The Values of Traditional Culture in Social Development

Under traditional culture the author understands the culture of pre-industrial civilization in general. Starting from the view that values are acquired in the course of the socialization of the individual in childhood and youth, the author states that a great majority of Yugoslavia\u27s population descend from rural communities where the primary groups are generally still imbued with the values of traditional culture or its rural projection In developing modern society and modern culture people introduce into them the values and mentality of traditional society and culture. The pre-industrial system of values affects the development of contemporary Yugoslav society as a whole through slowing down change in production techniques and acting as a break on the industrial organization of work. It also tends to maintain a statical production, avoidance of production risks, and indifference to innovations and to principles of work rationalization, discipline and efficiency. In the pre-industrial society it was Kinship family, and the local community that determined the life circle of the individual, while in modern society he plays numerous in specialized institutions. In contemporary Yugoslav society too adherence to the values of traditional culture leads to such trends as extreme familiarism, clan and clique connections, rule of informal groups, and subordination to paternalistic authority. There is a general tendency to transfer the social system of the traditional local community to functional institutions which — among other things — diminishes the role society management system which is being developed by Yugoslav contemporary The author calls for systematic empirical investigations of the effect of cultural values on social development, for these alone would make it possible to establish with any, certainty the actual effect of the values of traditional culture