Key Values

[SwordsMaster]

Interesting article

Now we have good reasons to think that values change in response to wealth. And while wealth should also change in response to values, we have much less reason to expect small value changes to translate immediately into small wealth changes – it is growth rates that should respond to values. Yet national value positions have been moving steadily to the upper right as nations have become richer. So it seems pretty clear that differing wealth is a key factor driving values differences.

It seems like there is a ranking.

What do you think? Any thoughts on the positions? The axis? The values?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Shouldn't Germany be in the Catholic Europe box, if anything?

This seems a very strange mode of measurement.

[Ironside]

Interesting article



It seems like there is a ranking.

What do you think? Any thoughts on the positions? The axis? The values?

Hmm, I start to see were the idea of Swedes being the worlds most modern (if modern means upper right corner) people comes from.

Anyway, family centered unit is not the right on the left-right scale, but rather a sort of strive for individual happiness.

Way too US focused in it's explaination and the invasion theory is weak, as other exaplainations are more probable.

[al Roumi]

The basis for the questions etc looks like it's based on G. Hofstede's work -which is getting on a bit now. He basicaly interviewed IBM employees from around the world (hence supposedly controlling for social & educational factors) and recorded their views on certain issues under 5 basic categories: Power distance, Individualism, Confucian dynamism, Masculinity and Uncertainty avoidance.

This kind of thing is interesting but I'm nto sure how far I'd liek to run with analysis based on it.

[SwordsMaster]

Hmm, I start to see were the idea of Swedes being the worlds most modern (if modern means upper right corner) people comes from.

Anyway, family centered unit is not the right on the left-right scale, but rather a sort of strive for individual happiness.

Way too US focused in it's explaination and the invasion theory is weak, as other exaplainations are more probable.

I suppose the family-centrism is interpreted as a 'survivalist' mechanism. Societies that have less pressures economically and otherwise to raise children, etc, divorce and same sex marriage laws are more widely accepted and generous. Which makes sense. Children are a substantial economic investment which brings good returns, it makes sense that in societies where economic pressures are lower, the value of the return on the substantial initial investment is lower.

alh_p, yes, of course there are many of these scales, and there will surely be many more. And I will be reading them with honest interest once I find them. That doesn't mean there is no insights to be made.

While I, for one, disagree with Russia and Sweden apparently representing different grades of devotion to family, sexual freedom, and patriotism, I think the criteria measured are as valid as any others, and the important thing is to begin the process.

What criteria would you like to measure a nation's philosophy with?