The History of Development

From Western Origins to Global Faith

Gilbert Rist, Patrick Camiller

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781786997579
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

In this landmark text, Gilbert Rist provides a comprehensive and compelling overview of what the idea of development has meant throughout history. He traces it from its origins in the Western view of history, through the early stages of the world system, the rise of US hegemony, and the supposed triumph of third-worldism, through to new concerns about the environment and globalization. Assessing possible postdevelopment models and considering the ecological dimensions of development, Rist contemplates the ways forward. Throughout, he argues persuasively that development has been no more than a collective delusion, which in reality has resulted only in widening market relations, whatever the intentions of its advocates. A classic development text written by one of the leaders of postdevelopment theory.

CHAPTER 1

DEFINITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT

CONVENTIONAL THINKING

When psychologists speak of the development of intelligence, mathematicians of the development of an equation or photographers of the development of a film, the sense they give to the word ‘development’ is clear enough. Its definition is shared by everyone working within the same area. The situation is quite different, however, when it comes to the use of the word in ordinary language to denote either a state or a process associated with such concepts as material well-being, progress, social justice, economic growth, personal blossoming, or even ecological equilibrium. Let us take just three examples.

1. Under the general heading ‘ développement’, the Petit Robert dictionary (1987) contains the following entry (among the meanings close to growth, blossoming, progress, extension, expansion): ‘Developing country or region, whose economy has not yet reached the level of North America, Western Europe, etc. Euphemism created to replace underdeveloped.’

2. The Report of the South Commission, produced under the chairmanship of the former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, was supposed to sum up the aspirations and policies of ‘developing’ countries. It defined development as ‘a process which enables human beings to realize their potential, build self-confidence, and lead lives of dignity and fulfilment. It is a process which frees people from the fear of want and exploitation. It is a movement away from political, economic, or social oppression. Through development, political independence acquires its true significance. And it is a process of growth, a movement essentially springing from within the society that is developing.’¹

3. The Human Development Report of 1991, published by the United Nations Development Programme, stated: ‘the basic objective of human development is to enlarge the range of people’s choices to make development more democratic and participatory. These choices should include access to income and employment opportunities, education and health, and a clean and safe physical environment. Each individual should also have the opportunity to participate fully in community decisions and to enjoy human, economic and political freedoms.’²

We might comment at length on these definitions and demonstrate their various presuppositions: social evolutionism (catching up with the industrialized countries), individualism (developing the personality of human beings), economism (achieving growth and access to greater income). We might also show how the definitions themselves are either normative (what should happen) or instrumental (what is the purpose), and register the abundant use of intensifiers (e.g. ‘more democratic and more participatory’ ) which actually point to things presently ‘lacking’ or deficient. The most important question, however, is whether these really are definitions.

A METHODOLOGICAL WORD OF CAUTION

We cannot go over here the conditions necessary for something to be defined.³ Let us simply note that for a definition to be operational – that is, for it to allow us to identify an object without the possibility of error – it must first of all eliminate all ‘preconceptions’, ‘the fallacious ideas that dominate the mind of the layman’,⁴ and then base itself upon certain ‘external characteristics’ common to all phenomena within the group in question.⁵ Or – to put it more bluntly – we must define ‘development’ in such a way that a Martian could not only understand what is being talked about, but also identify the places where ‘ development’ does or does not exist. It is thus understandable why talk of ‘realizing people’s potential’ or ‘expanding the range of individual choice’ does not help us to reach a definition – for it refers to individual (context-bound) experience that can never be apprehended by means of ‘external characteristics’. At most, a normative injunction might be regarded as a kind of compass allowing us to hold a certain course. But to continue the journey, we may need to know where the North is without having any intention of proceeding there.

The principal defect of most pseudo-definitions of ‘development’ is that they are based upon the way in which one person (or set of persons) pictures the ideal conditions of social existence.⁶ Of course, these imagined worlds – laid out according to the personal predilections of those who produce them – are often inviting and desirable, and it would be bad form to attack those who dream of a more just world where people are happy, live better and longer, and remain free of disease, poverty, exploitation and violence. This way of proceeding has the huge advantage of assembling a broad consensus at little cost and on the basis of unchallengeable values.⁷ But if ‘development’ is only a useful word for the sum of virtuous human aspirations, we can conclude at once that it exists nowhere and probably never will!

Yet ‘development’ does exist, in a way, through the actions that it legitimates, through the institutions it keeps alive and the signs testifying to its presence. How could it be denied that there are developed and developing countries, development projects, development co-operation ministers, a United Nations Development Programme, an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (better known as the World Bank), institutes for development studies, NGOs responsible for furthering development, and many other institutions and activities with the same stated aim. In the name of this fetishistic term – which is also a portmanteau or ‘plastic’ word⁸– schools and clinics are built, exports encouraged, wells dug, roads laid, children vaccinated, funds collected, plans established, national budgets revised, reports drafted, experts hired, strategies concocted, the international community mobilized, dams constructed, forests exploited, deserts reafforested, high-yield plants invented, trade liberalized, technology imported, factories opened, wage-jobs multiplied, spy satellites launched. When all is said and done, every modern human activity can be undertaken in the name of ‘development’.

For conventional thinking, the quest for a definition therefore oscillates between two equally irrepressible extremes: (a) the expression of a (doubtless general) wish to live a better life, which seems deliberately to ignore the fact that the concrete ways of achieving it would run up against conflicting political choices; and (b) the great mass of actions (also often conflicting with one another) which are supposed eventually to bring greater happiness to the greatest possible number. The weakness of these two perspectives is that they do not allow us to identify ‘development’: it appears in the one case as a subjective feeling of fulfilment varying from individual to individual, and in the other as a series of operations for which there is no a priori proof that they really contribute to the stated objective.⁹

To escape from this dead end, we must return to Durkheim’s twofold requirement of a definition: that it should cover all the phenomena in question, and that it should include only their external characteristics.¹⁰ In other words, it is necessary to identify sociologically, by reference to practices that anyone may observe, what allows us to say that certain countries are ‘developed’, while others are ‘developing’. The point is not to contrast two different sets of countries by showing that one has more of this (schools, roads, currency reserves, average calorie consumption, cars, democracy or telephones) but less of that (illiteracy, cultural traditions, children per family, ‘absolute poor’, time, skilled labour, etc.), while the other set has the reverse.¹¹ Rather, the process at the root of this contrast needs to be brought into the light of day – a process whose rhythm differs in the two sets of countries and which transforms them, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in ways that cannot be reversed. For ‘development’ does not concern only the countries of the ‘South’, nor only operations conducted under the auspices of ‘development co-operation’. It is a global, historically distinctive phenomenon, whose functioning first needs to be explained before it can be detected as either present or absent.

ELEMENTS OF A DEFINITION

To satisfy the methodological requirements outlined above, and to embrace all the phenomena entering the field in question, our definition will have to describe the ubiquitous mechanisms of the contemporary world that determine social change in accordance with a special structure-creating logic. It is not enough to say that in the end ‘development’ boils down to social change, for social change has been a constant feature of life in every society since the dawn of humanity. What has to be shown is the characteristic of ‘developmental’ change which distinguishes modern societies from those which have gone before.

Our starting point will be the following definition: ‘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. Let us look in turn at each element of this definition.

The ‘practices’ in question (economic, social, political and cultural) correspond to the ‘external characteristics’ that Durkheim invoked to exclude from a definition any normative aspect stressing what is hoped as against what actually occurs. The facts, then, should not be conside...