ABSTRACT:
Seidman (State and Law in Development) invented two propositions. The law of reproduction of institutions argues that laws sustain social institutions. Hence where laws remain unchanged, cultural practices persist . Secondly, the law of non-transferability of law. Laws which may be effective for changing social behaviour in one part of the world are ineffective or useless in a different country. "Borrow whenever possible and be original when absolutely necessary," is falsified by Seidman's discovery that "attempts merely to copy the laws and institutions of some "model" country did not - could not - work." His hypothesis is that problem-solving in the developing world requires legislation based both on collective memory and cultural experience.
Yet an elite individual's choice to benefit from Westernised cultural experiences is justifiable under what Dworkin ( Sovereign Virtue) calls the principle of special responsibility. It insists that so far as choices are to be made about the kind of audio visual images African elites percieve, within whatever range of choices is permitted by network resources and modern culture, they are responsible for making those choices themselves. Elitist African's theory of welfare thus assumes that public broadcasting resources should be distributed so that people are equal in the media enjoyment they take directly and from their beliefs that their personal choices succeed. Yet their choices are relational.
Modernity is incompatible with traditional cultural modes of respect for others. Elitist choices condemn taxpayers to lead lives of forced labour. Under the traditionalist theory of equality of resources, extravagant audio visual perceptions must be constrained by the actual costs they impose on others. Communal responsibility assumes that people enter the collective memory on equal terms. In special cases, therefore, a third way should be found. The developing State has paternalistic reasons for forbidding how much risk its cultural nationalist policy may take in stunting or retarding elitist creativity.
