The word development is mysterious and abstract when it is used by politicians. The meaning is difficult to grasp, like shadows in the air.
Development is a magic word that implies something important. And like all good magic words, we remember the word but don’t understand what it means.
Illuminessence
For the curious, there are many categories of development, and though all the categories are related, there is a distinction between categories such as ‘political development’, ‘economic development’, ‘social development’, ‘cultural development’ and ‘human development’.
Humane economic development
This is what I imagine the word development ought to mean. It ought to mean humane economic development for all the people of a country. It is a multifaceted endeavour to realize a higher quality of life for all people.
And ‘Humane economics’ (my coinage), is the practice of economics in which economic development is holistic, humane and would acknowledge that economic growth, though imperative, should prioritize human well-being, ethical considerations, and social justice, while recognising that coexisting with, and caring for the environment in all its dimensions will improve people’s economic development, enhance opportunities for people and ensure a decent standard of living for citizens.
Humane economic development goes beyond economic growth metrics.
Traditional economic growth metrics
Traditional economic development concentrates on GDP growth and market efficiency, neglecting the social and human dimensions.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures a country’s economic output. It calculates the value of goods and services produced within a country. Consumption + investment + government spending + net exports.
Gross National Product (GNP) measures the economic output of a country’s citizens. Calculating income earned by a country’s residents. i.e. GDP + income from abroad – income earned by foreign residents.
A third measure is Gross National Income (GNI) a country’s total income (GNI) divided by its population, reflecting the average income per person. A country’s GNI per capita lean towards other indicators that measure the social, economic, and environmental well-being of the country and its people.
Undrilling the hole
Development is a multidimensional undertaking to achieve a higher quality of life for all people. Economic development, social development and environmental protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development. UNITED NATIONS UN Documentation.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to rate the development of nations. HDI takes into account literacy rates, school enrolment and life expectancy, and measures a country’s average achievements in key dimensions of human development: health, education, and standard of living.
Development is a concentric relationship
Humane economic development understands the interdependency of economic growth on the environment and the role of natural resources in supporting economic growth like circles or rings that share the same point as their centre.
Interconnecting economics and environment
Economic growth and environmental protection are Interconnected. Economic growth has created dramatic pressure on the environment in the form of increased CO2 emissions, exhaustion of natural resources, and climate change.
Humane economic development considers the intersection and intertwinement of economics and our environment and therefore genuinely develops eco-efficient policies of environmental sustainability.
Drops of wisdom and hope in an ocean of uncertainty
In an article by Owen Barder, at the Centre for Global Development and Director for Europe, “The Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen has twice changed our thinking about what we mean by development. Traditional welfare economics had focused on incomes as the main measure of well-being until his ground-breaking work in the 1980’s which showed that that poverty involved a wider range of deprivations in health, education and living standards which were not captured by income alone. His ‘capabilities approach’ led to introduction of the UN Human Development Index, and subsequently the Multidimensional Poverty Index, both of which aim to measure development in this broader sense. Then in 1999 Sen moved the goalposts again with his argument that freedoms constitute not only the means but the ends in development. Sen’s view is now widely accepted: development must be judged by its impact on people, not only by changes in their income but more generally in terms of their choices, capabilities and freedoms; and we should be concerned about the distribution of these improvements, not just the simple average for a society.” In cgdev.org (CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT).
E.F. Schumacher, the internationally influential economic thinker, advocated for “persons-first” economic theories, prioritizing human well-being over purely financial gains. Encapsulated in the phrase, ‘economics as if people mattered’.
The politicians’ prayer – How may I inconvenience you today
Development, like all words used by politicians in most parts of the world, is just another word for ‘corporatisation’. Politicians, the world over, don’t know or care about development of a people or the development of a State. Development’, to politicians, almost always means to develop large corporations, industrialists, manufacturers, builders and property developers.
Development and ‘corporatisation’ are tied together
Corporations invest money in politics as outlay for their future, so, when a politician talks of development, it means the ‘act of developing and building’ large projects – dams, roads, ports and energy facilities – thermal, hydro and nuclear facilities, production of materials and machinery, developing special industrial/
economic zones, mining, building smart cities, and products to be bought and sold. In turn, the country and all its resources are sold to industrialists, real estate developers and corporations to exploit at their will. They collude, supposedly in the name of development, to worsen and further degrade the environment through the depletion of resources, the destruction of ecosystems, and the extinction of wildlife.
Our prayer for the generations
Humane economics will prevail, standards of living will improve, poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy will be radically reduced if not eradicated. Shelter will be assured, secure employment will be guaranteed, and the integrity of the environment will be preserved.
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The tables will turn. Surely
Wecan prevail over corrupt and venal politicians and their idea of development. It’s up to each one of us, we can turn the tables in our own way, with our own individual actions, by standing up for what we believe in; by our dissent and advocacy in our own small ways, whether it is our own ‘power of one’ or in the unquestionably more powerful ‘collective power’, for humane economic development, ‘economics as if people mattered’.
“If you can imagine it, you can create it. That beautiful world you dream about, needs positive action to come true.” Leon Brown
Pratap Antony writes on ecology and environment, social justice and pluralism, management ideas and issues, jazz and western classical music and Indian classical dance.
