is met. Hence, all postcolonial countries have only been modernizing. None has developed because of dependence on expatriate agents for effective managerial leadership.
This point can be elaborated endlessly by pointing out European dominance in South Africa and in Latin America. And Chinese dominance in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, etc. In resource-rich Middle East, their modernization rests on their ability to afford extensive expatriate managerial leadership. E.g., UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.
As for India, they have a dominant minority that openly boasts of their Aryan ancestry, aka caucasian.
The difference in development between one postcolonial country and another is measured by the extent of expatriate dominance.
A low level of dominance gives you Nigeria and other countries where expatriate-led sectors are prosperous, but the rest of the population is poor.
Medium level gives you some south Asian countries (and South Africa) with some prosperity, but the vast majority remain poor.
High level gives you the middle-income trap because there are still not enough expatriates to break the country out of the trap.
The conclusion is that no postcolonial country will develop (to meet the West as an equal as China is doing) without a complete expatriate takeover of every level of the economy, as in re-colonization. The alternative is to train indigenes in effective managerial leadership, which is what the Implicit Curriculum does.
What is the Cause of Underdevelopment?
The cause of underdevelopment is the failure of higher education (universities and technical institutions) to train graduates to operate their western-style economic model as well as expatriates do.
The global south has no alternative to higher education for training the managerial leadership needed for development. So, developing countries keep accumulating higher education graduates even though it has not facilitated development as defined here. Except perhaps at some unknown future date.
Shifting the Blame
The ineffectiveness of higher education is the cause of the underdevelopment problem.
But developing countries carry the blame and shame of underdevelopment when a symptom of the problem is cited as the cause of the problem.
Symptoms include economic inefficiency and corruption as manifested in the religious, ideological, political, and social arenas of society. These symptoms have been the focus of ongoing attempts to solve the problem. But all attempts have failed because they do not address the fundamental cause of the problem: Ineffective Education
Why is Higher Education Ineffective for Development?
Post-secondary or higher education teaches only technical knowledge, despite claims to the contrary by its advocates.
What is the Economic Model?
The Economic Model was introduced by the Industrial Revolution that began in 18th century England. The economic model is successful only when its elements are consistently organized, interpreted, and expressed with the CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION of the human language faculty. That is why the global north is developed. But they learn to express the economic model with the language faculty through unknown cultural mechanisms NOT TAUGHT IN SCHOOL
The economic model fails or stagnates into underdevelopment when expressed only with the fixed protocols of technical knowledge. That is why the global south is underdeveloped.
The price paid for cultural difference is that it prevents the automatic connection of the language faculty with the economic model as enjoyed by developed countries and their diaspora
Countries with more expatriate managerial participation (e.g., South Africa) express the economic model more effectively than countries with less expatriate managerial leadership (e.g., Nigeria).
“More effectively” means they enjoy a higher level of modernization, productivity, and per capita income.
The most successful developing countries are the so-called middle-income countries. But they are trapped in middle income because they can’t afford or tolerate the increased amount of expatriate domination that will break them out.
The Implicit Curriculum removes the cultural aspect and systematically connects the language faculty to the economic model with the existing resources of higher education.
Implicit Knowledge of the Economic Model versus Explicit Knowledge
Knowledge of the economic model can be divided into explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge. This is not a strange concept. E.g., the knowledge of riding a bicycle or driving a car can be similarly divided. There are aspects of both that can be written down (explicit knowledge), and there are aspects that cannot (implicit knowledge).
Explicit knowledge can be directly taught and learned in the classroom with lectures, books, and audio-visual resources.
Explicit teaching and learning are what is offered in western-style higher education. Conventional education is devoted to teaching explicit knowledge.
By contrast, implicit knowledge cannot be directly taught or deliberately learned with the methods of explicit knowledge.[14] Also, implicit learning does not occur consciously[15] and is not consciously used by individuals.[16]
The concepts of tacit or implicit knowledge, implicit learning, and implicit memory are well established in academic literature, albeit in narrow contexts.
Until the Implicit Curriculum emerged, the only way to acquire the implicit knowledge of the economic model was PASSIVELY through the unknown mechanisms of culture. Hence, developing countries have been shut out from using their language ability to command the economic model. Underdevelopment is the result.
Underdevelopment is the attempt to operate the economic model only with explicit (technical) knowledge.
The Implicit Curriculum imparts implicit knowledge to students systematically and predictably by repurposing the resources of higher education to meet the goal.
The developed countries don’t distinguish between the implicit and explicit knowledge of the economic model. So, the acquisition of implicit knowledge has never been made culture-neutral. This is why conventional higher education has not made development happen in most countries with different cultures.
Symptoms of Underdevelopment?
The symptoms of underdevelopment include poverty, corruption, bad governance, instability, dependence on developed countries, shortage of managerial competence, and other problems unique to developing countries.
Every symptom of underdevelopment can be traced back to the shortage of effective managerial leadership.
Moral Character versus Underdevelopment
At the individual level, moral character and integrity level depend on the individual and their unique experience.
But in the aggregate, moral character/integrity is a product of the quality of the economic model. Sustained development is what creates the environment for good character/integrity.
The prosperous operation of the economic model facilitated either by indigenous managerial effectiveness or by expatriates creates relatively good aggregate moral character. When the economy is persistently underdeveloped, poor moral character (corruption) is the result.
So, at the aggregate level, moral character is a proxy for the level of managerial competence in the economy.
Critics in the global south frequently vilify the West and China for their greed and avarice on the one hand and hold them up as models of development on the other. What’s working for the advanced economies is not character or integrity or lack of either. What is working for them is managerial competence.
Culture and Development
Human culture is a big, nebulous concept encompassing almost all aspects of experience. The big topic of development and underdevelopment, for example, is a subset part of culture. But the aspect of culture that matters the most for development is the human ability to use language, the language faculty.
Human societies used language long before they could write it. The language faculty does not require schooling or formal education to work. So, under the Implicit Curriculum, developing countries have easily met the cultural requirement for development.
Noam Chomsky is an academic famous for pointing out that the ability of people to use language is separate from the language they speak. And that human beings are born with the ability to use any language. So, when we learn a second language, it is done with the same language faculty. The language faculty is the organizing principle of the mind that enables us to aggregate the disparate elements of a spoken language, the words, meanings, classifications, and other aspects, and use them to express and interpret different ideas for unlimited communication and contingent debate in ways that make sense to others. Most people effortlessly do this routinely and competently. We take this ability for granted and may not even think it’s a big deal.
The Implicit Curriculum suggests that the language faculty is also the organizing principle required for economic development. The elements of the economic model are as numerous, varied, and disparate as the elements of language, perhaps more so. The technologies, relationships, terminologies, procedures, and other concepts of the factors of production are divided into categories and knowledge areas with endless details. The organizing principle of the language faculty is the only way to coherently express such variety and complexity with consistent effectiveness. Through unknown mechanisms, the culture of developed countries passively connects the economic model with the language faculty of individuals to routinely achieve this outcome. This connection between the economic model and language faculty is already made outside the classroom long before college age. Formal education serves to expand this cultural learning with technical details.
Under the Implicit Curriculum, development is the command of technical knowledge by the language faculty in the individual on a large scale. Developed countries are language faculty-driven economies.
Because cultures are different, developing countries don’t enjoy this advantage. And no amount of conventional education can make up for that. That is why underdevelopment has been permanent in postcolonial countries.
The Implicit Curriculum does the job through deliberate learning using the resources of higher education.
IMPORTANT: The term “language” refers to the human ability to use language, the language faculty. It does not refer to spoken language. Concepts about the relationship of spoken language with development are irrelevant to our analysis. Such concepts lead to a dead end and are not entertained.