ALAN THOMAS

\

. I _This _bQok is about poverty and development .

. Poverty is an age-old concern, but 'seve12mne]Jt' . has only become an imgortafo1t concept in the .; last 200 years, and eS.E.~lly=~n the_50 years·or>

"- so since the end of the Second World War/AlterIl;;tive meanings of'develop~e~t' aren6tly contested and indeed the verx idea of development is under challenge to an extent not foreseen even afew years ago~Voices from the 'post-development'school claim that, at best:a~elopment nasJa-lIed,"'or at worst it was always a 'hoax', designed to c.overup violent damageb~~ to the so-called 'developing' world and its peoples. On the other hand, governments and inter-governmental organizations continue to adopt ambitious development targets: for example the aim agreed at the United Nations World Summit on Social Development in Copenha.gen in 1995 to reduce by half by 2015 the proportion of people living in extreme poverty.

So a book introducing poverty and development into the twenty-first century is a great challenge. In many ways, extrapolating from the experience of the past 200 or 50 years is likely to be a very poor guide to the next decade, and no guide at all to the coming century. But the past is all we have to go on. We have to find modes of analysis that will help in understanding and assessing future experience in' different parts ofthe world, however new and unexpected they may be.

One crucial area for analysis is the relationship /) between poverty and developmentjIt might at

.-"------ -- --_ --~--\

first appear that tile two are virtually opposites:

surely poverty means a lack of development, \ whereas development implies moving towards ~ ':\_ getting rid of poverty, as in the Copenhagen -summifstargetnotedabove. However, in prac-

tice it has proved quite possible historically for development to occurWlthout aIlevia_ting po_verty. Some even argue that development neces-

<8arily entails worsening poverty. For example, Karl Pol~yi, wnting in 1944, quotes an official British government document of 1607 which:

"set out the problem of change in one powerful phrase: 'The poor man shall be satisfied in his end: Habitation; and the gentleman not hindered in his desire: Improvement.' This formula appears to take for granted the essence of purely economic progress, which is to achieve improvement at the price of social dislocation. But it also hints at the tragic necessity by which the poor man clings to his hovel, doomed by the rich man's desire for a public improvement which profits him privately."

(Polanyi, 1944, p.34) These days the debate is about 'development' rather than 'improvement', but it is still about whether there is any alternative to the kind of 'purely economic progress' which is achieved ~eae SOCIal coseItis also still the rich and

):

, Ii

powerful who are in the position to be able to promote development. They are likely to do so in ways which benefit themselves, and although they will try to avoid 'social dislocation' at least when that dislocation affects them, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that such development will also benefit the poor.

,b_olanyi has been one of the influences on the revision ofthis book for its second edition, with his insistence on viewing historical change in relation to the 'great transformation' to industrial capitalism and a global market society, and what he saw as the 'inevitable self-destruction' (ibid., p.4) of that society. Polanyi was analysing the development of capitalism through the nineteenth century and the huge disruptions of the first part of the twentieth. As we enter the next century the idea of 'globalization' is dominating thinking about development. The implication is once again a 'great transformation' to a global market society, and questions about the contradictions, constraints and possibilities in such a context arise which are quite similar to those which exercised Polanyi.

In this new era of globalization, the question of the appalling poverty of large numbers of the world's people, with continuing enon;n<ma-il&

St&tifs between rich and poor, re~~'i~ as potent as ever. Over the past decades, the increasing inequality in wealth between different parts of the world, the spread of localized wars, and the nc§.w irrmortoWlh!2~Qfjs'slJe$_such as environmental-degradation, international debt, reIlgiousfUriCi.3ffie;rtalism and~the-r =~-s"~f competIng co:rFeCfive-ia-entity, all demonstrate the potential for 'social dislocation' turninginto worldwide chaos. Thus it is ever more urgent to address such issues, and declarations such as

;V that at Copenhagen are to be expected. Indeed, . \ since 1995 development goals and targets have been reiterated in several areas related to poverty alleviation. The goals listed in Box 1.1 have been agreed at a series of OECD, United Nations and World Bank conferences. Nevertheless, national governments and international agencies remain apparently unable to mount a concerted and successful 'development' effort to remedy the situation.

be done about world poverty?', 'What form should development take?' and 'What role can development play in reducing poverty?'

By the end ofthe book, questions will have been raised as to how far development in the twentyfirst century is likely to involve new and different issues from those thought of previously as most important, and particularly whether the shift in the range of agencies involved in world development is marking a significant change in global governance. To put it another way, will the new century, following close on the end of the Cold War, see the world and its institutions transformed by the impact of globalization combined with other changes? Or, is the current highly turbulent state of affairs simply a transition to a new phase of development in which more or less the same concerns, the same theoretical frameworks, the same analytical tools, will continue?

In this first chapter we will consider in particular the following questions:

Box 1.1 The World Bank's development goals

Six social goals to be monitored by the development community as part of a new international development strategy

Pocerty, Reducing by one half the proportion of people in extreme poverty by 2015.

Mortality. Reducing by two-thirds the mortality rates for infants and children under 5 and by three-fourths the mortali ty rates for mothers by 2015.

Education. Achie\"lnr: universal primary education in all coun uies by 2015.

Health. Providing access to reproductive health services for all individuals of appropriate age no later than 2015.

Gender. Demonstrating progress toward gender equality and the empowerment of women by eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2015.

Em-ironment. Implementing national strategies for sustainable development by 2005 to ensure that the currei.t loss of environmental resources is reversed globally and nationally by 2015.

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L___ dev/devgoals.htmll

! Has developmentfaile,d, is it continuing in

t'

t~y, or does it mean something

~w as we enter the twenty-first century?

What are the dimensions of poverty, how do they relate tootfier glo63f'P;o'i;fems, and is there a sense in which this constitutes a

I

You may well be motivated to read this book by a wish to answer the very practical question: 'What can be done?' There are of course no easy prescriptions, not least because of the wide variety of interests (often conflicting) at stake, and the great range of agencies that might potentially be involved in 'doing something' about anyone ofthe varied issues that make up the field of development.

By whom is development being done? To whom? These are also potent questions. They should particularly be asked when 'solutions' are put forward that start 'We should ... ' without making it clear who 'We' are and what interests 'We' represent. In fact, rather than pursue the impossible aim of giving 'solutions' to development 'problems', the overall aim ofthis book is to provide you with means to begin analysing and assessing answers to the questions 'What can

'global crisis'?

1 • 1 The I era of development'

The second half of the twen~ieth century has been caned the era of development. According to Sachs, writing-fnl992 about the preceding forty years:

"Like a towering lighthouse guiding sailors towards the coast, 'development' stood as the idea which oriented emerging nations in their journey through post-war history. No matter wh~hgr d_~l)).oCJ;'acig.§. 2.r dictatorships, the couIftriw._Qf_th_eJ3..Qill.Q proclaimed development as their primary aspiratlon,afterTIi.ey h-;ci bee~d fro'ffi-

'--"--"-"--

colonial domination."

(Sachs, 1992, p.l)

The beginning of this era of development has been traced to January 20, 1949" when Harry S. Truman took office as President ofthe United States, declaring in his inaugural address that:

"We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.

The old imperialism - exploitation for foreign profit - has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealing."

(Truman, 1949, quoted in Esteva, 1992, p.6)

While claiming that the 'era of development' began at this point, Esteva does not suggest that the concept of development was new, recognizing that it had already been used and debated in many ways for 200 years. What was E_ew, according to Esteva, was to define development-in

tenus of escaping from underd ment. Smce ..e

0"" e a er re erre to two-thirds of the world,

this meant that most of the world had to define themselves as having fallen into the 'undigni-

fied condition called underdevelopment' (Esteva, 1992, p. 7) and to look outside their own cultures

for salvation. Development was now a 'euphemism' used to r~U-ni1Ra-stalesnegenlony,

and it was ideals and 'programs' from the United States and Its (Western) European allies which ~ourdfOi-m ineb'asis of Oevelopment e;err-

where. .

Sachs and Esteva are leading members of the ~p;;;t-development school' and argue that development was always u~t, never worked, and has now clearly fail~d. According to Sachs, 'The idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape' and 'it is time to dismantle this mental structure' (1992, p.l ). For others, however, including the authors of this bo-ok, the idea of development has been of leading importance over the past half century and remains salient today. While there have been recurrent dis~pointments, it can be claimed that there have also been successes. In economic

__.____

terms, for example, despite the setbacks of the

Asian financial crisis of late 1997, it remains the case that the four 'Asian Tigers' (Hong-Kong, SingapOre, South Korea -and'Taiwan) have industrialized arid joined the ranks of the 'highincome economies' in terms of the World Bank's classification, with the implication that others might follow the same path, while China, the world's most populous country, has sustained an economic growth rate.,o£.oY:eclM-!h fOf_tpe last 2{)- }>:ear§, with manufacturing now accounting fur4o%of its gross domestic product (GDP -

see below). In terms of human development, there have been general improvements such as reductions in mortality and increases in literacy and also specific cases of countries where socially oriented development policies have brought clear benefits (see below).

By contrast, many countries in Latin Amerjca, C~ral Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have sustained very low or even negative economic growth rates for the same twenty years and Africa in particular has seen a spread of civil war and in some cases the effective collapse of state administrations. There is plenty of evidence of what David Korten (1995) calls the 'global threefold human crisis' of 'deepening poverty, social disintegration and environmental destruction' (p.21). Indeed, the main reason to uphold the continuing importance of the idea of development is the vital need to address these issues. Thus the results of half a century of development efforts should perhaps be seen in terms of a 'balance sheet' of advances and setbacks (Table 1.1) rather than as outright failure.

The Cold War and the 'third world'

Truman's speech was mostly about how to respond to what was perceived in the United States as the threat of communism. If he could be said to have inaugurated an 'era of development', it was part ofthis response. Indeed, most of this 'era of development' has also been the era of the Cold War. The twp superpowers, the USA and the USSR, vied with each other for influence over the newly independent, excolonial countries of the South. As we shall see in Chapter 14, the model of state-led socialist

development exemplified by the USSR proved quite attractive to many of these countries, especially once China began to follow a similar path after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949.

Throughout this period too, development has been specifically applied to one part ofthe world, which became known as the 'third world'. This term came into use in the post-war period of the Cold War, at the same time as the growth of international institutions surrounding the United Nations. It was originally a political or ideological concept, a positive alternative to identification with poverty or underdevelopment. Roughly it denoted the search for a different approach from either capitalist (first world') or communist ('second world') - not necessarily a middle way, but certainly a distinctive, positive force.

Many sought a new form of democratic participation; neither the capitalist parties nor the organized communist parties on the Eastern European model provided for the sort of direct democracy they were after. In 1956 the Sl!2zcrisis provoked great disillusionment with the capi-

t(l.list countries, but the Soviet' invasiOnor J2I.ungary in the' Same year generated a siffillar ~on with Easterpfiurol'ean state social: ism. This double crisis also gave Nasser, of

-Egypt, and Tit.o, of Yugoslavia, independent stature, and with India's Nehru they became the driving force behind the non-aligned movement (NAM).

In the words of Peter Worsley, author of The Third World (first published in 1964):

"What the Third World originally was, then, is clear: it was the non-aligned world. It was also a world of poor countries. Their poverty was the outcome of a more fundamental identity: that they had all been colonized."

Indicator

Development

Table 1.1 'Balance sheet' of human development in the last third of the twentieth century

Deprivation

Health

Over the last 36 years life expectancy at

birth for developing countries has increased (by over a third) from 46 to 62 years (p.20).

Four out of five people in the developing countries have access to health services (p.22).

Nearly 90% of one-yecr-olds in developing countries are now immunized against tuberculosis (p.22).

Between 1970 and 1995 the adult literacy rate in developing countries increased from 48% to 70% (p.23).

Children

Education

Women Between 1970 and 1992 the female education enrolment ratio in developing countries rose from 38~_IQ_Q§%_c __ ~ __ .

---------- ..

Food and' Between 1970 and 1995 the index of daily

nutrition calorie supply per capita in the South

increased from 71 to 82 (i.e. reached 82% of the rate in the North) (p. 151).

From 1960 to 1995, the average GDP per capita for all developing countries rose from $330 to $867 (in 1987 US dollars) (p.142).

Global energy consumption is growing

faster than population (p.46). ___

Income and poverty

Politics and conflict

In the 1990s two-thirds of the world's people live under fairly democratic regimes (p.23).

Between 1996 and 1997 alone the number

of conflicts worldwide fell from 21 to 18 (p.36).

Environment

In international conventions (like in Kyoto, Japan) governments agreed to take steps towards protecting the environment.

In 199731 million people were living with

HIV, up from 22.3 million the year before (p.34

880 million people worldwide have no access to health services (p.49).

109 million primary-school-age children (22%) are out of school (p.49).

885 million adults (age 15 or more) worldwide are illiterate (p.49).

6-8 hours a day spent by rural women in the South in fetching fuelwood and water (p.49).

841 million people worldwide malnourished (p.49).

I The three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined GDP of the 48 least developed countries (p.30).

In the second half of the 1990s 1.3 billion people in developing countries live on less

than $1 a day; 32% in the transition economie: on less than $4 a day; and I I % in industrial countries on less than $14.40 a day (p.49).

13.2 million people worldwide are refugees (p.49).

In 1994 100000 land mines were removed but an additional 2 million were planted (p.35)

Desertification and drought affect 1.5 billion

people worldwide (p. 98).

Source: UNDP (19980) Human Development Report 1998, United Nations Development Programme and Oxford University Press, New York.

_ .... ---,-----

emphasizing three basic principles: peaceful ([1- existence anti-colonialism and the struggle for ~omi~ i~depende.ng. In recent years the NAM has become much less prominent, though many of its members are also in the 'Group of Seventy'-Sev~n.: .. {GJ7.},..which continues to function as a political, and to some extent economic, pressure grQ_Up, for example at the United Nations (see Chapter 16).

(Worsley, 1979, p.102) Non-aligned conferences have brought together the leaders of most of the countries of the 'developing' world every four years since 1961. By 1970 there was a clear 'non-aligned Qhilosophy',

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There were also movements towards creatin, new, positive identity to counter what was SE as the alienating character of Westernized dustrial culture. The extract in Box 1.2 is Frantz Fanon, who was born in Martinique 1 spent many years helping in the fight for Al, rian independence from France, and publish several books aimed at countering 'the colon ation of the personality'. '

POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

Box 1.2 Extract from The Wretched of the Earth

The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose aim should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been able to find the answers.

But let us be clear: what matters is to stop talking about output, and intensification, and the rhythm of work.

No, there is no question of a return to Nature. It is simply a very concrete question of not dragging men to mutilation, of not imposing upon the brain rhythms which very quickly obliterate it and wreck it. The pretext of catching up must not be used to push a man around, to tear him away from himself or his privacy, to break and kill him ...

So, Comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating stales, institutions and societies which draw their inspiration from her.

Humanity is waiting for something from us other than such an imitation, which would be almost an obscene caricature.

If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe, and America into a new Europe, then let us leave the destiny of our countries to the Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.

But if we want humanity to advance a step further, if we want to bring it up to a different level than that which Europe has shown it, then we must invent. and we must make discoveries ..

For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, Comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, we must set fool a new man.

(Fanon, 1961, pp.253-5)

However, as time went on, both economic differentiation and political polarization tended to break up the rather fragile unity among third world countries and destroyed the original idea of the third world as the non-aligned world. In economic terms there were enormous and growing differences between the 'newly industrializing countries' (NICs), including the four 'Asian Tigers' and some 'others such as Brazil and Mexico, and the continuing poor agrarian countries such as most of those of sub-Saharan Mrica. In political terms, Worsley points out that from the beginning 'Third World countries were overwhelmingly a sub-set of capitalist countries'. Nevertheless, by.Jm9: 'The choice has become, increasingly,. polarized between capitalism and some variant of communism. In the wake of the trS-defeat [iilVieinam), a few countries have crossed into the other camp. But the choice has been bel;ween the two camps, not in some 'Third' direction' (Worsley, 1979, p.108).

Into the twenty-first century

Throughout the 1980s, these divisions if any-

. ~

thing became even more pronounced. Also,

_geoliberalism, with its emphasis on market mechanisms, became the dominant way ofthink-

ing about development. New issues came to the forefront, notably the environment, international",qebt, and the question of ~ender relations. Then at the end of that decade came the sudden end of the Cold War (Figure 1.1). First, there were changes in Eastern Europe linked to the slogan of 'democratization', and the reunification of Germany in October 1990l It looked briefly as though there was a possibility of the new forms of democratic participation envisaged by those whose ideas gave rise to the 'third world' label back in the 1950s. However, what was happening was the collapse of the Soviet model of state socialism in Europe. The world now had the USA as its sole superpower, a fact underlined by the Gulf War which followed the crisis precipitated by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. These events were closely followed by the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. One of the two 'camps' that previously polarized the world effectively disappeared. Although China, Cuba and some other countries continued with state socialism in various forms, they either instituted market-oriented reforms or were so constrained by the global market and the United States' political superiority that they no longer constituted a viable alternative development model (Chapter 14).

Figure 1.1 The end of the Cold War, 1990. {top} Presidents Bush and Gorbachev at the signing of the CSCEjoint declaration; {above} demolishing the Berlin wall.

The United States in particular saw an outbreak of triumphalism. In the words of Henry Kissinger: 'There has been a war between capitalism and socialism and capitalism has won!' American commentators referred to 'the new world order', using phrases such as 'Pax Americana' and 'the coming American century'

The essay 'The End of Hi.sto,ry', by US State Department~~alyst Francis Fukuyama (1989), had already come to epitomize this popular feel-

ing. In it Fukuyama put forward a grand view ol history as the working out of struggles between great ideologic;! pnnci.,QLes. He caugffie mood of the moment in the West by ing that the fusionvQLlibeLaL<k!.l]Qg~cy ~n2 i~ql!-~rial caJli. talism no~~W.e.Q..1b~_onlx vi!!!21e basis foi

."._._-

modern human society.

The notion that l~pitilijsm is now the only basis for development remains strong. However many would quarrel with this proposition, nor

least because of continuing problems within global capitalism itself, as evinced by the EastAsian financial crisis of 1997-98, as well as its inability to deal with Korten's 'global threefold human crisis'. There is a continuing need to ask 'Is there an alternative?' As Galbraith (1990) argued in a reply to Fukuyama, a concerted attack !ill.J2.9..Yert:y cannot be mou~ted within a ]~lJI..~ .. gmitahst ~work. In a free market system, public resources are not likely to be mobilized in support of policies aimed directly at improving health, providing employment or protecting the environments which enable people to make their living.

In fact, an alternative is being pursued, though in rather a weak sense. The strict insistence on p~re 3~!..ket relatio11§ emphasized by lleoliberalism in the 19805 has softened . .At:' t;;:mpts to achieve development targets such as those in Box 1.1 can be seen as invoking 'development'to ameliorate problems which would otherwise threaten mounting chaos at a global level, thus safeguarding the most important features of capitalist industrialization while allowing some modifications. There may be strong grounds for continuing to seek a more thoroughgoing alternative, but few in positions of power are thinking or acting on these lines.

Thus there are several ways in which developpent means something different as we enter the

r twenty-firstcehtmYfrorrrwlrat it has meant for ~ most of the second half of the twentieth.

First, it can !10 10I!~r be_seen in t{:rms .Qf~cOIll.::... peting ca pitalist and comm unist models (with the possihility~TsearChlng for a third~lternative), since 'capitalism has won'. And the notion that it refers specifically to part of the world, the 'underdeveloped' or 'third' world, which was common throughout this period, is clearly revealed as 'tnhelpful or illusory. Development, if it continues to have meaning as we enter the twentyfirst century, surely applies to processes which occur, or fail to occur, at all levels anywhere in the world, from the individual up to the global.

This means that d,gvelQP.,!!!_ent ha~~anill.x..'&.d jn relation to capitalism. This has always been the case, out tne demise of the state socialist· m~aerorQeve10pmerit makes it ev~~ore es-

sential. Possibilities for development now have

-r;--be related to the current realities of global capitalism, and the history of development should be viewed over the whole period of the domination of the industrial capitalist system, rather than only in relation to the polarized postwar world political order of the 'Cold War'.

Finally, since liberal capitalism is accepted as the dominant mode of social organization and the basis for globalization, it can be argued tha~velopment is now thought ()i_!!l_QstlYiI).. teJ1!l~ aglelior~ti~roblen;s r~~r alternatIve modes 01 whole§..al§_§,Q_Cj~lli.<Lll§for:. ~n. The importance of seeking an alterna-

tive remains, but is not manifest in the activities of any major development agencies.

income is less than US$l per day (measured in '1985 PPP dollars' - i.e. adjusted for 'purchasing power parity' - see Box 1.3 below). It is then possible to think of measuring the proportion of the population of a country below that poverty line - or estimating it, since there are enormous difficulties associated with direct measurement of individuals' incomes on a large scale.

The corresponding indicator used by the World Bank as a measure of the development of different countries is gross national product (GNP). GNP uses market valuations, and is in practice a measure of national income; GNP per capita gives an indication of the average material living standard of a nation's people.

An increase in GNP per capita could mean development in that it implies an increase in prosperity or economic well-being and hence less poverty. However, as will be discussed further

1 .2 Conceptions of poverty

Of the problems to be ameliorated, poverty is perhaps the most basic. Indeed, despite the huge differences surrounding the idea of development, what exactly it means and how it is to be achieved, there is general agreement (except from the post-development school - see Section 1.3 below) that it must include tackling poverty. The World Bank, for example, has endorsed this view for the last ten years, since it stated in its World Development Report 1990 that 'Reducing poverty is the fundamental objective of economic development' (p.24). This commitment has now translated into targets like that in Box 1.1.

Gross national product (GNP) and gross domestic product (GDP): GNP is the total income available for private and public spending in a country, while GDP measures the size of the economy. However, both are defined technically in terms of output. GDP is clearly and simply an output measure, defined by the World Bank as the 'total final output of goods and services produced by an economy'. In the case of GNP, output is used to define a measure of income. Thus GNP is 'the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country' in one year. What they 'claim' is also their income; thus GNP is a measure of national income and GNP per capita is a measure of the average income of each member of the population, including what they may earn or receive from abroad. GNP and GDP are of course closely related. The GNP of Nigeria, for example, is the output produced in Nigeria (its GDP), less whatever is 'claimed' by foreigners (repatriated profits, migrant workers' earnings, etc.), plus what Nigerians earn outside the country (remittances from abroad, returns on investments abroad).

Income measures of poverty and development Note that poverty applies to individuals and households, whereas development also refers to large-scale processes of change at societal level (see Chapter 2). The World Bank target of 'Reducing by one half the proportion of people in extreme poverty by 2015' requires a criterion for deciding if an individual or household is poor. The World Bank does this in economic terms, by measuring a person's income and establishing a 'poverty line' which represents an income level below which a person is held to be in extreme poverty. The global target for reducing poverty uses a single poverty line for the whole world, so that those in extreme poverty are those whose

in Chapter 3 (on the approach to poverty via the idea of entitlement), a measure such as GNP per capita has limitations in this regard (see also' Box 1.3). GNP per capita is a measure of aoerage income based on market valuations, and hence there are several ways in which the measure fails to give a full indication of the incidence of poverty. Being an average, GNP per capita says nothing about the distribution of wealth between rich and poor. Also, in general, GNP as an indicator underestimates both subsistence and collective goods, whereas it overvalues whatever is commercialized, individualized and organized.

Note that the idea of who is poor is different in different societies, and is likely to depend on value systems as well as economic factors. As Rahnema explains:

"For long, and in many cultures of the world, poor was not always the opposite of rich. Other considerations such as falling from one's station in life, being deprived of one's instruments oflabour, the loss of one's status or the marks of one's profession ... , lack of protect ion, exclusion from one's community, abandonment, infirmity, or public humiliation defined the poor.

(Rahnerna, 1992, p.158)

Rahnema also points out that 'Global poverty is an entirely new and modern construct' (ibid., p.161; my emphasis). The idea of measuring poverty at the level of entire nations and hence labelling certain countries as poor on the basis of their GNP per capita is also quite new. Rahnema suggests that while in many preindustrial societies poverty applied to certain individuals and generally di.d not carry any implication of personal inadequacy,with-the advent of global consumer society 'entire nations and continents were led to believe that they were poor, and in need of assistance, only because their per capita income was below a universally established minimum (ibid., p.162).

We can already see some of the inadequacies of using income as the sole way of measuring poverty (or development). One point is that what is regarded as poverty may differ relative to the

Box 1.3 Limitations of GNP per capita as a measure of prosperity or poverty

local currency does not have the same purchasing power for commodities at local prices. In fact, real purchasing power in poor countries may be relatively higher, so that, for example, a Sudanese on an annual income the equivalent ofUS$365 lone US dollar pel' day) might subsist somewhat better than a US citizen with only a dollar a day in the USA, so long CiS local Sudanese prices for basic foodstuffs etc. were lower than international prices. (GNP per capita figures - and measures of individual or household income - are often converted to US dollars in such as way as to allow for this factor. When

Also, even where income distribution figures this is done the result is given in 'purchasing

exist, they will generally be based on surveys power parity dollars' or 'PPP doliars' )

carried out using the ~ousehold as a unit rather

than individuals. This leads to two further dif- The final point is that ",:.ell-being is not entirely

hcultles. Since larger households may also tend a malter of purchasmg ~ec The most (JOVI-

ta be poorer, income per head may be even more \l1Ts example of this may be production for use

unevenly dist.ributed than income per house- (i .e. subsistence or 'direct em.it.lcme nt.': sec

hold. And inequalities WIthin households will Chapter 3) by peasants or petty commodity pro-

be completely invisible. For example, if men ducers. One mignf be abh' to measure the po-

get the meat. if boys get better educated, or if tential market value of such items, but what

girl babies tend to be weaned earlier, then sta- about less concrete items or collective goods?

tistics based on households will not give a cor- Education and health, for example, are much

rect impression of individuals in absolute less tangible but no less basic needs. Educa-

poverty. tion could be considered an inseparable part of

life, with no price put on it; or it might be con-

Second, using market valuations for measur- sidered a commodity, with school fees charged

ing income per capita gives rise to at least two and salaries paid to teachers. in which case it

different problems with relating this meao'ure wtll furm part of a country's G:\'P Another,

to poverty levels. GNP is a measure of produc- .' I Iten ouot.e I . t' OIl' a "all t

ironic. exarnp e, 0 ten qu c C, JS 1 r U - r

tion and its value is given in currency which ing iDdU. strv with added pollution control could.

can be freely converted internationally, for ex- contribute more to GNP than a less polluting

ample into US dollars. However, the wage rep- I ~

L. '_'t_C_'l_,,_ll_il'_E'_. _

_ n:srmed by the average GNP per capita in a

First, as an average measure, GNP per capita tells us nothing about i.Dc01,l)f'~dj.§.txibllti_on within a country. Income distribution is notoriously difficult to measure, both for political and for technical reasons. Where statistics can be found, however, they indicate that many less developed countries have greater inequalities in income than industrialized countries. A few rich individuals may so distort the picture that the GNP per capita figure corresponds neither to the low standards of the masses nor to the wealth of these few.

norms of each particular society, A second is that income measures only one dimension of wellbeing, so that a broader view would take it to form only part of any definition of poverty (or vision of development), This latter point may be broadened further to consider poverty itself as only one aspect of the problems confronting humanity, but one which cannot be separated from the ethers. Below, I discuss each or these three points in turn. There are, however, a number of other dimensions to the debate on how to characterize and measure poverty, which are summarized in Box 1.4.

Relative poverty and social exclusion

One ofthe best known discussions ofthe notion of relative poverty comes from a work on povertv in Britain at the end of the 1970s by Peter

" ---,------.

TffiYnsend:

"Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely accepted and approved, in the societies to

Box 1.4 Dimensions of the poverty debate The conceptual complexity can be understood

as a series of fault lines in the debate about poverty There are nine of these:

lndioidual or household measures. Early measurement of poverty. _. was at the household level, and much still is. Other analysis disaggregates to the individual le ve l. so as to c a p tu re intrahousehold factors and different types and causes of deprivation affecting men, women, children, old people, etc.

Prioote consumption only or private CO/lsumption plus publicly provided goods. Poverty can be defined in terms of private income or consumption (usually consumption rather than income in order to allow for consumption smoo~hmg over time, e.g. by managing savings), or to include the value of goods and services provided publicly, the social wage.

Monetarv or monetary plus non-monetary components - of poverty So-called money-metric measures are often used, because they are eIther regarded as sufficient on their own or seen as an adequa te proxy for poverty However, there is a clear fault line between definitions of, poverty which are restricted to income (or consumption) and those which incorporate SfJch factors as autonomy, self-esteem or participation. I .1

Snapshot or tim dine. Many surveys and poverty assessments report the incidence of poverty at a point in time. However, there is a long history of th i n kirig about poverty in terms of life cycle experience .. , seasonal stress, and shocks (illness, drought, war) In both North and South, there has been increasing attention LO understanding movement in and out of poverty ...

Actual or potential pocertv. Some analysts include as poor those who arc highly son s itrve to

shocks, or not resilient. Small-scale pastoralists exposed to the risk of drought are a common example: current income may be adequate, but vulnerability is high.

Stach or [lou: measures of poverty. The definition of poverty as income focuses on the Dow of material goods and services An alternative is to examine the stock of resources a household controls. This may be measured in terms of physical or monetary assets (land. jewellery, cash), or in terms of social capital (social contacts, networks, reciprocal relationships, community membership. [Ejn ti tl cm c nt s may derive 'not just from current income, but also from past investments, stores or social claims on others (including the State).

lnpi/: or output measures .... [Plovertv measured a's a shortfall in income essentially captures an input to an individual's capaln litv and functioning rather than a direct measure of well- being Writing about poverty has often assumed, wrongly, an automatic link between income and participation, or functioning, I n the life of a community.

Abs,!{ute or relative pm'e:-Iy. The World Ban~ currently uses a figure of :!iUS 1 pel- dRY (in 1980 purchasing power parity dollars) for absolute poverty. The alternative has beeln to define PO\erty as relative depnvation, for example as half mean income, or as exclusion from p art ici-

pa tion in society ..

l

~

Objective or subjective perceptions o] i.oi-err».

The use of participatory methuds has greatly ellcol\r~f.':ed an episternol",;v of poverty which relies on local understanding and perceptions. POI' example. exposure to dornestic violence mav be seen as important in one community, dependency on traditional structures m another.

(Extracted irorn Maxwell, 1998)

---~_j

)

which they belong, Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities,"

(Townsend, 1979, p.31)

This notion has been attacked by those who argue that people in industrialized countries

should not be regarded as poor if, for example, they are unable to afford a television or refrigerator or a few toys for their children, so long as they are able to maintain a minimum level of nutrition. Conversely, there may be objections to setting a poverty line at a higher level in industrialized countries so as to take account of the fact that a minimum of consumer goods is necessary to take part in 'ordinary living

patterns' in those countries compared with less developed countries, on the grounds that this downgrades the needs of those living in poorer countries.

Nevertheless, this notion of relative I.)Qverty has gained widespread acceptan~e. Thus the World B"ank uses a figure ofUS$14.40 per day (in 1985 PPP- dollars) to calciifate the numbers in Jloverty in industrialized countries (@her tha~ $rp-eraay for the world as a whole). This figure was-tireoffiCi3TUnlt:ed'Sbtesincome poverty line, calculated in terms of the minimum required to obtain what is needed to participate in the everyday life of US society. Another common measure is the percentage whose income is below half the median income level in a 2arB.cil~ ~o_u!2.!!y.

It is also possible to interpret Townsend's ideas in terms of a broader notion of the 'resources' 'commanded' by a person or household than just income. Thus Amartya Sen puts forward a view of poverty which derives from the idea offailure to be able to take a full part in human society but which sees this as a matter oflack of choice or capability rather than simply material living standards (see e.g. Sen, 1983, 1985; see also Chapter 3 for an expansion of Sen's arguments into the notion of entitlements).

A particularly graphic description of what is meant by poverty as lack of choice (see also Figure 1.2) was given almost thirty years ago by Denis Goulet:

"The prevalent emotion of underdevelopment is a sense of personal and societal impotence in the face of disease and death, of confusion and ignorance as one gropes to understand change, of servility towards men whose decisions govern the course of events, of hopelessness before hunger and natural catastrophe. Chronic poverty is a cruel kind of hell, and one cannot understand how cruel that hell is merely by gazing upon poverty as an object.'"

(Goulet, 1971, p.23)

A related idea is that of social-exctusion. This concept originated in Fra-;ce but is now applied throughout the industrialized North and its applicability for the South is a matter of debate (see e.g. de Haan, 1998). De Haan argues that social exclusion is a useful concept for two main reasons. First, it points up the multidimensional character of deprivation in that exclusion can have various causes (which often reinforce each other), such as unreliable employment, gender, ethnicity, disability or ill health, and lack of opportunities for participation, as well as low income. Second, it focuses on processes: on 'the mechanisms and institutions that exclude people' (de Haan, 1998, p.10). This makes it clear that deprivation is not simply an attribute of particular people but that different societies have their own ways of defining people out.

Social exclusion: "the process through which individuals or groups are wholly or - partially excluded from full participation in the society in which they live" (European Foundation, 1995, p.4).

Bauman discusses the way 'the poor' are defined

in similar vein, as follows: I

"No society we know of was ever free of a category of people who were seen by the rest as incapable, for whatever reason, of eking out a living by their own efforts; of living as the rest do. It is a social decision to classify people in such a way. Since it has little to do with who those people are, or even what they do, the expectation that 'the poor will always be with us' can hardly be faulted. Each society constitutes and perpetuates itselfthrough setting and prompting certain standards it expects every member to follow, and those standards can only be made visible if some people are seen to fail to meet them. Such people can then be declared a 'problem' which the rest of society must and should cope with.

/'

Figure 1.2 Are these people 'poor'? Labourers in the open· cast Serra Pelada gold mines in northern Brazil have a regular though very low income, working a l Z-hour day carrying 120·1b sacks up 200-{oot ladders with considerable risk of injury or ioorh- induced illness. How much choice do they have?

The poor of different times and places differ between themselves in virtually every aspect of their condition, just like the societies of which they are part. Who is cast in this way depends not on how the poor live, but on the way society as a whole lives ... The treatment reserved for the poor, the way in which pity and condemnation are mixed, is a matter for society at large

rather than for the poor themselves; a reflection of the standards a given community holds dear and is bent on cultivating."

(Barrmari, 1999, p.20)

Many studies of social exclusion in the Nor-:-h concur with previous discussions of poverty III attributing it mainly to unemployment, so that solutions concentrate on job creation (or the

French term 'insertion' in the sense of insertion into the labour market and hence into the community). However, Bauman argues that modern industrial society is essentially a consumer society and that those unable to contribute to market demand are increasingly blamed, 'accused of flaunting the values by which 'decent' people live', with the result of 'shifting the people living below the poverty line from the realm of moral responsibility to that oflaw and order' (Bauman, 1999, p.21).

How the concept of social exclusion applies in different cases in the South clearly depends on what defines participation in particular societies. 'The poor' are those unable to participate in whatever way, and although they 'differ between themselves' they may still be regarded as a threat to social order as much as an object of humanitarian concern.

Dimensions of deprivation and of development

As the idea of social exclusion begins to suggest, poor people exhibit a variety of.E!.Qblems which ~ i2 well beyonciJo.w-incmn.e and which tend to feed off each other. The same can be said for poor neighbourhoods or regions, or even poor countries, though as noted above to define the whole of a country as poor is problematic in many ways. Boxes l.5 and l.6 give contrasting vignettes describing a 'poor' neighbourhood in a Northern city and a 'poor' city in a Southern country. Note that both are journalistic accounts rather than the results of academic studies. Both are very different from the traditional Northern image of the poverty of the unemployed, as in the Depression of the 1930s, and from the rural poverty of the mass of the populations of Africa and South Asia. Still, it is clear that in all these cases the poor suffer from a variety of deprivations which reinforce each other.

An alternative approach to the characterization of poverty is to concentrate on measuring the '-:..!2i9_u&.cdimensioDs of deprivation separately and then put,them together. The United Nations Development Programme (Y_NDP) has followed this approach to develop a series of ~te measures.

~.--

On the one hand it has produced the Human Development Index_(H12I) and a number ofvariants. The basic HDI is an average of indices of what the UNDP considers to be the three most import.ant aspects or human development: the -li~lfuf a R2.lW1a!(iol;1,_m.easured ,byJl.fu

wexpectancy; its educational attair1!n,ent; and itarnateriai standard of living, .measured by GDP 12ei:c.apita UJ.1'PPP(1oilars; see Box 1.3

above). --.......... -. -----

More recently the UNDP has also produced a HUVlan Povertx._!ndex (!iPI), again with variants. In a similar way, the HPI is an average of ~h!ee (or fQ_ur)rneMllr:e£.QLcie.w:iyation: vulnerabIlIty to death at a relatively €a!b: a_g~~privabon ~~I10~~1~2E-i.llg.laG..i.UlLde.cenWwing sEindards, Interestingly, the UNDP has develo~pecrtwo different HPIs, one for industrialized countr~a one wrclevelopirigcountrie'S:"Ulf:' ferent standards fu;'~;t""~onstitu~eprivation are used in the two cases; thus for developing countries the first index is based on the proportion of the population not living be-

I yond the age of 40, whereas for industrialized countries the age of 60 is substituted; for developing countries poor living standards are meas-

ured by lack of access to health services and to safe drinking water, whereas for industrialized countries an income measure is lused. In addition, for industrialized countries a fourth measure, of social exclusion, as indicated by the level of unemployment, is also included.

There is a clear contrast between the main indicators of poverty and of development used by the Wsrl~ and th~llliJl_P. While the former concentrates on income mpasures, the latter has a broader view of ove y (and development) as IJlulti-imensional. The Rolicy implications of the two are also different. Whereas the Bank stresses labour-intensive eCG o:rni&.acti::i!i.es, the UNDP wo give more emphasis to developments in the social services like education and health.

Poverty as part of the global 'crisis'

You may have noticed that the deprivations suffered by the inhabitants of the locations depicted in Boxes 1.5 and 1.6 go beyond the dimensions

Box 1.5 Poverty in the UK

The 1980s and early 1990s saw the birth of a poverty in this country (UK) which was not simply on a scale that had not been seen for more than 40 years but which was also of a kind that simply had never been seen here at all. This new poverty is complex ..

Those communities live under immense pressure and it is for that reason that significant numbers of those who live there have been shovelled into crime and prostitution and drugs and alcoholism and child abuse, into a life of ruthless self-interest. How else do you survive?

So what has changed? At its simplest the poor are buried under layers of aggravations. The first layer is the historically familiar one; they suffer material hardship. During the 1980s they were forced out of work and their benefits were cut, over and over again; those who clung on to unskilled or part-time work saw legal safety nets removed so that their low pay fell even lower.

But that is traditional poverty. The other layers under which they are being crushed are new.

The most damaging of these is the war against drugs, which is inflicting enormous harm on the very people it pretends to be protecting .. The key point now is not so much the narcotic effect of the drugs black market but its economic importance. If you are a 16-year-old school-Ieaver on one of those estates with no qualifications and no hope ofa decent job, and if you want life to provide you with the income and the status and stimulus which other adolescents will find in college and career, there is an obvious way forward ... [Ylou get on your bike and start dealing and you slip into a vortex of crirnina lity and violence.

Consider, also, what has happened to the classic escape route offered to the poor by state education. Ask social workers how they get on nowadays when they call head teachers to plead for a place for difficul t children on their books. The doors to the escape route are shut.

There are still residents' groups and community leaders bravely struggling to hold things tog:ether but they are trying to turn a tidal wave with a teaspoon. It is not just that neighbours may no longer help each other; frequently, they do not even know each other It is not just that

the physical fabric of the estates is collapsing into a mess of brambles and broken windows, there is effectively no one there any more to reverse the decline. The old stability has gone and, with it, the familiar faces and the bonds between them. More than that, they have bcC':' replaced by absentee landlords who have only the slightest interest in the physical condition of the houses and in the community around them.

The point of all this is that poverty is not just about being short of money. Take material hard ship, combine it with the black market in drugs. close the door on education. ki II off the community, add a dozen different other aggravations and you end up WIth a recipe for deep damagephysical, emotional, social, spintual damage. When the government looks at the noto r.cv;single mother and thinks that the answer is to o ffe r her a job and to threaten her benefit, it ignores the obstacle course of other problems that lie in her path. She may be clinically depressed, simply unable to find the emotional will to cope and/or she may be a heroin addict and/ or she has no one to look after her child, who IS probably asthmatic arid/or she may be terrified to leave her house because she knows it will be burgled (some of the estate gangs specialize in "total burglaries" where they take everything, even the carpets and the hot-water tank) and! or she is scared of being assaulted by some neighbour she fell out with arid/or she has unpaid fines and she knows the courts will takf> whatever extra she earns and/or, and/or. Take the 18-year-old boy who is told that he will lose his welfare if he does not accept the dead-end work he is offered. Why should be play that game when there is a crack cocaine supermarket offering ready. steady career prospects on his doorstep? Take any of those men. women or

, children who have. become so alienated and ,,1\gry and self-destructive and bad that they may not want to behave in a rational, self-interested way. It does not matter how much you manipulace benefits or rewrite regulations, it's like curing cancer with Elastoplast The damage IS deep. much 11101'e complicated than it appears at first sight, much more difficult to reverse

(Ext.racts from 'There is nothing na tural about poverty', Nick Davies. Neu: Statesman, 6 ;\ovell1bcr 19(8)

Box 1.6 Poverty ill a Brazilian city Since the second world w a r the Brazi lian Amazon has been the destination of one of the largest mlgTatory wa ves anywhere this century. Twenty. years ago 6 million people lived there; now the figl.ll·e is 19 million, and growing ..

"It is total chaos," said Gilberta Siquei ra, a former planning officer of Rio Branco, Acre's capital "In 1991, when the .a st census was taken, 40'7r of urban homes were without running water and SSCIc had no sewage pipes - more than twice the national average."

Acre, a densely forested region bordering Bolivia and Peru, IS the most remote Amazon state and its social problems the most acute. In 1970 RIO Branco was a town of 36,000. Now It IS an ugly urban sprawl housing more '..11'\11 250,000. The roads are fuJl of potholes and vou are never Ia r from the stench of sewage

Bishop Moacyr Grechi, who has served in the diocese for 26 years, said: "When I goL here I would leave all the windows of my house open. I could walk through any neighbourhood, no problem. People would he playing dominoes on the street. 'I'hcrc were no begg.us No w a family doesn't go out at night for fear of getting robbed."

"The death squads are rtm by policemen and taxi drivers. They kill in the shanty towns and think they are doing society a fa vour," he said

The medical statistics are chiliing more than 10 per cent of Rio Bra ncans have the hep.uitis VIrus and the public health services are so poor that not e\err half the children are vaccinated against It.

Perinatal mortality is the second highest cause of death in the state. In several towns blood transfusions are done without testing the blood And It has the highest Dumber of leprosy cases in Brazil - about one per thousand - close to levels in In di a

The delinquent gangs in the shanty towns kill fewer people than the health service, said 'Tiao Viana, one of Acres most eminent doctors. "You can't expand a city without expanding the public heal th services," he s.i.d. "You need to develop everything toge th er - in fra s tructu re , health, education."

Acre's proximity to Peru and Bolivia h~lS put it on the drug trafficking route. Dr Donald de Fernandes, who works with addicts in RIO Branco, estimates that ha lf t.he adolescents use cocaine

[One I neighbourhood, Mont anh acs, was rai nforest until a ye-ar ago, when homeless people chopped down the trees to build h uts

'\'lost of thGln hav(, 1itLIe chanCe: (\[ securing work. Many can barelys.ign their name .. the illiteracy rate is 4q per eel'" \\'ClV "hove the 118· tiona: average. Most 01' the shanl.vtowns have no running water, [[0 Lil['red roads and no ."8we)'· aze. and the only way to gE't electricity is to wire t he shack up illegally to a nearby pylon

I'£xlracb [rurn 'Seed of hope ill Amazon's urban junglo', Alex Bellas, The Guardian, .. December 1993)

I

~.---.--- --------------------------- _l

The cit)' - the 25th largest in Brazl! - has the 10th highest violent crime rate. "Propoitional.c;ly Rio Branco is the most dangerous city j1] the Amazon lethe uther cities don't manage t h omse' ,'e, prope rrv. they will beco me like us,' wa rn ed Ccrcillo d a Silva, Acre's chief justice.

Mr Da Silva's efDJrLs to crush the three death squads blamed fOI more than 100 murders ill recent years have put a price on hlS head The fede:'&l gO\"endilenL Pli(VS ror 2...[.....11OLlr armed proLeclillll

\

\

of ill health, poor educational attainment and low material standards included in the UNDP's HDL For example, their neighbourhoods are subject to a high degree of violence and to dangerous levels of pollution. It is unclear whether these should be included as aspects of poverty. What is incontrovertible is that many of the world's poorest people also suffer directly from

l the conse. quences of social di§intew...!ion and $22,:_ vironmental destruction, which together with poverty itself form the ~e0~d huma!UJjsis' -wmchaccording to KorteIi1i"§95) is affecting the

~~

world more and more deeply,

Korten's description of this 'crisis', written in 1995, depicts the three elements as reinforcing each other and spiralling out of control. The following brief extracts give a flavour of his view of the situation, which he argues requires radically new approaches not least from private corporations, not noted for their development activity:

"Even in the world's most affiuent countries, high levels of unemployment, corporate downsizing, falling real wages, greater dependence on part-time temporary jobs without benefits, and the weakening of unions are creating a growing sense of insecurity ... The world is increasingly divided between those who enjoy opulent affluence and those who live in dehumanizing poverty, servitude and economic insecurity .. ,

Evidence of the resulting social stress is everywhere: in rising rates of crime, drug abuse, divorce, teenage suicide, and domestic violence; growing numbers of political, economic and environmental refugees; and even the changing nature of organized armed conflict. ,.

Environmentally, although there have been important gains in selected localities in reducing air pollution and cleaning up polluted rivers, the deeper reality is one of growing ecological crisis, .. The younger generation lives with the question of whether they may be turned into environmental refugees by climate changes that

threaten to melt the polar ice caps, flood vast coastal areas, and turn fertile agricultural areas into deserts,"

(Korten, 1995, pp,19-21l

You may wonder whether Korten is portraying only one side of the picture. As noted in Table 1.1, there are considerable development achievements to balance against continuing deprivation and the other aspects of Korten's global 'crisis'. Certainly, this 'crisis' is continuing at the same time as high rates of GDP growth and optimism

in capital markets. Whether, by the time you read this, these trends will be continuing, or will have been interrupted by a global economic downturn or new financial crisis, remains to be seen. Still, whether they add up to a global 'crisis' or not, it is clear that social dislocation and environmental degradation should be considered alongside poverty, if not as aspects of poverty, when assessing the problems which d~",

velopment has to address as we enter the "-

twenty-first century.

1 .3 The end of development?

At the start of this chapter I cited thinkers of the post-development school who regard development as having failed and the 'er a of development' as being over. If the 'global threefold crisis' is as serious as Korten suggests, then, given that development has been such a dominant concept during the very period when the crisis has been building up, there is some force to the suggestion that development has failed, Alternatively, as several of the post-development school suggest, development was a 'hoax', never designed to deal with humanitarian and environmental problems, but simply a way of allowing the industrialized North, particularly the USA, to continue its dominance of the rest of the world in order to maintain its own high standards of living.

Some use stronger language still. Alvares (1994) argues that 'development' is 'a label for plunder and violence, a mechanism of triage' (p.L). Using the metaphor of triage, with its implication of dividing a damaged population into those

POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENI INIU IHt z i-: LtNIUKY

well enough to benefit from assistance and those to be left to their fate, Alvares suggests that in/ dustrial development is deliberate 'triage' in that .: it is known that only some can benefit. In some cases people are simply exc'luded-r'p assive

triage') or in others those who benefit do so directly at the expense of others ('active triage'). The latter can occur when resources which were used for subsistence are commandeered to feed industry, when markets for industrial goods destroy previous modes of livelihood, or when industrial pollution renders common resources unusable.

Still, does not this simply underline the intractability of the 'threefold crisis', which surely requires some concerted action? If action is not to be in the name of development then would not another concept have to be put forward with probably just as many contradictions?

Some post-development writing seems to imply there is no need for action. Romantic views are put forward of pre-industrial societies where people 'have few possessions, but they are not poor'(Sahlins, 1997, p.19, emphasis in original). Sahlins goes on:

"Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all, it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such, it is the invention of civilization. It has grown with civilization, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation - that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any camp of Alaskan Eskimo."

(Sahlins, 1997, p.19) ~

It is certainly important to recognize that what is regarded as poverty is not absolute but depends on the value system of a particular society. In my discussion of poverty above I quoted some similar useful insights from Rahnema, another post-development writer. Stilr,thereaYe two problems with the implication that no action should be taken. First, there may have been a few examples of rural idylls with co-operative

__....... __ __ .-....Ii

values, but many pre-industrial societies contimecttnelr own IlleqUltIes as well as suffering objectlVelylow s an ards of hving. Second, in ·todaysWOrIOinuustrialization is global so virtually all poor people -a-n"O communities are not pre-industrial but exist in some relation to globann<!usfrial capitalism. Tp~re can be no question of foregoing development III order to leave people III a state of pre-Illdustnal grace.

So some kind of action is required. Should it be carrIed development? :£:_ost-development thinking

-rS1iased on post-modern discourse analysis a:ii.d

c "'-....,_ ... ·_ .. L~ .... ~ __ ~"' ...• _.

lias a lot of useful insights into the derivation of

terms and the politics of the way they are used. lsthere not some force in the argument tfiat 'development' is too contaminated a term to be of use? Ifit is used to denote the type of exploitative capitalist development that is accompanied by extreme negative consequences for many, then how can the same term be used for attempts by other capitalists or by state agencies to ameliorate these consequences in order to avoid social unrest, or for attempts to find radical 'people-centred' alternatives? As we will see in Chapter 2, 'development' is actually used to mean all these things. It may be ambiguous, but common usage cannot be argued away.

What do post-development waiters themselves say about what should be done? In fact, despite their romanticizing of pre-industrial societies, they do not deny the need for change. What they argue is that in order for change to be undertaken differently, it needs to be conceived literally in different terms. Here is part of the conclusion to the entry by 1rturQ..Es~ on '!1.anning' in Sachs' Development Dictio_na:,.Y._ (1992):

undoubtedly will not take the form of'designing life' or social engineering. In the long run, this means that categories and meanings have to be redefined; through their innovative political practice, new social movements of various kinds are already embarked on this process of redefining the social, and knowledge itself."

(Escobar, 1992, p.144)

Majid Rahnema.addresses the question of what is to be done directly in his conclusion to The Post Development Reader (1997). He admits that "it may be true that the majority of people whose standard of life has in fact greatly deteriorated do want change" (p.388). But the answer he suggests is not development but 'the end of development':

"The end of development should not be seen as an end to the search for new possibilities of change, for a relational world of friendship, or for genuine processes of regeneration able to give birth to new forms of solidarity. It should only mean that the binary, the mechanistic, the reductionist, the inhumane and the ultimately selfdestructive approach to change is over. It should represent a call to the 'good people' everywhere to think and work together."

(Rahnema, 1997, p.391)

Rahnema even allows for the possibility of 'intervention', as long as it is done in a spirit of self-criticism:

"While social change has probably ays been part of the human experience, it s only within European modernity that 'society', i.e. the whole way oflife of a people, was open to empirical analysis and made the subject of planned change. And while communities in the Third World may find that there is a need for some sort of organized or directed change - in part to reverse the damage done by development - this

"The case is different with a project of intervention, which is prepared and developed somewhere, often in an institutional framework, with a view to changing the lives of other people, in a manner useful or beneficial to the intervener. Hence the need for the latter to be aware that he or she is launched on an adventure fraught with

considerable danger. Such awareness makes it necessary for interveners to start examining the whys and wherefores of their actions. Exceptional personal qualities are needed to prevent 'well intentioned' interventions producing results contrary to those planned - as has been the case in most 'developmental' and many 'humanitarian' instances."

(Rahnerna, 1997, p.397) These are extremely important points. But to me - and to most if not all the authors in this book - they are points about development from a radical position, not arguments for abandoning the concept. Deciding not to use the term would not do away with real problems to do with poverty and powerlessness, environmental degradation, and social disorder, or with practical dilemmas such as that posed by the fact that to date there are no examples of large-scale improvements in living standards without industrialization and the huge dislocations it brings. This book is written in the belief that it is useful to help readers understand the issues surrounding poverty and development. The powerful development agencies of the world certainly do not recognize any 'end of development'. It is important to be able to analyse what they are doing as well as alternative positions. However, insisting on the continuing importance of development does not mean endorsing any particular approach.

Let me conclude this introductory chapter by quoting the response of Robert Chambers to Sachs' image of development as a 'ruin in the intellectual landscape':

"That is no grounds for pessimism. Much can grow on and out of a ruin. Past errors as well achievements contribute to current

learning."

(Chambers, 1997, p.9)

Summary

1 Some have called the second half of the twentieth century the 'era of development'. That period was also the era of the Cold War and anti-communism in the West, which is now over and 'capitalism has won'.

2 As we enter the twenty-first century, development can no longer be seen as it has been for the past half-century in terms of competing capitalist and communist models, applied specifically to the 'third world'. Development has to be considered in relation to global industrial capitalism, with a history, like industrial capitalism, of 200 years rather than just 50. As a concept, development also applies to processes occurring at all levels anywhere, from the local to the global. In addition, development may now be more about ameliorating problems than wholesale social transformation, though seeking alternatives is still important.

3 Development must include tackling poverty. Poverty can be conceived in different ways, notably: through income measures (GNP per capita, numbers below a poverty line); as relative poverty or social exclusion; as incorporating multiple dimensions of deprivation; as part of a broader 'global crisis'.

4 The post-development school regards development as having failed and as a 'hoax'. There are improvements to balance against the continuing deprivation in many areas, so development is not a total failure. Also, although the post-development arguments give some useful insights, these are effectively arguments about development from a radical position. There is still a need for action t9 tackle poverty. Thus this book uses the accepted concepts of poverty and development, with all their ambiguities, and attempts to help readers understand issues around poverty and development rather than look for new language.

-_ .... _ .-

1v\EANfNGS

AND VIEWS-- -.

OF DEVELOPMENT

II

. . ,

\

ALAN IHOMAS

Perhaps the simplest definition of development is that given bY Cham"be~~ (i997), for whom development meariS]i.iSt'good change'_ As such, 'development' is a positive word that in everyday parlance is vGtuaIIy synonymous with 'progress' (Figure 2.1) - although we should note the importance of distinguishing the two concepts (see below). D_evelopment may entail disruption of establis~dPatterns of living, a-nd ffiereare huge disagreements- ab~t"'ho":;'" ;tis obtained orwnetheritis Oc"Cu;:nni"" N'ev;rtheless, over the long term it implies increased liv~ng standards, imJ2r<;>yed health and well-be.i.Jlg for all, and the achievement of whatever is re'garded as a general good for society at large.

However, the two words 'good change' already combine quite different ideas which can cause confusion between different senses in which the term 'development' is used. 'Good' implies a vision of a desirable society (well-being for all'); something to aim at, a state of being with certain positive attributes which can be measured so that we can talk of 'more' or 'less' development. 'Change', on the other hand, is a process, which may entail disruption' and which it may or may not be possible to direct.

Thus it is important to be clear about the different senses in which the term 'development' is used. In addition, whichever sense is in use, the term 'development' also embodies competing political aims and social values and contrasting theories of social change. In particular, there are

Of course we have progressed a great deal, first they vvere coming by bullock -cart , then by jeep - and now this I

Figure 2.1

strongly conflicting~~ws about the relationship of development to capitalism. In the rest of this chap~ take a closer look at the different meanings and views of development. We will consider the following questions, which you should bear in mind as you read through the chapter:

I'!It What are the different senses in which the ... term 'development' is used?

What are the main views of development and how does Ifi'elate to capitalism?

2. 1 The ambiguity of development and its relation to capitalism

There are several important general points about the idea of development which go beyond simply 'good change' and which together show it to be an inherently ambiguous concept. First, development generally implies an ~encompassing change, not just an improvement in oJJ.e...<lli.l2§ct. Second, developmentls not just a question of a one-off process of change to something better, but implies a process which builds on_itruill, where change is continuous andwhere imErove~ build on previous Imp.loy.~l!lent~. "Third, development is-a 'matter of changes occurring at the level of social change and of the individua) human being at one and the same time. Changes in society have implications for the people who live in that society and, conversely, changes in how people think, interact, make their livings and perceive themselves form the basis for changes in society. Finally, developmenl.._j§__!lot al)y_~y1....seen Rositi~lY. These points often go together, in that what some see as a general improvement may have losers as well as winners, and if social change is all-encompassing and continuous then the implication is that previous ways of life may be swept away, with the loss of positive as well as negative features.

One intriguing metaphor which combines all these points comes from Marshall Berman, who writes of 'The Tragedy of Development' and of Goethe's Faust as 'the first developer'. He describes the 'development' that this Faust wants as follows:

"Earlier incarnations of Faust have sold their souls in exchange for certain clearly defined and universally desired good things oflife: money, sex, power over others, fame and glory. Goethe's Faust ... wants these things, but these things aren't in themselves what he wants ... what this Faust wants for himself is a dynamic process that will include every mode of human experience, joy and misery alike, and assimilate them all into his self's unending growth ... "

(Berman, 1997, p.73)

Faust plans to:

"draw on nature's own energy and organize that energy into the fuel for new collective human purposes and projects ... He outlines great reclamation projects to harness the sea ... ; man-made harbours and canals that can move ships full of goods and men; dams for large-scale irrigation; green fields and forests, pastures and gardens, a vast and intensive agriculture; waterpower to attract and support emerging industries; thriving settlements, new towns and cities to come - and all this to be created out of a barren wasteland ... "

(Berman, 1997, p.75) Berman points out that this vision of development also entails the self-development of Faust himself; he is becoming a new kind of man: 'the consummate wrecker and creator, the dark and deeply ambiguous figure that our ale has come to call 'the developer" (Berman, 1997, p.75).

Although the story of Faust is a myth, there are lessons to be learnt, not least about t e ambiguity of the notion of development. It ay be impossible to achieve 'good change' on a c ntinuous basis without destroying something p eviously held dear, such as traditional values nd forms of livelihood, or a sense lof control 0 er day-to-day life. For some this may indeed amount to losing one's soul:

I think that you can begin to see how it is impossible to avoid the contradictions behind the idea of development by laying down a single, simple definition of one's own. As Cowen and Shenton point out (1996, p.4): 'Development~

comes to be defined in a multiplicity of ways ~

because there are a multiplicity of 'developers' . who are entrusted with the task of development.'

Capitalism and development

The growth of industrial capitalism as a global system from the first half ofthe nineteenth century provides a real example of a process of social change which has built on itself and which went alongside the creation of new kinds of human being - or at least new forms of livelihood and of motivation. According to Cowen and Shenton (1996) in their discussion of the his-

tory ofthe idea of development, the era of industrial capitalism has also been the period of the 'modern doctrine of development'. They suggest that the latter was invented in the first half of the nineteenth century precisely to control the social disruptions caused by the unchecked 'development' of capitalism.

Here we run up against an immediate difficulty with different uses of the term 'development'. Capitalism had been 'developing' for several centuries up to this point (see Chapter 11), continues to 'develop' to this day, and can be expected to 'develop' into the future. Indeed, an absolutely crucial aspect of capitalism is that it is intrinsically dynamic; it tends to build on itself and grow

or 'develop' from within. This is im.manentde~· \' velopment, and should be clearly differentiated <: from the intentional development which forms the deliberate p...QJ.ic.}LaJ:)._d a~j;ioDs of states and develoPment agencies. Cowen and Shenton alSo argue that development should be conceptually differentiated from progress. They point out that in the preceding centuries progress had been thought of as an immanent process, in that human society was conceived as moving inexorably to a higher and higher stage of civilization. There had always been casualties of this 'progress', as with those agricultural producers dispossessed by the 'enclosures' of the early seventeenth century in Britain. Only when this 'progress' moved to the stage of industrial capitalism did the poverty, unemployment and human misery caused threaten to bring about social disorder on a scale which necessitated 'intentional constructive activity' (Cowen & Shenton, 1996). This was when intentional development was invented.

"Industrial production and organization was accepted ... to be a historically given part of the movement towards an organic, positive or natural stage of society in Europe. The burden of development was to compensate for the negative propensities of capitalism through the reconstruction of social order. To develop, then, was to ameliorate the social misery which arose out of the immanent process of capitalist growth."

(Cowen & Shenton, 1996, p.1l6)

Progress, imm:anentdevelopment and intentional development: Progress ifuplies continual improvement reaching ./ higher-and higher levels perhaps without riIn_i( whereas development, as an anal_ogy from the development ofliving organj'isjlls"implies moving towards the

fulfilment of a potential. Immanent devel-

~.g •

-'"' opmentmeans a spontaneous and uncon-

scious Cnatural'") process of development

./ from within, which may entail destruc- 4

tion ofthe old in order to achieve the new. Intentional development impliesdeliber-

. ate efforts to achieve higher levels in ,terms of set objectives.-/

By the early nineteenth century capitalism had 'developed' into what could be described as a 'market society' (Polanyi, 1957). In other words, not merely the economic aspects but the whole of human existence was governed by the principles of ' a self-regulating system of markets'; 'an industrial system [which] was in full swing over the major part of the planet' (ibid., pp.43-4).

Markets have always been a part of all human societies (Figure 2.2), and all societies have been limited by economic factors. What was new in civilization based on the self-regulating market, according to Polanyi, was that it:

" ... was economic in a different and distinctive sense, for it chose to base itself on a motive only rarely acknowledged as valid in the history of human societies, and certainly never before raised to the level of a justification of action and behavior in everyday life, namely, gain."

(Polanyi, 1957, p.30)

In order for the whole of life to be governed by self-regulating markets, it is necessary not only for what is produced to be bought and sold, i.e. to become a commodity, but for the factors of production - land, labour power and productive organization itself - to become commodities as well. Indeed, one way of characterizing

Figure 2.2 The self-regulating market. The working of markets like this large grain market in north-west India sets prices for commodities. Such markets can exist within or outside capitalism; capitalism requires the combination of regulation through the market with other elements, notably production for profit and accumulation.

capitalism is to call it a system of generalized commodity production (see Box 2.1; also Chapter 11). Polanyi argued that the movement towards commodification of the factors of production gave rise to tremendous negative consequences for 'man', 'nature' and productive organization, and hence to movements to 'protect' each of these. Eventually the conflict between these movements and those which tried to promote capitalism would lead to the latter's downfall. Pclanyi thought that the events of the first half ofthe twentieth century (two world wars, the Depression, the growth of Fascism and authoritarian communism) showed that the capitalist market system was indeed selfdestructing, but in fact it has regained and increased its strength and become more fully a global system. However, as we will see in Section 2.3 below, Polanyi's conflicting movements can still be recognized today.

Development of, alongside, or aflainst capitalism

We can already see the makings of the most basic disagreements between different views on development. These are differences in how development is seen to relate to capitalism. At one extreme there is neoliberalism, for which the immanent development of capitalism is sufficient. A number of essentially different views, concerned with underlying social and economic structures and which see development as involving changes in these structures, are grouped under the heading structuralism. These views tend to be associated with advocating state planning and are generally out of favour as far as development practice is concerned, though as with the views ofPolanyi they may still contain useful analytical insights.

Then there is what we may call interuentiq.TJi,sm, which sees the need for intentional development·

Box 2.1 The elements of global capitalism Capitalism can be characterized as a system of production of goods and services for market exchange in order to make a profit. Capitalism has certain basic elements as an ideal system which, taken together, distinguish it from other systems: private ownership; regulation via selfregulating markets (commoditization and competition); distribution of welfare through the market determination of wages; and enterprise management for profit and accumulation. And these elements act together to promote development and growth in the system and to legitimate it as a whole.

Ownership. Capitalism means private ouinership: the ownership of the means of production is private and individual. The archetypal capitalist owns his or her land, buildings, tools, and equipment, and hires in labour and buys raw materials in order to use these means of production to produce goods and services for sale. In the case of large corporations, there are many owners, but they still hold shares as individuals. Of course, not all individuals own means of production, either directly or through holding shares in productive enterprises. The important point is that the main form of ownership is not a collective form, and in particular is not state ownership.

Regulation. Capitalism means self-regulating markets, not state planning or intervention. In this context, regulation refers to how decisions are made about what is produced, how much of each product, at what price and what quality, and so on. Under capitalism, such regulation is effectively imposed through the impersonal mechanism of the self-regulating market, via commoduizouon. and competition. All goods and services are in principle turned into commodities for exchange rather than for the producer's own use (see Chapter 5 for more on the distinction between commodity and subsistence production), Individual producers and firms can then produce what they like, decide on quality and set what prices they like, but the assumption is that competition between firms, together with consumer choice between competitive versions of the same commodity, will force them to set the 'right' prices and produce wb al is actually required.

Distribution. Under capitalism the allocation of resources and the distribution of welfare are

done through the market determination of wages. In principle, there is no universal provision or rationing even of basic goods or welfare services. How much a person gets (ie his or her entitlement, in the terms explained in Chapter 3) depends entirely on personal income. or on how a household's income is divided between income generators and dependants when it comes to consumption. For the majority of the population who work as wage labourers, this in turn depends on how much of the surplus derived from the sale of the products comes to them as wages, ra ther than goillg to the capitalist owners as profit. The level of wages is determined through the labour market, and competition for employment will tend to keep wage rates down. Thus workers' labour power is another commodity. This is an important part of cha-actcrizing capitalism a:; a system of generalized commoditv production, implying that labour power as welJ as land. means of production and alJ goods and services are cornmoditizcd (see also Chapter 11)

Wages are not ,.'he only source of income under capitalism. Those who are capitalists, large or small, get incame through dividends on shares or taking profit directly, Chapters 3, 5 and 11 discuss different forms of livelihood and 'labour regime'. We will see that while the division into capitalists and workers may be basic to the notion of capitalism, there are many other groups only partially linked into the overall system but whose welfare is still determined mainly through market mechanisms. Peasants and craft producers, for example, may combine petty commodity production, deli ving income from the sale of their produce, with a certain amount of direct production for own use (in other words, to use the language of entitlements explained in Chapter 3, they combine trade with exchange entitlements).

At an international level, markets determine general income levels through their effects on a country's international earnings and liabilities. Market principles apply at international level to set the interest rates and conditions on the servicing of international debts. Markets also regulate the changes in world commodity prices (and the generally adverse movement of the terms of trade from the point of view of the less developed countries, as noted in Chapters 7 and 13).

Enterprise management. Production under capitalism is run with the aim of making a profit in order to accumulate (see below). In the case of small-scale agriculture, trying to achieve a profit leads to a different regime from that which attempts to safeguard all livelihoods against risk. It implies a polariza tion into a relatively small number of 'rich peasant" lor capitalist farmer households and a larger number of landless wage labourers. In general, l1lil.nagell.clt is cl:cdertaken by or on behalf of the capitalist owners and in their interests, 'Clther thun directed primarily towards the inwrests of the workers in the enterprise, or of the iocal community or the state. Even if the ~tatc itself; or collective institutions such as pension funds, owns shares in productive enterprrses, the management of such enterprises still treats these owners as individuals whose prime interest is to maximize the return on theninvest.ment.

Deoelopment and growth.. Capitalism has an inbuilt dynamic tendency to grow and develop. Individual owners aim to accumulate profits

and are led, through the necessity to compete, to invest these in technology which IS ever more efficient, for example in its use of labour, and 111 product innovations which substitute for older products. Less efficient production units fail and are taken over by the more efficient and innovative.

Legitimation, All these elements fit together to form a global system tha t also functions in)3.D. ideological fashion to legitimate actions a)ten in particular ways. In this system gain ha become a valid justification for actions an behaviour at all levels, from the individu l's dealings w i t h others to the activities f transnational corporations. There are many e amples where international and Northern age cies have advocated new practices in line with capitalist principles, even where these involved dismantling previous welfare-oriented policies. The idea that the system works as a whole to promote efficiency and wealth creation is very powerful, and acts to legitimate actions which would otherwise appear simply to be favouring the interests of capitalists themselves.

alongside capitalism in order to 'ameliorate the disorded faults of progress' (Cowen & Shenton, 1996, p.7). Since the demise of state socialism and the softening of neoliberalism in the 1990s, it might appear that those with a degree of power in various development agencies today are all interventionists of some description. Thus subdivisions within interventionism may be the most important divisions in terms of current practical policy debates. Most simply, int§rventionists may be subdivided into those who intend their interventions to make the market regulate itself better and become more efflciffii.Canafnose [0-;: who~ the intention is to achieve social and humanitarian aims directly ana to govern the market from 'outside as part of doing so.

These are not the only possibilities, however. Many still reject capitalism and look for alternatives in dffferent models of development: there are large movements searching for new forms of socialism which do not depend on the staiu as well as for what is variously termed another development, alternative development, or people-

____. . -....... ~

centred development. Finally there is the post, . deVeloprnenl. school, mentioned in Chapter 1 (and of which Berman is a member) which re-

jects the whole notion of development. --

. ~ ~ 1'--- -

Table 2.1 lays out these views of development schematically. In Section 2.5 below, I explore the dimensions of debate which give rise to the differences between them, and develop the table further (see Table 2.2 below). First, however, it will be useful to disentangle the different senses in which the word 'development' is used, often, and confusingly, at one and the same time.

Different senses of J development'

At the very start of this chapter we noted the potential for confusion arising from the different senses of the term 'development'. Even the simple definition 'good change' combines two different meanings of development (as a vision and as a process). Taking the two together can often have the effect, as Cowen and Shenton point out, that 'the question 'What is intended by development?' is confused with the question 'What is development?" (1996, p.viii), Most of

Table 2.1 The main views of development and how they relate to capitalism

,
Development Development alongside Development against capitalism Reiecuon of
of capitalism capitalism development
Neoliberalism Interventionism Structuralism ' Alternative' 'Post-development'
[people-centred]
development
Intervening to Achieving
improve social goals by
'market 'governing the
efficiency' I market' I the rest of this chapter is devoted to distinguishing the main senses in which the term 'development' is used, and exploring each in terms of the alternative political and theoretical views already noted.

'Development' as an idea can of course apply to any field, from crop breeding and child psychology to aesthetics, and holds similar contradictory tendencies within it in each case. In this book we are primarily concerned with the development of societies, although within that the development of individuals and of localities is also important. What people learn from their experiences may be regarded as 'personal development', and one of the most influential attempts at defining what is meant by development is based on the idea of creating the conditions for 'the realization ofthe potential of human personality' (Seers, 1969; see below). Also, particular building projects may be called 'developments', and development as building is an important idea when considering how development occurs or may be brought about. The relationship between development at local levels and at national or societal levels also brings in the idea of equity between various localities or between different social groups or classes. These are useful subsidiary considerations, but our main focus remains at the broad level of development in relation to poverty throughout the world.

Bearing this focus in mind, we can distinguish three main senses in which the term"';'deveIQPment' is used:

---

l_i·; as a,.!ision, description or measure of the state of being of a desirable society;

'_ 2" as an historical process of social change in which societies are transformea" over ro~ng periods;

_31 as consisting of deliberate efforts aimed at improvement on the part of various agencies, including governments, all kinds of organizations and social movements.

We should realize that the term 'development' may still be used when what is referred to does not actually live up to the ideals espoused. Thus, measures of development may be used to analyse lack of development or underdevelopment. As already noted, 9£velopment as an historical p'rocess is certainly not necessarily positive. For' '"flierr pa:ft,aevelopment efforts do not all succeed.

The three senses in which 'development' is used are of course related. The state of being a desirable society is supposedly the result of the historical process of development; and the vision of a desirable society may form an aim towards which to direct efforts at improvement. The idea of development as historical social change does not negate the importance of , doing development'. Historical processes incorporate millions of deliberate actions. Conversely, one's view of what efforts are likely to succeed in leading to 'improvement'is bound to be coloured by one's view of history and of how social change occurs.

In the next three sections we look a little more closely at each of the three senses of 'development' in turn.

r-V II:rl.11 ANU LJI:VCLvr-nl:;:I,1 ""' -_. -. --.

2.2 Development as a state of being

The first sense of the word 'development', that of a vision or description of a desirable society, already hides a number of debates. Different political ideals clearly lead to different visions of what is desirable, and one person's utopia could be a nightmare for another. For example, what aspects should be included when considering development, and how should it be measured? Is it primarily an economic concept? Or should social aspects be of equal or even of greater importance? Should questions about what is politically feasible be allowed to constrain one's vision of a desirable, 'developed' society? If, for example, ideals such as equity, political participation and so on may be in conflict with the achievement of development in an economic sense, should the former be included in a definition of development - or regarded as additional desirable elements?

Development as a vision ca.:1~_~qlJlJi!.ill.into goals for development efforts (see Box 1.1 in Chapter 1), while development as a state of being lends itself to measurement. Thus one can speak of being more or less developed, and tables are drawn up showing how developed the countries of the world are on various criteria, and even ranking them on different development indicators.

One problem with trying to distinguish between development as a vision or a (desirable) state of being from development as a process is that many visions of development include the idea of constant improvement or growth as part of what constitutes a desirable state. So for many proponents of development as economic well-being, for example, a developed society is a modern industrial society, and this is not just one which has reached certain levels of wealth, but one which is continually growing in economic terms and thus 'improving' further. GNP per capita (see Chapter 1) should not just be high, but always increasing.

To some extent the same is true of those who base their visions more on social factors or on

human needs. For example, proponents of 'people=c8ntred develo merit' may argue not that

eve opmerit means a state where everX0ne's needs are met but one where conditions e ist for a~p~j;bem sel \res icLthe.iJ: .. fuJ.LRII'-' l<liio!lo.I<.I.!aI..

I have now mentioned two very differe t visions of development: that of a modern ind strial society and that of a society where ever individual's potential can be realized. A third, ather more prosaic, 'vision' could be of amelioration of poverty and other problems via measurable improvements in a number of indicators (possibly including GNP per capita, but certainly not only that). I will explain each a little further in turn.

Modern industrial society

In a world dominated by advanced capitalist economies, all aspects of modern industrial society are elevated to represent the ideal of what development is trying to achieve. This may be encapsulated in the idea of development as 'following in the footsteps of the West', which, in effect, is to say 'If you want what we have (and have achieved), then you must become like us, and do as we did (and continue to do)' (Bernstein, 1983).

This view of development as modernization comes particularly from the 19pOs and 1960s. For example:

"Historically, modernization is the process of change toward those types of social, economic and political systems that have developed in Western Europe and North America from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth and have then spread to other European countries and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the South American, Asian and African continents."

(Eisenstadt, 1966, p.I)

Another modernization theorist lists the following inter-related technical, economic and ecological processes:

"(1) in the realm of technology, the change from simple and traditionalized techniques towards the application of scientific knowledge;

(2) in agriculture, the evolution from subsistence farming towards commercial production of agricultural goods. This means specialization in cash crops, purchase of non-agricultural products in the market, and often agricultural wage labour;

(3) in industry, the transition from the use of human and animal power towards industrialization proper, or 'men aggregated at power-driven machines, working for monetary return with the products of the manufacturing process entering into a market based on a network of exchange relations';

(4) in ecological arrangements, the movementfrom farm and village towards urban centres."

(Smelser, 1968, p.126) The most obvious distinguishing feature of those Western countries which are thoroughly modernized and developed is that they have undergone industrial revolutions which have led to economic development (an increase in productive capacity and labour productivity) and hence economic growth (an increasing GNP - or, more precisely, increasing GDP). As a result they now enjoy high per capita income.

Economic growth: A continued increase in the size of an economy (its GDP), i.e. a sustained increase in output over a period.

Economic developme_nt: 'Raising the - productive capacities of societies, in terms of their technologies (more efficient tools and machines), technical cultures (knowledge of nature, research and capacity to develop improved technologies), and the ~ physical, technical and organizational ca- ~~.' pacities and skills ofthose engaged in pro- ~ duction. This can also be expressed in terms of raising the productivity oflabour: using the labour available to society in more productive and efficient ways to produce a greater quantity and a more diverse range of goods and services' (Bernstein, 1983, p.59).

Thus, modernization (Figure 2.3) implies com-' plete transformations in many aspects of life, brought about by economic development through industry and industrialization. The industrial revolution in Britain has been described as a process of , total' change: 'a change of social structure, of ownership and economic power in society; as well as a change of scale' (Kitching, 1982, p.ll). In general, industrialization means an increased percentage ofGDP from industrial sector outputs, and, more fundamentally, a general change of social structure organization scale, concentration and ways ~f thinking to~ wards giving primacy to productivity, efficiency and instrumentality.

._~

I '\.

I \.

(~i ~, __ .

-----,--

o

o

Figure 2.3

Industry: Can be defined in two different ways. The first divides all economic activity into sectors and defines industry as the production of all material goods not derived directly from the land. Industry thus comprises the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors, and does not include agriculture or services. The second definition emphasizes technical and social change: an industrial production process is one that uses advanced technology and a complex technical division of labour, and is linked to other forms of production through combining a wide range of raw materials, skills and sources of energy.

Industrialization: The process by which production in the industrial sector becomes increasingly important compared with agricultural production; more fundamentally, it means a general change towards the use of advanced technology and a complex division oflabour in production with associated changes in social strycture and ~ organization.

For Smelser, capitalism itself was an aspect of becoming modern and developed inseparable from industrialization. One might argue that, in principle, industrialization, along with many aspects of modernization, does not necessarily imply a capitalist system. State socialist models of planned development, for example (see Chapter 14), generally included plans for industrialization. Indeed, when Kitching used the phrase 'the old orthodoxy' to describe the idea that 'If you want to develop you must industrialize' (Kitching, 1982, p.6), he was clearly pointing out how both capitalist and state socialist ideas of development take it to mean industrialization. However; in practice, since the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, modernization, industrialization and capitalism have always gone together.

One further feature in common is that these Western countries are liberal democracies: they combine the prosperity associated with industrialized economies with political systems based on parliamentary representative democracy. Those countries which modernize successfully may then be seen as those where political institutions develop which allow people to give voice to their new aspirations, and which allow at least some of the wealth accumulated by the capitalist entrepreneurs to trickle down to other sections of society. Liberal democracy as a political form allows for 'freedom' in electing representatives to match 'freedom' in the market.

Those few countries which have joined the ranks of 'advanced capitalist economies' in the last thirty years are all from East Asia. This might throw doubt on the cultural specificity of

\

Bernstein's statement above, with its emphasis on 'the West'. It is also unclear that in all cases they are fully democratic, although it is argued that this is the only one direction in which they can travel, politically speaking.

Thus the combination of capitalist industrialization with liberal democracy is seen by many as now the only viable model for development. Fukuyama (1995), for example, writes,

"Today virtually all advanced countries have adopted, or are trying to adopt, liberal democratic political institutions, and a great number have simultaneously moved in the direction of market-oriented economics and integration into the global capitalist division oflabour.

... As modern technology unfolds, it shapes modern economies in a coherent fashion, interlocking them in a vast global economy. The increasing complexity and information intensity of modern life at the same time renders centralized economic planning extremely difficult. The enormous prosperity created by technology-driven capitalism, in turn, serves as an incubator for a liberal regime of universal and equal rights, in which the struggle for recognition of human dignity culminates ... [T]he world's advanced countries have no alternative model of political and economic organization other than democratic capitalism to which they can aspire."

(Fukuyama, 1995, pp.3-4)

The realization of human potential

Another vision of development starts not from production but from people and from human needs. David Korten, for example, one of the leading proponents of'alternative development', contrasts 'growth-centred' with 'people-centred' visions of development. He describes the basis of the latter as follows:

"The survival of our civilization, and perhaps our very lives, depends on committing ourselves to an alternative development practice guided by the three basic principles of authentic development:

justice, sustainability and inclusiveness - each of which is routinely and systematically violated by current practice.

• /Justice: Priority must be given to assuring a decent human existence for all people;

G Sustainability: Earth's resources must be used in ways that assure the well-being of future generations.

• Inclusiveness: Every person must have the opportunity to be a recognized and respected contributor to family, community and society.

(Korten, 1995b)

Such an approach was partly foreshadowed in Dudley Seers' (1979) article 'The meaning of development' (first published 1969) which pointed out the importance of value judgements in deciding what is or is not 'development'. Seers suggested that 'the realization of the potential of human personality .. .is a universally acceptable aim', and development must therefore entail ensuring the conditions for achieving this aim.

The first three conditions were (Seers, 1979, pp.10-11):

• the capacity to obtain physical necessities (particularly food);

• a job (not necessarily paid employment, but including studying, working on a family farm or keeping house); and

• equality, which should be considered an objective in its own right.

Seers (1979, p.12) also recognized the political dimension and suggested further conditions for development in addition to those mentioned above:

• participation in government;

• belonging to a nation that is truly independent, both economically and politically (Figure 2.4);

Q adequate educational levels (especially literacy).

Seers' formulation was designed to challenge the economic basis of the type of vision of development outlined above, with its emphasis on productivity, growth, and increasing GNP per capita. Economic development of this type does not necessarily reduce the numbers in poverty, let alone meet other human needs such as those pointed to by Seers. However, Seers was an economist arguing for an emphasis on human needs and equity alongside economic growth, and as such did not go far enough for many seeking an alternative which would provide a clearer break from economistic development thinking.

For example, three further aspects of importance that have gained recognition since Seers wrote his article (in 1969) are the position of women, safeguarding the environment, and human security. Thus we might now add three further items to Seers' six:

relatively equal status for and participation by women in society (Figure 2.5);

'Here, Senor Currer, is' the statue 0 [ Simon Bolivar, who liberated Larin America [rom foreign domina/ion!'

Figure 2.4 'True' national independence: a condition for development?

Empowerment: A desired process by which individuals, typically including the I 'poorest ofthe poor', are to take direct con- kJ trol over their lives. Once 'empowered' to H do so, poor people will then (hopefully) be ~l able to be the agents of their own development.

Human-needs centred development:

A term for development where the level of

-s at.isfact io n of various dimensions of human needs is considered to have improved. Extending Seers! conditions for development to a list of nine gives:

1 low levels of material poverty;

2 low level of unemployment;

3 relative equality;

4 democratization of political life; 5 'true' national independence;

6 good literacy and educational levels; 7 relatively equal status for women and ,\ participation by women;

8 sustainable ability to meet future needs;

9 human security.

Here one vision is that people should be enabled (or 'empowered') to take direct action to meet their own needs. In material terms this vision is clear and simple. It accords, for example, with how Schumacher (1973) discusses development in his famous book Small is Beautiful, when he comments that 'The really helpful things will not be done from the centre; they cannot be done by big organizations; but they can be done by the people themselves ... [Ijt is the most natural thing for every person born into this world to use his [sic] hands in a productive way and .. .it is not beyond the wit of man [sic] to make this possible ... ' (pp.205-6). This can be conceived in terms of localized or community-based production for material needs. Kitching (1982), tracing the long history of similar ideas arising as a reaction to capitalist development and industrialization, suggests that many have in common a 'populist' vision:

Figure 2.5 Women's status and political participation: conditions for development? 1986 Muslim women's demonstration in India against divorce bill making concessions to fundamentalists.

e 'meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' (definition of sustainable development by the Brundtland Commission);

freedom from social dislocation, violence and war.

This makes nine conditions for what we might call human-needs centred development.

Another strand ofthinking on what is desirable for development starts with non-economic factors in building a vision of development. One such approach (identified in Chapters 1 and 3 with Amartya Sen) views poverty in terms not of poor material living standards but of lack of choice or of capability: poverty meaning the failure to be able to take a full part in human society. In these terms, development means not just combating or ameliorating poverty but restoring or enhancing basic human capabilities and freedoms. This is often seen in terms of participation and empowerment, particularly by non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

"A world of 'humanized' production, based on a small scale but modern and scientific technology, a world of co-operation in villages and small towns, a world of enriched social relationships growing out of a process of production and exchange that is under human control rather than 'alienated' ... "

(Kitching, 1982, p.179) One has to ask why it so often does prove 'beyond the wit of man' for production and exchange to be 'under human control'. Clearly a successful process of empowerment must also involve changes in power structures both at local and at broader, national and international, levels. As Korten puts it:

that promote participative development at a local level.

"Some NGOs have equated people-centred' development with participatory village development interventions. Such interventions are important, but in themselves are generally inconsequential. ..

People-centred development ... attributes poverty to a concentration and misuse of power and resources - especially ecological resources - in a finite world. It calls for an equality-led transformation of institutions and values to restore community, redistribute power, and reallocate earth's natural wealth to uses that contribute to sustainable improvements in human well-being."

(Korten, 1995b, pp.178-9) Empowerment, then, implies redistributing power and transforming institutions. These are aspects of democracy, or democratization - a subject discussed further in Chapter 17. Thus, although empowerment in the sense of becoming able to take direct control over one's life appears at first to be a far cry from Seers' 'participation in government', they are arguably closely linked.

It is not certain whether the list of nine 'conditions for human-needs centred development' given above is sufficient to describe the essence of the vision of 'people-centred' or 'alternative' development. Perhaps, for many who conceive a comprehensive vision of development ofthis type in holistic terms, the very idea of a number of conditions or dimensions is an inadequate way of representing something based on supposedly universal values. There is also the specific point that the nine conditions are formulated in terms of the needs and aspirations of individuals and of nations, whereas people-centred development also considers development for groups, local communities, and social classes, as well as an international dimension.

A final important aspect of the alternative development vision is cultural diversity. If people and communities are empowered to develop themselves, it follows that they will do so in distinctively different ways which will be affected by a whole variety of cultural variables. There is then a question ofthe relationship between specific cultural preferences and the presentation

of the nine 'conditions for human-needs centred development' or Korten's three 'principles of authentic development' as having universal validity. Thus, while the elements of the alternative development vision may not form one specific cohesive whole, they certainly do form an alternative to the vision of modern, industrial society as the unique goal for the development of all human society.

'Ameliorating the disordered faults of progress'

A third type of vision for development is less thoroughgoing in its value basis than the two discussed so far. Here development means ameliorating poverty, improving the health of populations, mitigating environmental degradation, promoting democratization, and so on. It may be recognized by positive changes in a number of indicators corresponding to the whole range of different dimensions of human existence.

In one way this vision could combine aspects of the other two. Thus modern industrial society could be accepted as a global reality even though it might not be thought of as an ideal since the progress that achieved it also brought enormous problems. The rather minimal 'vision' for development, in this case, would be to make sufficient small improvements to keep these problems manageable and prevent degeneration into chaos. The nine conditions for 'human-needs centred development' given above could then be one way of providing a checklist of areas in which these small improvements would have to be made.

2.3 Development as historical process

The social change which occurs over long periods mayor may not be towards closer conformity with one or other of the visions which constitute development in the first sense. Indeed, many argue that the very processes ~hich led to development in some parts of the world were also the cause of underdevelopment in other parts. These historical processes have to be seen in re-

lation to the 'development' of industrial capitalism. Just as there are very different visions of the desirable 'developed' society, so there are different views of this historical relationship.

Here the distinction made above between immanent and intentional development is of key importance. As already noted, capitalism includes an internal dynamic which tends to lead to a kind of immanent development. The vision of development which I characterized as 'modern industrial society', which we noted is argued to be possible only within liberal capitalism, includes within it the notion of continuous economic growth. There is also room for the idea of intentional development alongside the growth of capitalism, as in the ideas which I have been relaying from Cowen and Shenton, where development is aimed at maintaining order in the face of capitalism's tendency to create social dislocation as well as internal growth.

The alternative vision, based on the realization of human potential in diverse ways, allows for the idea of immanent development at the level of individuals and communities, which should become 'empowered' to develop themselves to their full capacities. However, there is no clear model for how development of this kind might build on itself to create a self-reI?roducing process of social change throughout a whole society over a long period. It is easier to conceptualize 'alternative development' in terms of development agencies (both individuals and organizations) continually making new efforts to promote their own vision of development. This is dealt with in the next subsection 'doing development' (and in Chapter 9) - rather than here.

However, those who look for an alternative to the notion that liberal capitalism ... and global market society constitute=theonly future for humanity tend also to dispute the idea that the development of capitalism accords to some kind of natural historical law. Although its internal dynamics tend towards growth once it is established, industrial capitalism cannot come about or spread to new areas through its own internal logic. Polanyi, for example, argued that the conditions for global capitalism have constantly to

be promoted by those political forces which favour them. He characterized the historical processes by which global capitalism has been established not in terms of the immanent development of capitalism itself but as a struggle between two 'movements': one trying to achieve the commoditization of land, labour and economic organization by force; the other attempting to 'protect' these three elements.

Thus there are two distinct views of the historical 'development' of capitalism and its relationship to development as an historical process. The first emphasizes the internal dynamics of capitalist economic growth as the engine of 'development' but has room for intentional development, while the second sees a political struggle between the promotion of a selfregulating market society and its regulation from outside. Let us consider each of these in turn in a little more detail.

The dynamics of capitalist growth

Within the internal logic of the self-regulating market, the owners of the means of production are assumed to be acting rationally in accordance with their own material interests. In turn this is assumed to mean maximizing profit or return on investment in order to accumulate and reinvest. Here market competition is seen as the main force towards economic progress. David McLelland, an American psychologist who claimed to have isolated the vital motivational factor necessary for economic development, suggested the following metaphor for market competition: 'The free enterprise system ... may be compared to a garden in which all plants are allowed to grow until some crowd the others out' (McLelland, 1963, p.90).

Faced with market competition, the best ways to ensure continued profits are to grow and innovate. These both lead to increased labour productivity: growth does so through economies of scale, and innovation through capital investment in improved production processes. Thus successful capitalists are able to enter a positively reinforcing cycle: profit - accumulationreinvestment - growth - innovation - increased

productivity - increased profits; and then can use those increased profits to continue the cycle. This system is seen as progressive because it allows enterprising individuals to thrive, and their innovations and increased productivity will eventually be benefits for all. This argument goes back to the famous phrases of Adam Smith: the 'hidden hand of the market' converts individual interests into 'the wealth of nations'.

However, it also depends on a particular kind of individualist motivation: a drive for achievement which will not only aim at personal gain but also convert this gain into productive investment which may eventually benefit society generally. Some have argued that capitalism took root first in Western Europe and North America because of the kind of individualist motivation found in a culture pervaded by 'the Protestant ethic' (see Chapter 21). More recently it has been suggested (see e.g. Fukuyama, 1995) that another crucial cultural factor is a propensity to associate, or social capital. The winners in the competition need to be able to organize others into large corporations or networks and to have confidence that the others can be relied upon to play their organized role. Only then can the winners benefit from economies of scale while remaining flexible. Thus without a combination of social

Social capital: 'The ability of people to work together for common purposes in groups and organizations' (Coleman, 1988). If ca pi tal in general is thought of in terms of accumulated resources which allow for productive activity, then social capital is an aspect of human capital; that is, capi-

. tal which is embodied less in land, factories and buildings and more in human beings, their knowledge and skills. Part of that human capital is to do with the ability of human beings to associate, which in turn comes from shared values and the subordination of individual interests. Out of shared values comes trust, which has 'a large and measurable economic value' (Fukuyama, 1995, p.10).

lit

capital and individual profit motive the reinforcing cycle of reinvestment and increasing productivity will not get going to create economic development.

To extend this argument to a national level, economic growth cannot take place without investment of capital to obtain additional means of production. This implies that a proportion of the total output must be set aside from consumption as savings, which can then be channelled into investment. The simplest model of economic growth shows that if a high rate of growth is to be achieved, either a high rate of savings (and thus of foregone consumption) is necessary, or else investment will have to be obtained from elsewhere, e.g. foreign investment or borrowing.

However, this does not tell us which social groups will be going without. Those who are foregoing their consumption may have no choice in the matter. The term 'savings' does not get at this so well as the notions of the appropriation of surplus and surplus accumulation. Also, although there can be no economic growth without investment, by itself investment is not sufficient to guarantee growth. As you will see in Chapter 5, in addition to social capital, some aspects of the organization of production, both technical and social, will have a big effect on how productively any investment can be utilized.

Economic growth may do no more than keep pace with population growth, but where the growth in output is greater than that of population - that is, labour productivity (see Chapter 5) has increased - then economic development in its simplest sense may be said to have occurred (see above). However, for most economists development is more than this. Whereas growth means more of the same type of output, development implies more thoroughgoing changes, changes in the social and technical relations of production (see Chapter 5 again). Thus the productive capacity of a society as a whole has to increase, rather than just increasing productivity within its productive enterprises.

Thus, the dynamic for the 'development' of capitalism is provided by individual entrepreneurs linked through the market. However,

Surplus, appropriation, accumulation:

That portion of what is produced at any .~ given time that is not required for immedi- ~ ate consumption, including reproduction, is ~ called the surplus product or simply the surplus. It may be preserved as a store of " produce or implements, or converted through market relations into a sum of cash. There are three main possible uses for the surplus product. It can be kept as a reserve against future needs. It can be taken by dominant social groups or classes and used for 'luxury' or 'conspicuous' consumption and for maintaining their power (e.g. building palaces or temples, keeping armies). Or it can be used as a means of investment in expanding production and!

or increasing its efficiency by improving productivity. In the second case the surplus

is said to be appropriated by the dominant groups or classes concerned. The surplus may also be appropriated by dominant groups in the last case; the difference is that they then use it for what is termed productive accumulation, or simply accumulation.

is in order to harness their talents to increase the productive capacity of society rather than allowing their disaffection to endanger societal order that development was 'invented'. Cowen and Shenton give several detailed examples of intentional development - for example, in Australia and Canada in the mid-nineteenth century and in Kenya in the 1950s - and note that in each case:

"The problem of development was the same - the emergence of a surplus population which was officially recognized to be a national problem because it prompted the fear of social disorder and the loss of a population with the potential for productive force."

(Cowen & Shenton, 1996, p.190)

Although the problem was the same, the solutions proposed could be very different, including the promotion of manufacturing industry via what would now be called a flexible labour market, protection of 'infant industries', state promotion of agricultural colonization and settlement, programmes of public works, and state banks making loans to the poor. Interestingly, policies aimed in a similar way at making 'surplus' populations productive are the substance of many development programmes to this day, including, for example, the recent preoccupation with small-scale credit to promote 'microenterprise' among the poor (see Chapter 5).

In the end, the immanent processes of capitalist growth brought about as the sum of gradual changes initiated by many enterprising individuals combine with these ameliorative programmes of intentional development and lead to a total change in social structure, political systems and culture; in other words, to modernization as the term was used in the 1950s and 1960s (see above and Chapter 13).

growth is almost always achieved at the cost of inequity. The argument essentially is that the best way to achieve significant growth is by increasing the scale of production and concentrating capital investment in the larger and more productive enterprises. T~iS Iso means industrializing. In the short run t least, the savings required to increase ind strial productivity and output may have j;b come from the agricultural sector; in otherwords, part of the agricultural surplus will have to be appropriated for accumulation in the industrial sector. Trying to spread investment equitably in improving productivity everywhere at- once may mean its impact is so diluted as to have no real effect anywhere.

Thus the same process which depends on winners also creates losers - for example, agricultural producers who can no longer make a living and who migrate to cities or overseas in search of productive opportunities for their labour. It

A struggle between pro-market and protectionist movements

One of Polanyi's main arguments was against the suggestion of Adam Smith and others that the economic motive of personal gain is a basic human characteristic so that markets will tend

to 'develop' as soon as they are free from outside regulation. On the contrary, Polanyi argued that while market exchange has generally been an element in the economic organization of human societies, it has tended to be subordinated to other principles such as those of reciprocity and redistribution. Only with the coming of industrial capitalism in Europe from the early nineteenth century has the principle of the self-regulating market become the organizing feature of society as a whole, and this only because it has actively been promoted.

Polanyi summarized his argument as follows:

"Economic history reveals that the emergence of national markets was in no way the result of the gradual and spontaneous emancipation of the economic sphere from government contro!' On the contrary, the market has been the outcome of a conscious and often violent intervention on the part of government which imposed the market organization on society for non-economic ends."

(Polanyi, 1957, p.250) As noted in Section 2.1 above, Polanyi pointed out that the market could not be truly selfregulating unless not only the goods and services produced but the factors of production - land, labour and productive organization - became commodities to be bought and sold. This could not happen 'naturally', not least because it would be so disruptive that powerful forces would arise to 'protect' society from its effects.

"Our thesis is that the idea of a selfadjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness. Inevitably, society took measures to protect itself, but whatever measures it took impaired the self-regulation of the market, disorganized industrial life, and thus endangered society in yet another way."

(Polanyi, 1957, pp.3-4)

Thus Polanyi interpreted the history of the nineteenth century as a struggle between two 'movements'; on the one hand, pro-market forces; on the other, protectionism. It was not a question of the 'natural' workings of the market against government, but two competing movements, representing capitalist interests and those adversely affected by capitalism respectively, struggling for influence within government.

Protectionism: In broad terms this re- i'j fers to any of the movements to 'protect' the !J elements of production (land, labour, pro-t ductive organization) from what are seen 1 as the destructive effects of capitalist 'de- j velopment' - in other words, from becoming fully commoditized and subject to the self-regulating market. It is also used in a more specific sense to refer to state policies to protect 'infant industries' from international competition through tax concessions, restrictions on imports, etc.

It is instructive to attempt to interpret some recent history of development in similar terms. For example, trade unions have long been engaged in trying to protect the collective interests of workers and up to the 1960s and 1970s were increasingly successful in doing so. Up to that time also, in less developed countries (LDCs) there were a large number of state interventions regulating the relation between the national economy and the international. LDCs typically maintained exchange rate and credit controls, tariffs, and import controls. States commonly imposed direct price controls and quality standards; they also employed different types of incentives such as preferential tax treatment for reinvestment in certain areas of production. Not only in LDCs but in advanced capitalist countries as well, many public goods and especially public services were, and are, supplied directly by state agencies. Also, almost all countries have at least some services provided universally, as with the National Health Service and basic educational provision in the UK, and the basic food provisioning policies ofthe Sri Lankan governments since independence. These can all

be seen as the result of interests outside and within governments restricting the force and scope of capitalism.

In contrast, particularly since the early 1980s, pro-market interests have made headway. Many Southern states compete to attract investment from transnational corporations by making a virtue oftheir tough anti-union legislation. Structural adjustment programmes, promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have obliged many LDCs to become almost completely open to overseas ownership of enterprises through foreign investment. Under the so-called 'Washington consensus' both these multilateral agencies and others such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed on a range of policies such as minimizing state intervention in the economy, privatization of previously state-

owned industries, and a reduction in state pro- # vision of services. These policies were not only . followed at home but pushed on to LDCs. Rather

than being an inevitable consequence of global

market forces, they can be seen as the result of a political movement advancing the conditions for capitalism to 'develop' further at the global level.

2.4 'Doing deVe!Opmenr

In the third sense of he term, development means not a desired sta e or the process of social change which might achieve it, but whatever is done in the name of development, In this sense, it appears that as we enter the twenty-first century development has become less about the transformation of the economic and social basis of societies than in previous periods. What are visible as 'development agencies' are mostly engaged either in attempts to reduce poverty (and improve health, education, gender equality and environmental protection - see Box 1.1 in Chapter 1) or in humanitarian relief to mitigate the effects of internal wars and other disasters.

If development is simply what development agencies do, then we must ask what are development agencies and what entitles them to the name. 'Agency' simply means an individual, organization, group, or other source of action and 'devel-

opment agencies' are those whose actions aim at development. But whose development? Cowen and Shenton suggest that there is a basic 'problem of development' which arises because development as a process of improvement which builds on itself also causes destruction, and those adversely affected are generally powerless to help themselves. As a response to this problem, at the same time as the invention of 'intentional development' the concept of trusteeship was also brought into use. Trusteeship means that one agency is 'entrusted' with acting on behalf of another, in this case to try to ensure the 'development' of the other. Trusteeship may be taken on by an agency on another's behalf without 'the other' asking to 'be developed' or even being aware of the intention to 'develop' them.

Trusteeship: 'The intent which is ex- :.! .•... J .. pressed, by one source of agency, to develop . 1 the capacities of, another. It is what binds the process of development to the intent of . development' (Cowen & Shenton, 1996, p.x). r1

L:E!} '-, ,~"!'Ifii?"""'i, ,!liI&:,_:,lf _." ",%",~,_::;::~_,_'

Originally trusteeship was generally exercised I by states on behalf of their societies or by colt onial states on behalf of the colonized (Chapters 11 and 12). Since attaining independence,

many ex-colonial states continued to assume trusteeship over the development of their peoples, and until the 1970s the idea ofthe state as the sole legitimate agency of development retained strong currency. More recently a variety of agencies can be seen as claiming trusteeship over the development of others, or even over the development of global society as a whole, including a variety oflocal, national and international NGOs as well as international organizations such as the Wor1d Bank, the IMF, and the United Nations and its agencies.

Two questions have to be asked about any agency which claims trusteeship for the development of others. Does it have legitimacy to act on their behalf? And does it have the power and capacity to do so? For almost the whole of the period since the 'invention' of intentional development, the state has claimed both the right and

the might to develop its people. However, it can be argued that the idea of the 'developmental state' is now discredited on both counts, or at least that the state is no longer the sole source of development action (see Chapter 9). Hence the current crisis in development, evident from the failure to deal with the threefold global crisis, is also a crisis oflegitimacy and capacity. Despite the variety of agencies claiming trusteeship in some form, there is no clear successor to the developmental state, certainly not when one starts to think in terms of world development rather than development within the boundaries of nation states.

A third question about trusteeship asks which interests are represented by a development agency. Can the interests of those being developed be represented through the actions of an agency 'entrusted' with acting on their behalf? The very notion of trusteeship depends on being able to answer 'Yes' to this question. However, there are those, particularly those seeking 'alternative development' who see this answer as impossible. Banuri, for example writes that if development means 'what 'we' can do for 'them" then it is just a 'licence' for imperial intervention (1990, p.96). For these the answer is to reject the notion of trusteeship; people should become the agents of their own development.

We saw above that for people to become their own development agents is the aim of empowerment, and that for this to succeed implies radical changes to power structures and institutional arrangements. How this is to be achieved raises enormous questions about political feasibility as well as the question of whether it is really possible to avoid the notion of trusteeship in this way. Surely empowerment cannot be achieved without being promoted by some powerful agent allied with those to be empowered? Perhaps some form of people's movement might fill the role of this agent, but even then the leadership of that movement would be taking on a trusteeship role in a way. Still, despite these difficulties, the notion of people developing themselves is clearly an alternative to the idea of different kinds of development agencies undertaking trusteeship for development.

IJ

2.5 Competing views on development and social change

In the above discussions of the three senses of the term 'development' it was clear in each case that there is no single agreed version of what is meant or implied by 'development'. In an area of debate such as development, definitions and explanations are not cut and dried. They carry implications about one's view of the world that can lead into wide-ranging political, moral and theoretical disputes.

There are a number of s,ompeting approaches which entail different visions of what IS a desIrable 'developed' state, different views of history, how social change occurs and the process of development in relation to the global capitalist system, and different prescriptions for how to achieve development and who should be the agents of it. At the end of Section 2.1 above, these <;2mpeting views of development were character-

/ ized as developmen~ alo!JifE_de or again.st,G.fll1- £i..>.~ (Table 2.1). We can now expand that table to include a summary of some of the points made in the above discussions on the competing visions, different theories used to explain social change, and alternative views about the role of 'doing development'. The result is Table 2.2.

As you read the rest of the book you should consider how the views put forward at any point fit in with those outlined in Table 2.2.

It would be useful, and neat, to be able to write that each of the columns in Table 2.2 constitutes a coherent theory of development. In this case, like coherent views on any aspect of society, they would each have both analytical and normative aspects: i.e. attempt both to explain how

/11, development does occur and to suggest how it should occur. However, in practice things are less clear cut than that. First, the dividing lines be-

tween the columns represent my attempt to simplify and to bring out the most important differences between views. In fact some of the views identified overlap, labels are .not agreed and the some of the protagonists might distinguish their views from others in quite different ways. Second, not all the views represented in Table 2.2 are complete theories of development.

For example, the 'alternative development' school is strong on vision (the normative aspect) but weak on any theory of social change for how this vision might be achieved (the analytic aspect). Conversely, certain structuralist views concentrate on explaining social change but fail to offer any clear prescriptions.

This fuzziness has led me to organize the following discussion not in terms of a description of each 'view' in turn, but by exploring a number of dimensions of debate.

Neoliberalism versus structuralism

We have noted that neoliberalism (or market liberalism) was the dominant view of development in the 1980s. This was so not only in the industrialized North and with the main international agencies such as the World Bank but also with increasing numbers of Southern governments. To a large exte t this was a reaction against the structuralist iews which were concerned with underlying s cial and economic structures and saw develop, ent as involving changes in these structures, and which had achieved widespread credence' the 1960s and 1970s. Thus a major debate iIi development thinking has been between these two views.

Those who promoted neoliberalism were the direct descendants of the proponents of 'free enterprise' in the 1950s and earlier, and traced their theoretical ideas back to the classical econ-

Analytical: Such a view or theory attempts to explain or analyse some aspect of society, perhaps putting forward a conceptual framework for understanding.

Normative: Such a view or theory brings

in value judgements and suggests how t 1

things should be rather than just explain-

ing how they are and why.

In practice, any view or theory contains both analytical and normative aspects. The ' use of certain concepts rather than others implies certain values, and conversely

value judgements cannot be made without some view about how things work.

Table 2.2 Expanded summary of the main views of development

Development Development alongside Development against I Reiection of
of capitalism capitalism capitalism , development
Neoliberalism Interventionism Structuralism 'Alternative' 'Post-
(people- development'
centred)
development
'Market 'Governing
efficiency' the market'
Vision: Liberal capitalism (modern industrial society Modern All people ['development'
desirable and liberal democracy) industrial and groups is not
'developed' (plus achieving basic social/ society (but realize their desirable]
state environmental goals) not capitalist) potential
Theory of Internal Need to Change can I Struggle [not clear] [not clear]
social change dynamic of remove be deliberately i between
capitalism 'barriers' to directed I classes (and I
modernization other interests)
Role of Immanent To 'ameliorate the disordered . Comprehensive Process of A 'hoax' which
, development' process faults of [capitalist] progress' planning/ individual strengthened
within transformation and group US hegemony
capitalism of society empowerment
Agents of Individual Development agencies or Collective action Individuals, Development
development entrepreneurs 'trustees' of development (generally social agencies
(states, NGOs, international through the movements
organizations) stote)
-- l'

omics of Adam Smith in the late eighteenth cen- - 1 Tradition. The continuation of non-market

tury. In this view the purest form of the system social relations and systems of obligation were

of capitalism outlined in Box 2.1 above is the seen as preventing production for own use from

best. It is said to be both efficient and fair - and being commoditized.

these two statements correspond to the analyti- 2 Monopoly. Under capitalism, the protag-

cal and normative aspects respectively of this onists naturally try to minimize the regulatory

theoretical view. effects of the market as a whole by finding a small market or market segment which they can completely monopolize or at least partly dominate. Two sorts of monopoly can act as obstacles to the self-regulation of the market: monopolies of capital, i.e. industrial monopolies; and monopolies of labour, i.e. trade unions.

3 State regulation. In general, any kind of collective or state action was seen as interfering with the proper working of the market. In the neoliberal view, the role of the state should be a minimal one: guaranteeing political order, ensuring the conditions for capitalism (keeping a

\ _~ eoliberals viewed the process of capitalist 'development' _describ~d_~b_ov~ asJ_~ding_inel{(~r_: ahly to the desired result of modernization, with

no need for any kind of intentional development. Indeed-most actions taken in the name of devel--,.- I opment were likely to be seen as creating 'obstacles' to the proper working of the market:=-N eoliberals looked to this idea of obstacles to explain why not all parts of the world had developed to the same extent. Three main kinds

of obstacle were put forward to explain different cases of lack of development:

l 1.

There was a real dilemma here for neoliberal thinkers. While they favoured 'rolling back the state' as far as possible, they also required its policing function, which in practice tended to be considerable. The dilemma was how to guarantee that this policing was done fairly, since it is necessarily done outside the market and hence outside the mechanism which this theory argues

is the means of fair regulation. Although the neoliberal and structuralist views

The main normative aspects of neoliberalism were largely opposed, there are two important

were the positive values put on individual areas of commonality between them. First, both

achievement and competition. The most impor- viewed development mainly in terms of broad

tant obstacle was usually seen as that of state historical social change. As theories, though they

intervention. We have noted how states com- had their normative aspects, they did not offer

monly engaged in various policies such as con- detail.e prescriptions for what development

trolling exchange rates, food subsidies, imposing-~ enClesshould .do: Second, both looked favour-

tariffs and quotas, which could all be regarded ably on mdustnal_IzatJon as the only realistic

as 'distorting the price signals' that allow com- way to the economic growth required to achieve

petition to work. Such policies were seen as massive improvements in the living standards

counter-productive; for example, it was argued of the poor. This was seen as a prerequisite for

that without food subsidies there would be any other aspect of development.

more incentive for farmers to invest in greater The main area of disagreement and conflict was

productivity and to produce more, and more pro- between the neoliberal insistence on the ma-

duction would in turn lead to cheaper prices terialist motivations of individuals and the self-

through competition and hence obviate the need regulating market and the structuralist view of

for the subsidies. h .

t e Importance of social solidarity, class and col-

lective forms of action. Since the only examples of large-scale collective action for development have occurred through the state, this opposition tended to be represented as market versus state or profit versus planning.

'level playing field'), and 'policing' the casualties of the competitive system.

Structuralism, by contrast, denotes several related but distinct strands of thought, in which development involves changes in underlying social and economic structures. Boxes 2.2 and 2.3 outline two of the most important of these strands (Marxism and the dependency school).

'~ ~

In general, structuralist views differ fundamentally from neoliberalism both in their view of history and in their approach to capitalism. Thus, whereas to neoliberals history is the sum of individuals' actions, and those of individual governments, firms and other organizations, structuralists see history in terms of political and economic struggles between large social groups, particularly classes, as new structures and systems replace old ones across the globe,

There is in fact a structural aspect to some of the views discussed above under 'neoliberalism',

particularly those of the modernization theorists. However, much structuralist thinking on development, including the Marxist and dependency schools emphasized here, has in common a fundamentally critical view of capitalism. While global capitalism is seen as having a quality of dynamism that may be necessary for economic development, it is regarded mainly as a system of exploitation. which should in the long run be radically al teredo

Despite the triumphalist cry that 'capitalism has won', neoliberalism too is now largely discredited. The evident chaos caused by the attempt to let capitalism 'develop' itself in the ex-Soviet Union, together with the increases in inequity, poverty, environmental degradation and wars, has led the World B,?Bk and otb.~g@Q~~o modify their position considerably. They now see--

- a major rolefor'intentio~al development', including intervention by the state and actions by other development agencies, including the World Bank itself, which go well beyond simply ensuring the conditions for market competition.

Thus the main area of debate in what may be called 'mainstream' development circles is no longer 'market versus state' but about the {0rm-

and degreeOfinterVe;tio~-.' -' - .'

"-~::::-~ ~

Box 2.2 Marxism

Karl Marx viewed capitalism as a particular type of class society, one constituted by antagonistic relations between different social classes, of which the most important are capitalists and workers.

Any class system is based on particular ielations of production, and 111 the. capitalist system those who own the means of production have the power to appropriate surplus, whereas those do not own means of production have to sell their labour power. However. one can also argue that the contradictions inherent in capitalism tend to bring about 01' accentuate other divisions as well. such as those based on gender. ethnicity, nationality, and so on

Marx believed that industrial capu.alism, in particular, represented a massive advance in the progress of society, particularly in the impetus it gave to the systematic application of science to methods of production, He also saw as very positive the way that capitalism brings people together in 'an ever-increasing scale of cooperation, WIth integrated production processes orgamzed on the basis of socialized labour. as opposed to the small-scale 'privatized' labour of household production

On the other h.i..d, iVIarx,;a-.v class exploitation and oppression as essential features of capitalism. He vehement \y condemned the conditions of life of the industrra l working class III Victorian Bntain and the Europe of the time,

In the 1990s, with the demise of the Soviet Union -and the general discrediting of comprehensive state planning as a vehicle for development, £9th Marxismand dependency thinking went out offavour. However, although the model of development associated with M-arxism in particular is seen as having failed, this is no reason to reject the analytical insights which can come from structuralist thinking. Karl Polanyi, for example, belongs in the structuralist camp with his insistence that the 'development' of capitalismis better explained by reference to a struggle between 'movements' representing pro-market and protectionist interests than by its own internal dynamics.

L

How much, and what kind of intervention? As we enter the twenty-first century the consensus among the world's decision-makers and academics regards global industrial capitalism broadly positively but at the same time a need is perceived for non-market intervention - or 'intentional development' to 'ameliorate' its 'disordered faults'. Historically, what I am calling interuentionism has had a lot in common with

-;trucfUfiUiSTI1,'in that the structural inequalities and contradictions inherent in capitalism are to some extent admitted, and the main vehicle for regulating the market has been state intervention. However, instead of hoping to replace the market, this approach could have been said to combine state and market. Now, however, the state is only one of a number of agencies with a role to play in intervention.

and the brutality perpet.ra ted by British co~ oriial rule in India. !

In short, for Marx capitalism was profoundly contradictory, at two levels First, the develop-

ment of productive capacities under capitalism represents an e n o rmo u s potential force for human emancipation and freedom from want,

at the same time as the class relations through which the productive forces have developed

deny their promise to the majority of people. Second, these class relations embody a contradiction between private ownership and control

a n d i rc rc a s i ng ly socio l izcd labour Ma rx thought that in time private ownership would

begin to obst ruct the further development of

prod ucuve capacities. Then conditions wou id be

ripe for the overthrow ofcapitalism. This would

not be automatic, but resu lt from class strug-

gle between capitalists and workers The laucr

would organize in a political movement to dispossess the former and then utilize the productive capacities made available by capitalism

to go on and form a different kind of society. i.c. communism,

As for the role of the state, during the class struggle it could be seen as both an enabling structure tor capitalist development and a structural obstacle to development that would Lenefit the workers (Chaptrr 9'. Then, once in the hands of the workers. the slate could be used to promote socialist development \see Chapter 14) in the transition to communism.

!

f

However, such thinking hardly offered solutions. For one thing, it tended to be uncritical of Southem states, and to make the unwarranted assumption that they are unified organizations with the power and the will to Implement anti-capitalist policies. Again, without overseas involvement where is the investment needed for economic development to come from? (Figure 2.6) The only possibility would seem to be from the savings ~f that country's own people; in other words, by squeezing surp.us out of the same already poor population that may supply the state's political support base.

Box 2.3 The dependency view

The dependency school was prominent in the overcome. Various development strategies were

1970s. As with Marxism, capitalism was still seen worked out, which differed in the extent to which

primarily as a system of exploitation (indeed, they rejected or tried to work with international

many dependency thinkers could be called neo- capitalism, but which were all deliberate efforts

Marxists) but the important point was its inter- to improve living standards by changing the

national nature. In this view, the hist.orica l structural relationship with international capi-

process which resulted in the development ofthe talism. This generally meant development was

industrialized world was the same process in to be achieved through the actions of Southern

which the South did not become developed. In states.

simple terms, Northern capitalist industr ializ-

ation created structures in which Southern ecorio- If we look at development from the perspective

mies were dependent and which tended to 18ad~the government of a Southern country, tbe to and maintain underdevelopment. _- imp lica tiori of dependency thinking could be to advocate WIthdrawal from the international capitalist system, or at least strong local state controls on it. This might be in order to build up national capital or to institute some form of planned developmen t, 'socialist' or otherwise. It might entail a kind of solo self-reliance. or could be in solidarity with otber countnes of the South.

In its most crude version, dependency thinking simply substituted countries for classes so that capitalism was not so much d sysLell1 of class exploitation as one of exploitation of Southern countries by the North. In Irs, crude versions the international capitalist class, together with allies from the ruling elites of SOuthern countries, is able to exploit workers and peasants ill the South, at the same time as 'buying off' its own working class with a mixture of material rewards and racist ideology.

As in classical Marxism, capitalism was viewed as having positive as well as negative aspects For example, dependency thinkers tended to favour industrialization and to note the po si..ive aspects of the dynamism of capitalism in raisi.i., productive capacities. However, the dependency view was not clear on how the contradictions of capitalism as an international system might be

I":!. only some foreign Old rms s to n members, SU.

r lold Them we wonted 10 be se!f.rel,onl and dldn', wor11 10 depend on o"y counTry and sen! Them owey'

Figure 2.6

increases economic output, policies are needed to ensure that this is used to meet basic human needs, particularly since these are not all well mirrored by market valuations. This would require development planning to link investment with the creation of jobs, the eradication of poverty, improved health for all, an improved status for women and so on. These are the type of development objectives that you will recall are now agreed between states at conferences like the Copenhagen Summit and taken up at global level by international organizations such as the World Bank (see Box 1.1 in Chapter 1).

Finally, there is global environmentalism. Concern for the environment is often a rather separate motivation for state intervention - and intervention by means of agreements between states, since the problems of managing the global commons necessarily require concerted international action. Following the Rio 'Earth Summit' of 1992, more international agreements are being negotiated to regulate the excesses of global capitalism in this respect.

There are debates about whether intervention should be minimal or far-reaching. These are not simply about how much intervention but hide an important difference about the role of intervention with respect to captialism. On the one hand there are those for whom poverty, pollution, violence and so on are only problems in so far as they threaten the proper working of

It is instructive to look at four historically important arguments for intervention. First, in the Keynesian view, developed in the context of the great depression of the 1930s, periodic booms and slumps are inherent problems of capitalism, which has no inbuilt mechanism for ensuring a balance between supply and demand as economies grow. John Maynard Keynes proposed state spending to create employment and increase incomes, thus stimulating demand and restoring business confidence.

Second, there is the view first pro'pounded by the nineteenth-century German thinker List, who advanced the case for protecting the 'infant industries' of newly industrializing countries (NICs) from competition by well-established

industries elsewhere. List was thinking at the time of protecting German industries from British competition; but his arguments for protectionism have been taken up by contemporary Southern governments. Today's NICs are facing competition in global markets from powerful industrial countries and from transnational corporations whose resources and sales may be greater than the annual incomes of many countries. This kind of state 'protection' generally operates through tax concessions and other incentives, as well as restricting imports through the use of tariffs and quotas to ensure less foreign competition in the national market.

A third kind of argument may be labelled welfarism. Although capitalist 'development'

the capitalist system. However, they recognize' that the answer is not simply to try remove all obstacles to the self-regulation ofthe market, but that these problems need dealing with at least to the extent that they are kept under control. On the other hand, others see capitalism as dynamic and productive but dangerous if it is not controlled. From this point of view social goals need to be addressed directly and the market must be stringently regulated in order for development goals to be achieved. Kaplinsky (1998) has referred to the former as the market efficiency view of intervention, and the latter as governing the market.

In either way of thinking, famine, war, and environmental catastrophe are all potentially linked as overriding dangers to humanity, though there might be disagreement as to whether they constitute a 'global threefold crisis' (Korten's phrase in Chapter 1). There is wide agreement on the importance oftrying to eliminate poverty, and that this at least is an area where both international and state intervention is required. Galbraith (1990), for example, not only sees poverty as an inhumanity in itself but also as 'the source of oppression and conflict'. Thus he advocates economic assistance to achieve economic improvement in the poor countries, not only for the direct benefits of material progress but also to lessen the dangers of war and of violent repression of internal populations.

The most obvious problem with the interventionist approach at the global level is that there is no international state to co-ordinate the implementation of any policies that may be suggested. One possibility is a combination of the activities of different kinds of development agencies with co-ordination through international agreements, but the question remains of how such agreements are to be policed.

'Mainstream' versus 'alternative' development

All the versions of interventionism, as well as neoliberalism and structuralism, envision industrialization as the way to provide the resources to meet human needs or meet the 'global crisis'. The interventionists also see the state and other development agencies as taking on the job of

intentional development required. Despite the debates about state versus market or the form

opment, solving their own problems individually or through local organizations and networks.

and degree of intervention, these may all be

termed 'mainstream' views of development. The It has to be admitted that there is little if any

set of ideas grouped together under the labels theory as to how such dreams could be replicated

'alternative development', 'another development' on a large scale, and how the kind of social

or 'people-centred development' are a reaction change could be brought about that would safe-

against this 'mainstream' development. In par- guard them for the future. However, through-

ticular they are a reaction against the 'alien- out the 1990s there has been a growing

ation' of large-scale industrialization and they consensus on the need to look more closely at

reject the notion of trusteeship by which other~e potential for local groups and individuals to

determine what is required for people's deVcl- be involved as their own development agents, if

opment. This current of thought favours small- only because of the manifest failure of the main

scale individual and co-operative enterprise both theoretical perspectives on development to de-

in industry and agriculture. It also places em- liver major improvements in living conditions to

phasis on people themselves as agents of devel- the world's poorest individuals and communities.

Summary

1 Development means not only 'good change' but also allencompassing change, which builds on itself, occurs at both societal and individual levels, and may be destructive as well as creative.

2 Development as an 'immanent' process, as with the intrinsic dynamism of capitalism, needs to be distinguished from development as an intentional activity, often designed to 'ameliorate the

faults' of capitalist growth. .

3 'Development' is used in three main senses: a vision or measure of a desirable society; an historical process of social change; deliberate efforts at improvement by development agencies.

4 Two very different visions for development are that of modern industrial society, usually combined with liberal democracy, and that of a society where every individual's potential can be realized.

5 Two distinct views of development as an historical process are: capitalism creating the engine of growth with some room for intentional development to 'ameliorate the faults'; or a struggle between pro-market and protectionist movements.

6 Consideration of development agencies brings in questions of trusteeship, whether agencies have legitimacy and capacity to 'do development', and what interests they represent.

7 There are several competing overall views on development, each of which combines ,its own vision, version of history and ideas on development agencies. The debate between neoliberalism and structuralism has been superseded as both are largely discredited. Instead, the main question within 'mainstream' development is about the degree and form of interventionism. People-centred development may provide an alternative.