Underdevelopment, Obstacles to the Perception of Change, and Leadership
This chapter challenges the defeatism of Hirschman's friends and colleagues during the 1950s–1960s, when numerous political and social upheavals were happening worldwide. In this chapter, Hirschman explains that many of the so-called “structural causes”—a term advanced by his Latin American colleagues in the social sciences which refers to entrenched obstacles that make all efforts to change self-defeating—are ideological constructs. The chapter discusses two obstacles to the perception of change: the persistence of traits which are related to the “little traditions,” as well as the bias in the perception of cumulative change. It argues that the real, “stealthy” change that was actually occurring is being obscured in the process and the vital role of political and intellectual leadership is thus ignored.