Introduction
One must take as given that today our goals, lifestyle choices, opinions and aspirations are
influenced by western ideas of what a good life constitutes. The past two decades in modern
world history have shown how there exists a McDonaldisation of world imagination, a 1
homogenization of thought, where the American dream isn’t limited to those who exist within
that paradigm but stretches across borders and cultures.
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| McDonaldisation |
On its own, the term development lacks any precise definition. Despite this, it is firmly seated in
popular and intellectual perception. It is inherently linked to the words which form it - growth,
evolution, maturation. The idea of development holds for each individual a different connotation. These varied conceptions arise from the socio-political and economic context of individuals with
the underlying sentiment always being to reach a better place than yesterday, to move from
where one is, and to reach a space that one envisions as better. In this essay, we look at the
ideological framework built up around the term development, by referring to definitions that
provide a larger picture of the development discourse that engulfs countries on the global
platform. Referring to the works of Henry Bernstein, Wolfgang Sachs, Gilbert Rist, and James
Ferguson, this essay encapsulates the concern and need for a counter-narrative.
Re-Orienting Development
Henry Bernstein, provides two primary arguments with regard to the orientation employed to study development. Firstly, he addresses the redundancy of the interdisciplinary approach that is
often associated with development. He explains this by posing two problems: the central focus of
the economic sphere even in this interdisciplinary approach – something that Gustavo Esteva
elaborates upon in detail in his work – and the consequential compartmentalization that occurs
when one applies the interdisciplinary approach, hence proving it to be a truistic attempt.
Economics fails to address social processes and take account of historical perspectives, and
hence, there is a shirking off of the interdisciplinary method. In an attempt to use this
interdisciplinary method too, the author is quick to point out that in practice this also becomes
inherently flawed due to the use of an integrated method rather than a transcending one. What
tends to happen is that social reality is judged in specificities i.e each discipline picks up an
autonomous aspect of the study.
Secondly, he rebuts the idea of Eurocentric models of development being applied to countries
across the globe, owing to the differences in their historical past. He argues that this gives rise to
isolated models that may have proved successful in the west; however, without a proper
understanding of the historical diversities that shape the present contexts of these countries, they
are models with no fruitful consequences. History, in his theory, has a greater impact than is
given credit for and its misrepresentation leads to the bifurcation of the world as we know it
Taking the west as a prototype gives legitimacy to the western historical context, nullifying the
existence of any other nation’s history, or worse, leading to the ‘otherisation’ of it- dividing the 3
world into a developed and underdeveloped reality, without any cemented foundation.
In the International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences published in 1968,
there is no article on underdevelopment. This is symptomatic of a critical 4
lacuna in the social science literature on the Third World. Underdevelopment
is simply defined negatively in relation to development, a form of
conceptualization by default expressed in such invidious terms as
backwardness, stagnation and tradition (or traditionalism). In conventional
usage development means the process of developing while underdevelopment
is conceived only in a static fashion as a state - underdeveloping is not
considered as a possibility. This precludes any understanding of
underdevelopment as a process, as a phenomenon which has itself emerged
historically.
According to Wolfgang Sachs, development, as a term, over the past century has gained a certain
social, political, and economic validity, making it more than just a means to an end. Today it is
the end; it is that ideal state of being and process of emancipation that people across the globe identify as their liberator. Any country that does not meet the benchmarks set by the West
automatically becomes underdeveloped. To make this distinction between the developed and
underdeveloped more transparent, the world is divided into a bunch of ‘haves and have nots’. What it further does is belittle the existence of the have nots. They are now made to believe that
they are degraded rather than different. Diversity and heterogeneity are shunned in exchange for
upholding practices and principles of the West. Having industries, flourishing commerce, the
high standard way of living, infrastructure and amenities, etc. are characteristics of developed
countries. The author argues that the term development has today become antithetical and
redundant as it leads to no conclusive benefit, it serves as a mere ‘beacon on the hill’; he posits that progress in society today is taking place despite this development agenda, not because of it.
The ‘Age of Development’ - Or the ‘Age of a New Colonial World Order’?
Sachs unpacks and explores the four founding premises that led to the “age of development” (a
term coined by Harry Truman while describing the southern hemisphere): the belief that the US and other industrialized nations were at the top of the social order, the idea that the
developmental agenda was launched to provide a comforting vision of a world order where the
US would rank as number one, the goal – ‘to change the face of the earth’ in a positive manner – and lastly, the view of development as an enterprise and a premise for growth. Sachs then goes on to persuasively demonstrate that these premises no longer stand. The fruits of
industrialization, a process which was supposed to be a solution to end all the world’s problems,
only led to an unequal distribution of resources and their exploitation; likewise, technology did
not yield the benefits it had promised because it now focuses more on reaching the end that is
development, rather than focusing on internal growth within nations - “They are world
champions in competitive obsolescence.” (They refers to the rich countries or the global north who are geared towards continuous degeneration in the race to produce the most advanced
technology), Furthermore, he addresses a shift in the character of development from being
focused on the US-USSR clash to being focused within the US. As a paradigm, development
came into being within the context of the Cold War, and as such, originally represented a desire
for soft power hegemony. The two global superpowers initially used development discourse to establish and consolidate spheres of influence, which only furthered social polarization.
Indeed, Sachs questions the very narrative of development, as, in this political definition of
‘development for all’, many are robbed of their opportunity to define their own forms of social
life. He deemed that a closer inspection of this term was hence necessary. Over the past four
decades, with the violent manner of usage of the term development by politicians, the word has
become an instrument to legitimize a new world colonial order, where the industrial mode of
production, which is but another way of life, among many, has become a unilinear way of social evolution. Programs in Latin America like the Point Four Program, Peace Corps and the Alliance
for Progress entrench the notion of underdevelopment in popular perception by sending out a
narrative of insufficiency. The end result is a creation of disability which further leads to
dependency. This cyclic process feeds into the structure which classifies the globe into the first
world and the third world. In this regard, the Latin American dependency theorists very aptly
point out that underdevelopment is nothing but the creation of development.
The discourse around development
Hence, the starting point of problematic development discourse is the uncritical acceptance of the
word “development” as an escape from the current undignified condition called
“underdevelopment”, a state from which everyone aspires to move away and to do so following
the predesigned goals or the top-down approach. This misconceived image that two-thirds of the
world appropriated, led economists and governments across the globe towards a quest for finding
solutions to this problem without analyzing whether A) these issues were a problem in and of
themselves in the first place and B) what the causes of the said problems were. ‘Development’,
as a theoretical framework, could too easily become politicized, misrepresented, and even
weaponized.
In his ‘The Development Dictionary’, Gustavo Esteva explores a metaphor for the definition of development from the 18th century: at that time, the process of social change that was to lead to a
greater good or a state of development was expressed as the natural growth of plant and animal
species and their metamorphoses into full-grown adults. The term ‘Entwicklung’ was used to describe this social change, which Esteva critiqued as giving soft power or hegemony to the
western genealogy of history. He goes on to explore how, by 1949, Truman declared
development as a political issue and hence ushered in an era of western hegemony. Economic
growth became the yardstick for measuring any kind of success and all other social changes were
inconsequential; as a result of rampant ‘foreign expenditure’, by 1980 there loomed a debt 13
crisis over nearly all nations. The global South was to re-develop, which meant making space for
the leftovers of the global North. The economic colonization of the world began.
To Esteva, the core problem with the conceptual construction of the development agenda was
that economic value was now the core value and its corresponding set of values tended to
disvalue all other forms of social existence. The commodification of labor can be seen as a
marker of this period:
The vast furrows of cultural monoculture left behind are, as in all
monocultures, both barren and dangerous. They have eliminated the
innumerable varieties of being human and have turned the world into a place
deprived of adventure and surprise; the ‘Other’ has vanished with
development. Moreover the spreading monoculture has eroded variable
alternatives to the industrial, growth- oriented society and dangerously crippled humankind’s capacity to meet an increasingly different future with
creative responses.
The author criticizes this dominant narrative by unpacking other non-economic assumptions, as
highlighted by Marshall Sahlius and Pierre Clastres, which govern people’s lives: men and
women who are pushed to the peripheries or margins of society, find their support in traditions,
as they continue to challenge economic assumptions, especially in practice. What could not be
denied, however, is the consequence of this economic determinism: pushing the common man to
the periphery of society, with an implicit de facto rejection of the customs and practices which
make us human.
While Esteva’s piece of work questioned the basis of this west-centric narrative, Gilbert Rist’s
traced the historical evolution of this narrative. Rist attempted to provide an ultimate definition
that represented the quintessentially-used dominators of development. This, in his estimation,
was to bridge the gap between the two understandings of this term; development as a way of
living a better life and as an attempt to achieve this good way of life. He posited:
Development consists of a set of practices, sometimes appearing to conflict
with one another, which require - for the reproduction of society – the general
transformation and destruction of the natural environment and of social relations. Its aim is to increase the production of commodities (goods and
services) geared, by way of exchange, to effective demand.
The above argument is nuanced. First, Rist is arguing that the social, economic, political and
cultural practices involved in development – for instance, certain economic practices like
investment, are geared to profit, others like loans foster generosity and caution – are both
contradictory and conciliatory. Another instance is that of international trade. While it is widely
accepted as a facilitator of development, international trade is governed by import restrictions,
resource requirements, and technological infrastructure. It is impossible to trade steel, for
instance, without an (economic) transformation of capital and the commodification of natural
resources, manufacturing processes, and domestic labour capacity. Rist is arguing for the
absolute primacy of these facilitating practices; he seems to be saying that there is much more to
‘development’ than anyone thought.
This process also entails the reconstruction of social relations, which come to be defined and
governed by the principles of supply and demand. With the end of the entire process being the
increase in production of goods, an emphasis comes to be placed on economic self-interest as a
contrast to the emphasis on the communally and socially-oriented practices that prevailed in
non-modern societies. The definition hence describes historical context and current practices to
stress on the idea that other forms of social existence will always exist on the periphery, with the
dominant occupying the limelight. He also highlights the idea that “Development is a belief and a series of practices both, which together forms a single whole in spite of contradictions which
may exist within” by comparing this belief system to that of religion.
Rist’s essay encapsulates a series of debates on the true definition of development. He presents a
comparison of Antiquity and Aristotle’s ideas by presenting the premise they differ on - science
as a fact with a predictable consequence, and/or, the uncertainty of the sequence of events and
the ends of this natural evolution. Aristotle’s theory also refuted St. Augustine’s theology of
history, which in essence defines history as salvation. These arguments saw a major turn-around
when during the period of Enlightenment, philosophers like Descartes described progress as
having no limits, neither of degeneration nor of God’s plan. The nineteenth-century also saw the
rise of social evolutionism which defined development as having the same nature as history,
declaring that all nations travel the same road, yet all do not advance at the same speed as
western history. The summary of these key moments in the western history of twenty-five
centuries is to draw out the successive interpretations of the notions of development.
Ferguson provides another view of the very meaning of development, rooted in the discipline of
anthropology. In his work, he elucidates how anthropology finds itself unwillingly bound to its
‘evil twin’ – development anthropology, which, by its nature, implies the existence of less-developed people. Ferguson describes this relationship as difficult yet central: the late
nineteenth century saw the rise of anthropology as a discipline that placed people on the same platform but at different stages of evolution, namely the ‘savages and the civilized’ . The metaphor of development was often used to describe this unidirectional movement. The early
twentieth century witnessed a series of debates on legitimacy of this prescribed dualism; who
decides which path is higher, and how can higher and lower even exist, considering the unique
identity of each of these nations? Evolutionary schemes of the nineteenth century theorists like
Morgan and Tylor further reconstructed this conceptual framework by recognizing the
distinctiveness of the primitive and the modern, and assigning value – different values, but value
nonetheless – to each paradigm. What is interesting is that while evolutionism is an explicit
mode of eurocentrism, cultural relativism (a tradition of anthropology engaged in the study of
development) is an implicit one. It is impossible to trace development without looking through a
prism of Western bias. Furthermore, the author elucidates examples of the agencies which were
set up after the World War to provide ‘development aid’ to countries that were now getting
decolonized and democratized. The aim was to integrate these societies into the world order and
impose on them a monolithic set of rules - to develop them.
Neo Marxists arose in this context as the strongest critiques of this application of the word
development. They asserted two major rebuttals. First, they refuted the idea that histories of
nations were independent. They argued that the difference in the opposition’s argument was
nothing but a common history of imperialism. Un-developed should hence be seen as
under-developed due to the work of the developed. Second, they questioned the premise of
development as a moral economic process, and instead portrayed it as a capitalist invasion or
colonization of those nations that the west decided to call un-developed.
These arguments found their mark; by the 1950’s-60’s, development planners slowly and
gradually started focusing on the other aspects (social, political, cultural) of development, and
hence entwined anthropology into this discourse even more deeply. There existed various
problems with this relationship; however, as Ferguson concludes, though anthropology as a
discipline aims to enjoy a higher moral ground and deem the notion of development as negative,
it is undeniable that development as an activity today is interdisciplinary, and as such, affects all
realms of the very society that anthropologists study. Both, in a way, are twins of the other,
development being the evil one.
Conclusion
To declare that development in and of itself is problematic is simply an assertion. In the absence
of a proper analysis of how the term is simply an imposition by the west – in a quest to divide
society and claim a higher moral ground – it is impossible to prove its redundancy and harm. The
different connotations to development given by the various authors lay bare in front of us the
reality of the development discourse. Distinct parameters for development exist and these
parameters are set by countries that occupy the top spot in the global order. It is ensured that
these parameters are complied with, through the chains of dependency that are regenerated time
and again by instilling a sentiment of disability in the third world countries. The underdeveloped
nations are made to strive towards achieving the benchmark set by the developed. This
aspirational sentiment to achieve what the West has already achieved, seeps down to the individual level in the strata of society - hence the existence of a Mc. Donaldisation of the world.
It is this similar aspirational sentiment that compels citizens of the third world to have a blurry
vision towards environmental degradation or widening income gap because their respective
governments seem to justify any atrocity as collateral damage while on the path to development.
As progressive as it may sound to the masses, the development discourse fails to provide
inclusivity to all stakeholders. It is nothing more than imperialist propaganda that is out on a
homogenizing spree.
It is hence important for the third world, underdeveloped countries to realise and acknowledge
two realities. One, that the imperialistic tendencies of the west have not reduced; the west, with
one-quarter of the world’s population, controls four-fifths of the world’s income. Prima facie, 19
the acceptance of prescribed economic goals cannot take into account the possibility of
productive and meaningful socio-cultural difference, leaving only one narrative as legitimate.
Two, it is important and essential for these countries to begin to understand the nuances of their
own lived experiences. Most often, history is the story told by the oppressor and not one by the
oppressed. In this regard, the lived experiences of the non-west get whitewashed. The dangers lie
in the increasing absence of human differences, traditions, cultures, and histories. By accepting
reality at face value, the non-west takes on the burden of living a life dictated by the other, and
hence agreeing to live by and on the conditions set by them. Except, the other here is not a direct
oppressor. Soft power hegemonies continually disrupt world order and create this oppressor-oppressed reality, one that is almost truistic in nature; you are underdeveloped and so
you must develop.
Hence, to redefine this world order, it is crucial that victims get a platform to speak and be heard,
for, in the absence of a voice against this capitalist dictatorship, the ends of this world and all its
realities seem singular.
References
Bernstein, Henry. (1973). Underdevelopment and development : the Third World today : selected
readings. Harmondsworth : Penguin.
Contemporary World Politics, N.C.E.R.T
Cumper, G.E. (1968). Non-Economic factors influencing rural development planning. Social and
Economic Studies Volume: 17, number: 13
Dowd, D.F. (1967). Some issues of economic development and of development economics.
Journal of Economic Issues Volume: 1, number 3
Ferguson, J. (2005). Anthropology and its Evil Twin; ‘Development’ in the Constitution of a
Discipline, in M. Edelman and A. Haugerud (eds.) The Anthropology of Development and
Globalization. Blackwell Publishing.
Mimiko, N. Oluwafemi. (2012). Globalization : the politics of global economic relations and
international business. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.
Rist, Gilbert. (1997). The History of Development: from western origins to global faith. London:
Zed Books.
Sachs, Wolfgang. (1992). The Development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power. London:
Zed Books.
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