Who Shall Succeed?

This book records the emergence and institutionalization of social inequality in San Jose, a pioneer farming village located on Palawan Island in the Philippines. Early chapters reconstruct the historical circumstances surrounding San Jose's settlement and growth under conditions of relative equality of opportunity. The community's development is examined in detail through the experiences of eight migrant farmers, all self-made men some conspicuous successes, others conspicuous failures. Comparing and evaluating the causes of pioneers' successes and failures, Professor Eder stresses that the origins of inequality in San Jose depended less upon the individuals' time of arrival or amounts of starting capital or other such factors than it did upon personal differences. Social inequality, for the most part, had its basis in a level of motivation and in a kind of 'on-the-job competence' that some men and women brought to the frontier and others did not.