The Moral Basis of a Backward Society

By Banfield and Edward C. Banfield

Book Overview

Looking at how nepotism and family-centric societies sacrifice the public good, Edward C. Banfield uses a study of the people of southern Italy to argue how self-interested families can lead to poverty. Analyzing families in southern Italy in 1955, Moral Basis of a Backward Society discusses how poverty is a result of the inability to trust or associate strongly outside of immediate family. Challenged and argued for years, Edward C. Banfield's study has become accept by many people in the modern age.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029015103
• ISBN13: 9780029015100
• Release Date: February 1967
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant Research

The point in Banfields' book is not that cultural backwardness explains evry asset of economic growth. The point is that culture is an important part of the explanation. Because of Karl Marx's historical (technological) determinism this important part has been left out. Max Weber wrote about the same ideas as Banfield in The Protestant Work Ethic (1905). Their ideas can now be tested with new statistical techniques proving...

Career defining work

Edward Banfield's reputation was built on the basis of this book and the research that informed it. While I am confident that he added significant value in his work and writing subsequent to this effort, I am equally confident that in the minds of most of Banfield's fans, at least those with whom I have discussed this book, he was defined by this work. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society is an exceptionally powerful ethnography...

A Young Man's Astonishment and Anger

Ed Banfield must have been about 42 when this book was published, yet it has a young man's astonishment and a young man's anger. Shrewd and observant as he was, he seems not to have realized what the world could be like until he settled down here in what was then (as, indeed, now) one of the poorest parts of Italy. It shocked him, as indeed it might have, for any number of reasons. But Banfield focused on just one: "the...

Excellent study on an age old question

This book is very relevant to the question of the effect of culture on development. I have lived half my life in an Anglo culture, and the other half in a Latin culture- very similar to that of Southern Italy. I can absolutely assert that the findings in this book are a true description of 'amoral familism' and the effects on a society. As for a previous reviewer, I suggest he actually live in Southern Italy (or a similar...

The book was a study on a poor village in Southern Italy

Antecedents to this study lie in two areas: the study of social capital and the study of giving to and volunteering for charity. A large body of work now exists on the theme of social capital. Alexis de Tocqueville is cited as remarking on the civic associations of America in the 1800s. More recently the concept of social capital, if not the exact words, were reported by Edward Banfield in The Moral Basis of a Backward...