(Excerpted from
Theory of Social
Development by Garry Jacobs, Robert Macfarlane, N. Asokan
of the International Center for Peace and Development)
1. CATALYSTS TO DEVELOPMENT
Humanity has progressed very far
from its modest origins. It has already created what must appear from a historical
perspective almost infinite plentitude. Development theory should enable us to understand
what productive power or powers have made this great accomplishment possible and what
further achievements still lay in potential that can be attained through further exercise
of this same or other powers. We observe today a confluence of conditions that seem to
indicate that a further acceleration of social progress is possible. They include a broad
range of political, economic, technological and social factors that have direct or
indirect impact on development. Each in itself can support higher rates of social
advancement. Taken together, their contribution could lead to accomplishments at least as
far beyond present levels as society has already advanced since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution. Development theory should not only confirm or deny this
possibility, but also show the precise relationship between these conditions and the
greater results society seeks to obtain.
Peace
Any evaluation of development potentials needs to take into
account the influence of internal and external social stability on social progress.
The end of the Cold War has dramatically reduced the threat of armed international
conflicts and the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war, providing a far more stable
and secure climate for worldwide economic expansion. War is a destroyer of development. It
physically demolishes what society has accomplished. The Cold War limited the physical
destruction to regional conflicts, but it directed a substantial portion of the energies
and talents of the world community into an unproductive arms race. Since 1988, world
military expenditure has fallen by about a third, $400 billion. If the current peaceful
status is sustained, it could free up even more capital for investment and reducing the
inflationary pressure of burgeoning government deficits. The long feared negative impact
of reduced military expenditure on economic growth has been much less than anticipated.
Falling defense spending has been followed by a surprisingly rapid recovery in
defense-dependent states such as California and an unexpectedly long period of national
economic expansion in the USA. This experience should help reduce the resistance to
further cuts.
Democracy
Since 1980, a democratic revolution has been spreading through
Latin America, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Africa, freeing hundreds of millions of
people from repression by authoritarian regimes. As peace provides a secure external
environment for international development, democracy provides a stable and conducive
environment within countries for more rapid social progress. Democracy raises human
aspirations. It encourages individuals to take active initiative for their own
advancement. It facilitates freer and wider social interactions. It releases greater
social energy. It vastly increases the dissemination of information and the multiplication
of new organizations. As the transition from monarchy to democracy was a catalyst for
rapid economic advancement of Western countries over the past three centuries, the spread
of democratic institutions today opens up greater possibilities for global expansion. Development
theory needs to explain the dynamics of the process by which political and social
conditions impact economic performance.
Social Velocity
Development is a function of the velocity of social transactions.
The speed of movement of information, ideas, decisions, technology, people, goods and
money has significant impact on the productivity of the society and its further
advancement. The ‘shrinking of the world’ through better transportation and
communication opens up commercial opportunities inconceivable just a few years ago. During
the past two decades the volume of international travelers, freight, telephone and other
forms of electronic communication have increased by more than an order of magnitude.
Between 1980 and 1994, overseas telephone traffic to and from the USA increased from 200
million to 3.4 billion calls. New technologies such as satellite-based wireless phones are
reducing the cost of expanding the communications infrastructure. Electronic mail has
drastically reduced the cost and increased the speed of written communications. The
meteoric growth of the Internet provides instantaneous low cost access to global sources
of information and commercial markets. The speed of technology diffusion is also
accelerating. The Xerox machine was not introduced into India until the late 1970s, more
than 15 years after its use became widespread in the USA. Three years ago, Windows 95 was
launched in New Delhi just weeks after its release in the USA. Last year Intel announced
its latest microprocessor simultaneously in USA, India and Beijing. A comprehensive
theory needs to account for the contribution of the increasing velocity of social
transactions on development in the past and its potential for accelerating social progress
in the future.
Technological Application
The rate of technological innovation and diffusion is one thing,
the extent of technology application is quite another. Technological development
far outpaces technological applications and accomplishments in even the most advanced
societies. Adoption and full utilization of already proven technologies can dramatically
elevate performance in every country and in every field. To cite a single example, the
average yield of tomatoes in India is 8 tons per acre, yet more advanced farmers achieve
yields as high as 20 tons. The average yield of tomato in California is 35 tons in
California, but one of California’s leading tomato farmers with 1200 acres under
cultivation routinely obtains average yields of 55 tons or more by applying advanced
systems for micro-nutrient management applicable to all crops and climates. Applying more
sophisticated and capital intensive technology, Israeli farmers achieve yields of 250 tons
or more of tomato per acre. This wide variation in the application of technology within
and between countries is nothing new. But it is a significant determinant of development
and a factor that is at least partially responsive to social policies. The theory needs to
explain these variations and show how they act as determinants of the development process.
Global Growth Engines
The global economy is developing multiple centers and engines of
growth. The impact of these factors is compounded by the globalization of economic growth.
In the past, the growth of the world economy has been driven by a single country or at
best by a few localized centers, while the vast majority of nations benefited only
peripherally or not at all. The emergence of multiple growth centers acts as a
self-generating engine that increases the overall momentum of the world economy. Valid
development theory cannot limit its purview to national level policies and economic
environment. It is becoming more and more necessary to consider development as a
movement of global society, in which individual nations may move in different directions
and advance at different rates, but remain aspects of a common movement.
Today virtually all of the known factors that
support and stimulate development are more accessible and more prevalent than ever before.
Education, the most essential resource for development, is far more widespread than at any
time in history. Technology is far more available and so are trained people to operate it.
Information, that most powerful catalyst of human initiative, is more easily obtainable
through the very rapid expansion of the press, journals, telephones and fax machines,
satellite television and data linkages. Investment, once thought to be a critical
constraint, is pouring into developing countries and pouring from household savings into
new productive enterprises. Management know-how, a traditional weakness in most developing
countries, has also improved dramatically.
2. BARRIERS TO DEVELOPMENT
Development theory needs to explain
the process by which these potentials are created and their role in development. It needs
to explain how they combine and interact to determine the direction and speed of social
progress. At the same time it should be able to account for the fact that in most
instances the actual exploitation of opportunities falls far short of the potential and
lags far behind the maximum pace achievable or already achieved by some other societies.
Solutions are known for many of the most severe problems of development, yet these
problems persist. If the unseen potentials are far more prevalent than most people
conceive, the unseen barriers to progress also seem to be much more obstructive.
Observation of social progress reveals three recurring types of obstacles to development
– limited perception, out-dated attitudes and anachronistic behaviors.
Perceptual Walls &
Apparent Dead Ends
One of the most striking
characteristics of development discernible in all periods, countries and fields of
activity has been the inability of society to envision or foresee its own future destiny.
This attribute is usually accompanied by the contrary tendency to perceive opportunities
as insurmountable obstacles. Innumerable times in history, humanity has come face to face
with what it believed was a dead end to progress, only to discover sooner or later a way
around or through the dead end to open up a wider field of opportunities. This description
is literally applicable to the search by European seafarers for a sea route to Asia. In
the 15th Century, a great number of Portuguese vessels were dispatched in
search of a route around Africa, but all of them were repelled by an impenetrable barrier
when they reached the tiny Cape Bojador midway down the Western coast of the continent.
The barrier was the widespread belief that Bojador represented the edge of the world and
that to sail beyond it was certain death. It took persistent efforts by Prince Henry, 12
expeditions, and a very large purse to persuade one bold captain to skirt the cape and
break the perceptual wall. Once done, Portugal soon discovered the Southern route to India
and became a leading mercantile power.
Today humanity no longer fears the end of the
earth, but powerful perceptual barriers still exist with regard to employment, technology,
trade, environment, corruption, inflation and population that represent very real barriers
to development the world over. Malthus was not the only one to foresee imminent doom where
in fact there was enormous opportunity. In 1950 Holland’s population exceeded 5
million, reaching a density that many believed approached the ultimate limits that this
tiny landmass could support. Today the Netherlands has 15 million people, almost three
times the population density, yet it ranks among the most prosperous nations in the world
and is a major food exporter. In the mid 1960s, India suffered from two successive years
of drought and was on the verge of severe famine. An expert team sent to India by the Food
and Agricultural Organization estimated that the country’s food grain production
would rise by a maximum of 10% before 1970. Many Indian scientists shared this pessimistic
view. Actually grain production rose 50 percent during this period and doubled within a
decade to make the country self-sufficient in food grains. Had India’s leaders shared
the view of the experts, the Green Revolution may never have been attempted.
Errors in assessment of future possibilities occur
when we make projections of future performance on the basis of historical trends, even
though changing circumstances have radically altered the environment. The development of
the high yielding varieties of wheat and rice dramatically altered the equation for food
production, yet was not factored into the assessment of what could be achieved. Looking
forward, we often see apparently insurmountable obstacles to future progress. Looking
backwards, we discover continuity and progress. History has shown time and again that
there are no dead ends, only people who are unable to see the opportunities and solutions
concealed behind the immediate obstacles.
Outmoded Attitudes
The most persistent obstacles to
human development are not physical barriers, but out-dated attitudes. The original Iron
Curtain across Europe was not established by the Soviet Government after World War II. It
was put up by Turkish Muslims during the Middle Ages to prevent Christian infidels from
establishing a direct overland trade route to Asia. This impenetrable barrier to land
transit through the Middle East forced the Europeans to seek a sea route, eventually
leading to the Portuguese discovery. Once found, direct sea trade developed and the Middle
East lost the opportunity to be the central trade route between Europe and the Far East.
For a brief period in the 13th Century
Korea led the world in printing technology, introducing the use of metal for making
printing blocks. This distinguished position was short-lived because Korean scholars
refused to accept a 25 character phonetic alphabet that King Sejong developed to replace
the thousands of Chinese ideographic characters then in use. A human attitude barred the
way to a nation’s progress. Korea’s printers were soon left behind by
developments elsewhere.
Fifteenth century China possessed a navy
unparalleled in size, skills and technology, but their expeditions led only to dead ends.
The purpose of these expeditions was to display the splendor and prowess of the Chinese
emperors. They obstinately resisted foreign ways of life and discouraged trade. The
Chinese developed a traditional immunity to world experience. Confucian teachings would
accommodate and sequester the most astonishing novelties that mariners found. A Great Wall
of the mind separated China from the rest of the planet. Ultimately, threats from the
Mongols made the Chinese emperors ban all marine ventures. Fully equipped with technology,
intelligence and national resources to become great discoverers, an attitude doomed them
to become the discovered.
The science of medicine developed very slowly in
Europe due to the reluctance of physicians to share their successful remedies, until the
establishment of the Royal Society of Physicians in the 18th Century led to
more open exchange of information, support for research and medical education. One of the
deepest and the most widespread of human prejudices has been faith in the unaided,
unmediated human senses. When the telescope was invented for seeing at a distance, prudent
people were reluctant to allow the firsthand evidence of their sight to be overruled by
some dubious novel device. The eminent geographer Cremonini refused to waste his time
looking through Galileo's contraption just to see what "no one but Galileo had
seen.... and besides, looking through those spectacles gives me a headache." A famous
mathematician, Father Clarius, said Galileo first built satellite and star-like objects
into the telescope glass and then pretended to see them in the sky. Distrust of the new
was for long an obstacle to the development of science. Four centuries later, Charles
Darwin railed against the superstitious resistance of elder scientists to ideas that
contradicted established theory, going so far as to suggest an age limit on membership in
scientific associations.
The absence of roads in many parts of rural France
kept the population isolated, poor, uneducated and culturally backward until late in the
last century. A proposal for construction of roads in rural Gascony met with strong
popular resistance because people feared that it would make them vulnerable to theft. Only
after the roads were finally built did the rural population come to understand the
enormous practical benefits roads provided by opening markets for farm produce and
bringing modern medicine, education and manufactured goods to the countryside. The
resistance of French peasants to efforts by the Government to spread education arose from
the belief that reading and writing were totally irrelevant to their lives.
Today outmoded attitudes bar social advancement in
every field. The expansion of world trade after 1950 has been a tremendous force for
stimulating job creation and raising living standards around the world. Yet fear and
resistance to expansion of trade persists among Americans and Canadians to the North
American Free Trade Association, among Europeans to closer economic and monetary union,
and among people in every country to freer international trade under the World Trade
Organization.
Anachronisms
Development is also retarded by a
plethora of anachronisms which have no other raison d’être than the momentum of past
habits that refuse to die. High rates of childbirth have been traditionally practiced by
the poor all over the world to compensate for high rates of infant mortality. Yet even
after the introduction of modern medical technology in developing countries drastically
reduced infant mortality rates in the 1950s, rates of child birth remained at high levels
and have taken decades to decline to a degree commensurate with improved infant survival
rates. Traditional behaviors have been slow to change until the population became more
educated.
Clock makers' guilds were begun in Paris (1544)
and London (1630) to enforce monopolies against foreign goods. The French guilds excluded
new talent, imposed exorbitant dues on their members, and restricted the number of
apprentices. The English guilds were less constricting and more favorable to development
of the clock makers' crafts. When demand surged for seafaring clocks and better scientific
instruments of all sorts by the mercantile powers, English clock-makers were free to
respond to the opportunity and prosper.
Gold was a popular form for saving personal wealth
and a hedge against inflation in many countries prior to the establishment of reliable
banking systems. The safety of banks and the higher returns available from other forms of
investment have gradually diminished the importance of gold as a form of savings. In some
Asian countries, the traditional habit of saving and paying dowry in the form of gold
jewelry has continued unabated, even after more secure and financially attractive forms of
savings became widely available. The people of India possess nearly 30,000 metric tons of
gold valued at $300 billion, an amount roughly twice the value of the public deposits held
by Indian banks. Because India must import gold for conversion into jewelry, this form of
savings removes liquidity from the national economy and prevents the reinvestment of
personal savings in productive activities within the country. At a time when hundreds of
billions of dollars are desperately needed for investment in roads, power plants and
telecommunications infrastructure, an anachronistic habit forces the nation to depend on
foreign investors while it sits on a huge hoard of untapped wealth.
UNDP has calculated that $40 billion a year would
be sufficient to eradicate global poverty within ten years. Yet long after the end of the
Cold War and at a time when there is not even a serious potential enemy in sight, world
military expenditure remains at $850 billion a year. The war is over, but a costly,
wasteful, unproductive anachronism persists.
It is possible to cite instances in which
perceptual blind spots, unwarranted fears, provincial attitudes and anachronistic habits
limit development in every country and every field of life. The rare few that are willing
to concede that physical resources may not impose severe limits on human progress are very
likely to insist that the fixed character of human nature does. History contains a record
of infinite potentials discovered and countless opportunities missed due to a lack of
perception, tradition-bound attitudes and insistence on anachronistic behaviors. But
history also reports innumerable instances in which humanity has demonstrated the capacity
to draw appropriate knowledge from its experience, overcome its limited vision and fixed
behaviors and take major developmental leaps forward. In his introduction to the Brandt
Commission Report, Former German Chancellor Willy Brandt expressed his hope that the
problems created by men can be solved by men. Any attempt to formulate a comprehensive
theory of social development must reflect the central role of human beings in both
determining and overcoming self-imposed limits on social progress.
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