Article 35

The Price of Progress John Bodley

In aiming at progress… you must let no one suffer by too drastic a measure, nor pay too high a price in upheaval and devastation, for your innovation.

Maunier, 1949: 725

UNTIL RECENTLY, GOVERNMENT planners have always considered eco- nomic development and progress benefi- cial goals that all societies should want to strive toward. The social advantage of progress—as defined in terms of in- creased incomes, higher standards of liv- ing, greater security, and better health— are thought to be positive, universal goods, to be obtained at any price. Al- though one may argue that tribal peoples must sacrifice their traditional cultures to obtain these benefits, government plan- ners generally feel that this is a small price to pay for such obvious advantages.

In earlier chapters [in Victims of Progress, 3rd ed.], evidence was pre- sented to demonstrate that autonomous tribal peoples have not chosen progress to enjoy its advantages, but that govern- ments have pushed progress upon them to obtain tribal resources, not primarily to share with the tribal peoples the bene- fits of progress. It has also been shown that the price of forcing progress on un- willing recipients has involved the deaths of millions of tribal people, as well as their loss of land, political sover- eignty, and the right to follow their own life style. This chapter does not attempt to further summarize that aspect of the cost of progress, but instead analyzes the specific effects of the participation of tribal peoples in the world-market econ- omy. In direct opposition to the usual in- terpretation, it is argued here that the benefits of progress are often both illu- sory and detrimental to tribal peoples when they have not been allowed to con-

trol their own resources and define their relationship to the market economy.

PROGRESS AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

One of the primary difficulties in assess- ing the benefits of progress and eco- nomic development for any culture is that of establishing a meaningful mea- sure of both benefit and detriment. It is widely recognized that standard of liv- ing, which is the most frequently used measure of progress, is an intrinsically ethnocentric concept relying heavily upon indicators that lack universal cul- tural relevance. Such factors as GNP, per capita income, capital formation, em- ployment rates, literacy, formal educa- tion, consumption of manufactured goods, number of doctors and hospital beds per thousand persons, and the amount of money spent on government welfare and health programs may be ir- relevant measures of actual quality of life for autonomous or even semiautono- mous tribal cultures. In its 1954 report, the Trust Territory government indicated that since the Micronesian population was still largely satisfying its own needs within a cashless subsistence economy, “Money income is not a significant mea- sure of living standards, production, or well-being in this area” (TTR, 1953: 44). Unfortunately, within a short time the government began to rely on an enumer- ation of certain imported consumer goods as indicators of a higher standard of living in the islands, even though many tradition-oriented islanders felt that these new goods symbolized a low- ering of the quality of life.

A more useful measure of the benefits of progress might be based on a formula for evaluating cultures devised by Gold- schmidt (1952: 135). According to these

less ethnocentric criteria, the important question to ask is: Does progress or eco- nomic development increase or decrease a given culture’s ability to satisfy the physical and psychological needs of its population, or its stability? This question is a far more direct measure of quality of life than are the standard economic cor- relates of development, and it is univer- sally relevant. Specific indication of this standard of living could be found for any society in the nutritional status and gen- eral physical and mental health of its population, the incidence of crime and delinquency, the demographic structure, family stability, and the society’s rela- tionship to its natural resource base. A society with high rates of malnutrition and crime, and one degrading its natural environment to the extent of threatening its continued existence, might be de- scribed as at a lower standard of living than is another society where these prob- lems did not exist.

Careful examination of the data, which compare, on these specific points, the former condition of self-sufficient tribal peoples with their condition fol- lowing their incorporation into the world-market economy, leads to the con- clusion that their standard of living is lowered, not raised, by economic progress—and often to a dramatic de- gree. This is perhaps the most outstand- ing and inescapable fact to emerge from the years of research that anthropologists have devoted to the study of culture change and modernization. Despite the best intentions of those who have pro- moted change and improvement, all too often the results have been poverty, longer working hours, and much greater physical exertion, poor health, social dis- order, discontent, discrimination, overpopu- lation, and environmental deterioration—

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Article 35. The Price of Progress

combined with the destruction of the tra- ditional culture.

DISEASES OF DEVELOPMENT

Perhaps it would be useful for pub- lic health specialists to start talk- ing about a new category of diseases.… Such diseases could be called the “diseases of develop- ment” and would consist of those pathological conditions which are based on the usually unanticipated consequences of the implementa- tion of developmental schemes.

Hughes & Hunter, 1972: 93

Economic development increases the disease rate of affected peoples in at least three ways. First, to the extent that devel- opment is successful, it makes developed populations suddenly become vulnerable to all of the diseases suffered almost exclusively by “advanced” peoples. Among these are diabetes, obesity, hy- pertension, and a variety of circulatory problems. Second, development disturbs traditional environmental balances and may dramatically increase certain bacte- rial and parasite diseases. Finally, when development goals prove unattainable, an assortment of poverty diseases may appear in association with the crowded conditions of urban slums and the gen- eral breakdown in traditional socioeco- nomic systems.

Outstanding examples of the first sit- uation can be seen in the Pacific, where some of the most successfully developed native peoples are found. In Micronesia, where development has progressed more rapidly than perhaps anywhere else, be- tween 1958 and 1972 the population doubled, but the number of patients treated for heart disease in the local hospitals nearly tripled, mental disorder increased eightfold, and by 1972 hyper- tension and nutritional deficiencies be- gan to make significant appearances for the first time (TTR, 1959, 1973, statisti- cal tables).

Although some critics argue that the Micronesian figures simply represent better health monitoring due to eco- nomic progress, rigorously controlled data from Polynesia show a similar

trend. The progressive acquisition of modern degenerative diseases was docu- mented by an eight-member team of New Zealand medical specialists, an- thropologists, and nutritionists, whose research was funded by the Medical Re- search Council of New Zealand and the World Health Organization. These re- searchers investigated the health status of a genetically related population at var- ious points along a continuum of increas- ing cash income, modernizing diet, and urbanization. The extremes on this ac- culturation continuum were represented by the relatively traditional Pukapukans of the Cook Islands and the essentially Europeanized New Zealand Maori, while the busily developing Raroton- gans, also of the Cook Islands, occupied the intermediate position. In 1971, after eight years of work, the team’s prelimi- nary findings were summarized by Dr. Ian Prior, cardiologist and leader of the research, as follows:

We are beginning to observe that the more an islander takes on the ways of the West, the more prone he is to succumb to our degenera- tive diseases. In fact, it does not seem too much to say our evidence now shows that the farther the Pa- cific natives move from the quiet, carefree life of their ancestors, the closer they come to gout, diabetes, atherosclerosis, obesity, and hy- pertension.

Prior, 1971: 2

In Pukapuka, where progress was limited by the island’s small size and its isolated location some 480 kilometers from the nearest port, the annual per cap- ita income was only about thirty-six dollars and the economy remained es- sentially at a subsistence level. Re- sources were limited and the area was visited by trading ships only three or four times a year; thus, there was little oppor- tunity for intensive economic develop- ment. Predictably, the population of Pukapuka was characterized by rela- tively low levels of imported sugar and salt intake, and a presumably related low level of heart disease, high blood pres- sure, and diabetes. In Rarotonga, where economic success was introducing town

life, imported food, and motorcycles, sugar and salt intakes nearly tripled, high blood pressure increased approximately ninefold, diabetes two- to threefold, and heart disease doubled for men and more than quadrupled for women, while the number of grossly obese women in- creased more than tenfold. Among the New Zealand Maori, sugar intake was nearly eight times that of the Pukapu- kans, gout in men was nearly double its rate on Pukapuka, and diabetes in men was more than fivefold higher, while heart disease in women had increased more than sixfold. The Maori were, in fact, dying of “European” diseases at a greater rate than was the average New Zealand European.

Government development policies designed to bring about changes in local hydrology, vegetation, and settlement patterns and to increase population mo- bility, and even programs aimed at re- ducing certain diseases, have frequently led to dramatic increases in disease rates because of the unforeseen effects of dis- turbing the preexisting order. Hughes and Hunter (1972) published an excel- lent survey of cases in which develop- ment led directly to increased disease rates in Africa. They concluded that hasty development intervention in relatively balanced local cultures and environments resulted in “a drastic dete- rioration in the social and economic con- ditions of life.”

Traditional populations in general have presumably learned to live with the endemic pathogens of their environ- ments, and in some cases they have evolved genetic adaptations to specific diseases, such as the sickle-cell trait, which provided an immunity to malaria. Unfortunately, however, outside inter- vention has entirely changed this picture. In the late 1960s, sleeping sickness sud- denly increased in many areas of Africa and even spread to areas where it did not formerly occur, due to the building of new roads and migratory labor, both of which caused increased population movement. Large-scale relocation schemes, such as the Zande Scheme, had disastrous results when natives were moved from their traditional disease-free refuges into infected areas. Dams and ir- rigation developments inadvertently cre-

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ated ideal conditions for the rapid proliferation of snails carrying schistoso- miasis (a liver fluke disease), and major epidemics suddenly occurred in areas where this disease had never before been a problem. DDT spraying programs have been temporarily successful in control- ling malaria, but there is often a rebound effect that increases the problem when spraying is discontinued, and the malar- ial mosquitoes are continually evolving resistant strains.

Urbanization is one of the prime mea- sures of development, but it is a mixed blessing for most former tribal peoples. Urban health standards are abysmally poor and generally worse than in rural ar- eas for the detribalized individuals who have crowded into the towns and cities throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America seeking wage employment out of new economic necessity. Infectious diseases related to crowding and poor sanitation are rampant in urban centers, while greatly increased stress and poor nutrition aggravate a variety of other health problems. Malnutrition and other diet-related conditions are, in fact, one of the characteristic hazards of progress faced by tribal peoples and are discussed in the following sections.

The Hazards of Dietary Change

The traditional diets of tribal peoples are admirably adapted to their nutritional needs and available food resources. Even though these diets may seem bizarre, ab- surd, and unpalatable to outsiders, they are unlikely to be improved by drastic modifications. Given the delicate bal- ances and complexities involved in any subsistence system, change always in- volves risks, but for tribal people the effects of dietary change have been cata- strophic.

Under normal conditions, food habits are remarkably resistant to change, and indeed people are unlikely to abandon their traditional diets voluntarily in favor of dependence on difficult-to-obtain ex- otic imports. In some cases it is true that imported foods may be identified with powerful outsiders and are therefore sought as symbols of greater prestige. This may lead to such absurdities as Am- azonian Indians choosing to consume

imported canned tunafish when abun- dant high-quality fish is available in their own rivers. Another example of this sit- uation occurs in tribes where mothers prefer to feed their infants expensive nu- tritionally inadequate canned milk from unsanitary, but high status, baby bottles. The high status of these items is often promoted by clever traders and clever advertising campaigns.

Aside from these apparently volun- tary changes, it appears that more often dietary changes are forced upon unwill- ing tribal peoples by circumstances be- yond their control. In some areas, new food crops have been introduced by gov- ernment decree, or as a consequence of forced relocation or other policies de- signed to end hunting, pastoralism, or shifting cultivation. Food habits have also been modified by massive disruption of the natural environment by outsid- ers—as when sheepherders transformed the Australian Aborigines’ foraging ter- ritory or when European invaders de- stroyed the bison herds that were the primary element in the Plains Indians’ subsistence patterns. Perhaps the most frequent cause of diet change occurs when formerly self-sufficient peoples find that wage labor, cash cropping, and other economic development activities that feed tribal resources into the world- market economy must inevitably divert time and energy away from the produc- tion of subsistence foods. Many develop- ing peoples suddenly discover that, like it or not, they are unable to secure tradi- tional foods and must spend their newly acquired cash on costly, and often nutri- tionally inferior, manufactured foods.

Overall, the available data seem to in- dicate that the dietary changes that are linked to involvement in the world-mar- ket economy have tended to lower rather than raise the nutritional levels of the af- fected tribal peoples. Specifically, the vi- tamin, mineral, and protein components of their diets are often drastically re- duced and replaced by enormous in- creases in starch and carbohydrates, often in the form of white flour and re- fined sugar.

Any deterioration in the quality of a given population’s diet is almost certain to be reflected in an increase in defi- ciency diseases and a general decline in

health status. Indeed, as tribal peoples have shifted to a diet based on imported manufactured or processed foods, there has been a dramatic rise in malnutrition, a massive increase in dental problems, and a variety of other nutritional-related disorders. Nutritional physiology is so complex that even well-meaning dietary changes have had tragic consequences. In many areas of Southeast Asia, govern- ment-sponsored protein supplementation programs supplying milk to protein-defi- cient populations caused unexpected health problems and increased mortality. Officials failed to anticipate that in cul- tures where adults do not normally drink milk, the enzymes needed to digest it are no longer produced and milk intolerance results (Davis & Bolin, 1972). In Brazil, a similar milk distribution program caused an epidemic of permanent blind- ness by aggravating a preexisting vita- min A deficiency (Bunce, 1972).

Teeth and Progress

There is nothing new in the obser- vation that savages, or peoples liv- ing under primitive conditions, have, in general, excellent teeth.… Nor is it news that most civilized populations possess wretched teeth which begin to decay almost before they have erupted com- pletely, and that dental caries is likely to be accompanied by peri- odontal disease with further reaching complications.

Hooton, 1945: xviii

Anthropologists have long recognized that undisturbed tribal peoples are often in excellent physical condition. And it has often been noted specifically that dental caries and the other dental abnor- malities that plague industrialized societ- ies are absent or rare among tribal peoples who have retained their tradi- tional diets. The fact that tribal food hab- its may contribute to the development of sound teeth, whereas modernized diets may do just the opposite, was illustrated as long ago as 1894 in an article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological In- stitute that described the results of a comparison between the teeth of ten Sioux Indians were examined when they

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Article 35. The Price of Progress

came to London as members of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and were found to be completely free of caries and in possession of all their teeth, even though half of the group were over thirty-nine years of age. Londoners’ teeth were con- spicuous for both their caries and their steady reduction in number with advanc- ing age. The difference was attributed primarily to the wear and polishing caused by the traditional Indian diet of coarse food and the fact that they chewed their food longer, encouraged by the ab- sence of tableware.

One of the most remarkable studies of the dental conditions of tribal peoples and the impact of dietary change was conducted in the 1930s by Weston Price (1945), an American dentist who was in- terested in determining what caused nor- mal, healthy teeth. Between 1931 and 1936, Price systematically explored tribal areas throughout the world to lo- cate and examine the most isolated peo- ples who were still living on traditional foods. His fieldwork covered Alaska, the Canadian Yukon, Hudson Bay, Vancou- ver Island, Florida, the Andes, the Ama- zon, Samoa, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, the Torres Strait, East Africa, and the Nile. The study demonstrated both the supe- rior quality of aboriginal dentition and the devastation that occurs as modern di- ets are adopted. In nearly every area where traditional foods were still being eaten, Price found perfect teeth with nor- mal dental arches and virtually no decay, whereas caries and abnormalities in- creased steadily as new diets were adopted. In many cases the change was sudden and striking. Among Eskimo groups subsisting entirely on traditional food he found caries totally absent, whereas in groups eating a considerable quantity of store-bought food approxi- mately 20 percent of their teeth were de- cayed. This figure rose to more than 30 percent with Eskimo groups subsisting almost exclusively on purchased or gov- ernment-supplied food, and reached an incredible 48 percent among the Van- couver Island Indians. Unfortunately for many of these people, modern dental treatment did not accompany the new food, and their suffering was appalling. The loss of teeth was, of course, bad

enough in itself, and it certainly under- mined the population’s resistance to many new diseases, including tuberculo- sis. But new foods were also accompa- nied by crowded, misplaced teeth, gum diseases, distortion of the face, and pinching of the nasal cavity. Abnormali- ties in the dental arch appeared in the new generation following the change in diet, while caries appeared almost imme- diately even in adults.

Price reported that in many areas the affected peoples were conscious of their own physical deterioration. At a mission school in Africa, the principal asked him to explain to the native schoolchildren why they were not physically as strong as children who had had no contact with schools. On an island in the Torres Strait the natives knew exactly what was caus- ing their problems and resisted—almost to the point of bloodshed—government efforts to establish a store that would make imported food available. The gov- ernment prevailed, however, and Price was able to establish a relationship be- tween the length of time the government store had been established and the in- creasing incidence of caries among a population that showed an almost 100 percent immunity to them before the store had been opened.

In New Zealand, the Maori, who in their aboriginal state are often consid- ered to have been among the healthiest, most perfectly developed of people, were found to have “advanced” the fur- thest. According to Price:

Their modernization was demon- strated not only by the high inci- dence of dental caries but also by the fact that 90 percent of the adults and 100 percent of the chil- dren had abnormalities of the den- tal arches.

Price, 1945: 206

Malnutrition

Malnutrition, particularly in the form of protein deficiency, has become a critical problem for tribal peoples who must adopt new economic patterns. Popula- tion pressures, cash cropping, and gov- ernment programs all have tended to encourage the replacement of traditional

crops and other food sources that were rich in protein with substitutes, high in calories but low in protein. In Africa, for example, protein-rich staples such as millet and sorghum are being replaced systematically by high-yielding manioc and plantains, which have insignificant amounts of protein. The problem is in- creased for cash croppers and wage la- borers whose earnings are too low and unpredictable to allow purchase of ade- quate amounts of protein. In some rural areas, agricultural laborers have been forced systematically to deprive nonpro- ductive members (principally children) of their households of their minimal nu- tritional requirements to satisfy the need of the productive members. This process has been documented in northeastern Brazil following the introduction of large-scale sisal plantations (Gross & Underwood, 1971). In urban centers the difficulties of obtaining nutritionally ad- equate diets are even more serious for tribal immigrants, because costs are higher and poor quality foods are more tempting.

One of the most tragic, and largely overlooked, aspects of chronic malnutri- tion is that it can lead to abnormally undersized brain development and ap- parently irreversible brain damage; it has been associated with various forms of mental impairment or retardation. Mal- nutrition has been linked clinically with mental retardation in both Africa and Latin America (see, for example, Mönckeberg, 1968), and this appears to be a worldwide phenomenon with seri- ous implications (Montagu, 1972).

Optimistic supporters of progress will surely say that all of these new health problems are being overstressed and that the introduction of hospitals, clinics, and the other modern health institutions will overcome or at least compensate for all of these difficulties. However, it appears that uncontrolled population growth and economic impoverishment probably will keep most of these benefits out of reach for many tribal peoples, and the interven- tion of modern medicine has at least partly contributed to the problem in the first place.

The generalization that civilization fre- quently has a broad negative impact on

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tribal health has found broad empirical support (see especially Kroeger & Bar- bira-Freedman [1982] on Amazonia; Re- inhard [1976] on the Arctic; and Wirsing [1985] globally), but these conclusions have not gone unchallenged. Some crit- ics argue that tribal health was often poor before modernization, and they point specifically to tribals’ low life expect- ancy and high infant mortality rates. De- mographic statistics on tribal populations are often problematic be- cause precise data are scarce, but they do show a less favorable profile than that enjoyed by many industrial societies. However, it should be remembered that our present life expectancy is a recent phenomenon that has been very costly in terms of medical research and techno- logical advances. Furthermore, the bene- fits of our health system are not enjoyed equally by all members of our society. High infant mortality could be viewed as a relatively inexpensive and egalitarian tribal public health program that offered the reasonable expectation of a healthy and productive life for those surviving to age fifteen.

Some critics also suggest that certain tribal populations, such as the New Guinea highlanders, were “stunted” by nutritional deficiencies created by tribal culture and are “improved” by “accultur- ation” and cash cropping (Dennett & Connell, 1988). Although this argument does suggest that the health question re- quires careful evaluation, it does not in- validate the empirical generalizations already established. Nutritional deficien- cies undoubtedly occurred in densely populated zones in the central New Guinea highlands. However, the specific case cited above may not be widely rep- resentative of other tribal groups even in New Guinea, and it does not address the facts of outside intrusion or the inequi- ties inherent in the contemporary devel- opment process.

ECOCIDE

“How is it,” asked a herdsman… “how is it that these hills can no longer give pasture to my cattle? In my father’s day they were green and cattle thrived there; today there is no grass and my cattle

starve.” As one looked one saw that what had once been a green hill had become a raw red rock.

Jones, 1934

Progress not only brings new threats to the health of tribal peoples, but it also imposes new strains on the ecosystems upon which they must depend for their ultimate survival. The introduction of new technology, increased consumption, lowered mortality, and the eradication of all traditional controls have combined to replace what for most tribal peoples was a relatively stable balance between pop- ulation and natural resources, with a new system that is imbalanced. Economic de- velopment is forcing ecocide on peoples who were once careful stewards of their resources. There is already a trend to- ward widespread environmental deterio- ration in tribal areas, involving resource depletion, erosion, plant and animal ex- tinction, and a disturbing series of other previously unforeseen changes.

After the initial depopulation suffered by most tribal peoples during their en- gulfment by frontiers of national expan- sion, most tribal populations began to experience rapid growth. Authorities generally attribute this growth to the in- troduction of modern medicine and new health measures and the termination of intertribal warfare, which lowered mo- rality rates, as well as to new technology, which increased food production. Cer- tainly all of these factors played a part, but merely lowering mortality rates would not have produced the rapid pop- ulation growth that most tribal areas have experienced if traditional birth- spacing mechanisms had not been elimi- nated at the same time. Regardless of which factors were most important, it is clear that all of the natural and cultural checks on population growth have sud- denly been pushed aside by culture change, while tribal lands have been steadily reduced and consumption levels have risen. In many tribal areas, environ- mental deterioration due to overuse of resources has set in, and in other areas such deterioration is imminent as re- sources continue to dwindle relative to the expanding population and increased use. Of course, population expansion by tribal peoples may have positive political

consequences, because where tribals can retain or regain their status as local ma- jorities they may be in a more favorable position to defend their resources against intruders.

Swidden systems and pastoralism, both highly successful economic sys- tems under traditional conditions, have proved particularly vulnerable to in- creased population pressures and outside efforts to raise productivity beyond its natural limits. Research in Amazonia demonstrates that population pressures and related resource depletion can be created indirectly by official policies that restrict swidden peoples to smaller terri- tories. Resource depletion itself can then become a powerful means of forcing tribal people into participating in the world-market economy—thus leading to further resource depletion. For example, Bodley and Benson (1979) showed how the Shipibo Indians in Peru were forced to further deplete their forest resources by cash cropping in the forest area to re- place the resources that had been de- stroyed earlier by the intensive cash cropping necessitated by the narrow con- fines of their reserve. In this case, certain species of palm trees that had provided critical housing materials were destroyed by forest clearing and had to be replaced by costly purchased materials. Research by Gross (1979) and other showed simi- lar processes at work among four tribal groups in central Brazil and demon- strated that the degree of market involve- ment increases directly with increases in resource depletion.

The settling of nomadic herders and the removal of prior controls on herd size have often led to serious overgrazing and erosion problems where these had not previously occurred. There are indica- tions that the desertification problem in the Sahel region of Africa was aggra- vated by programs designed to settle no- mads. The first sign of imbalance in a swidden system appears when the plant- ing cycles are shortened to the point that garden plots are reused before sufficient forest regrowth can occur. If reclearing and planting continue in the same area, the natural patterns of forest succession may be disturbed irreversibly and the soil c