Development Aid: a fundamental critique

This is a short paper that I recently wrote for one of my classes in Berkeley and that I would like to share with you.

Professor Norgaard (UC Berkeley) elaborated upon the development of the “Western World[1]” to a society driven by economic growth. This progress started through the emphasis on technical solutions, to facilitate the spiritual or moral life, e.g. if one could solve the problem of hunger and maladies, people could focus on reading the bible. Soon these technical innovations became a central part of our lives and were generally considered with prosperity and progress. To measure this progress, economical tools such as the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were introduced. Today economic growth has developed to an end in itself. The media almost entirely focuses on GDP growth and rarely on the high GDP level already achieved over time. Neither the exploitation of natural resources, with its severe consequences for nature, nor the recent financial crisis, global poverty or wars around the globe seem to slow our hunger for growth. This destructive way of life has not only changed Western politics, economics and culture but has also been enforced upon other nations, often with drastic consequences. The main objective of this paper is to elucidate on the spread of the growth ideology through Development Economics, based upon the book Encountering Development – The Making and Unmaking of the Third World by A. Escobar. Furthermore I will briefly summarize how this ideology of growth is enforced through Development Economics upon economically less strong countries, based on the course Development Economics[2] taught by A. de Janvry (UC Berkeley). I do intend to discourage or directly criticize any person involved in Development; rather I intend that my paper encourages a more critical self-perception of Development Economics.

One of the central questions in Development Economics is how to correctly define and measure underdevelopment or poverty. Surely this question is of great interest, but it implicitly assumes that we correctly defined development. The question of what development is or how a developed country is supposed to be like, is less strongly debated. A good analogy to this would be a doctor trying to examine a patient’s maladies, not knowing what a healthy patient looks like or – even worse and probably more accurate in this context – by thinking of himself as the norm and unknowingly being very sick. It is our cultural background, the ideology of growth and the understanding of development as technological and material progress that blinded us to critically examine ourselves. This led to the very arrogant subconscious and generally accepted belief that Western Nations are developed. Surely the choice of the terminology of developed and underdeveloped countries in itself reflect our cultural biasness. Consequently economically less prosperous countries adapted to this terminology and identify themselves as underdeveloped. This false ideological conception automatically enforces our culture and the ideology of growth upon other nations.

The Truman Doctrine (1947) followed by the Marshall Plan (1949) are often stated as the beginning of development economics. They introduced a new understanding and management of international affairs, particularly regarding economically less favored nations. Redefining more than half of the world’s population as underdeveloped and imposing Western growth ideology as the cure, were fundamental concepts of Truman’s “new deal”. “More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. … I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life. … What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealing. … Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key to greater production is a wider and vigorous application of modern scientific and technical knowledge. (Truman in his inaugural speech as a President of the United States of America, 1949).” This understanding and interpretation of the world is the heritage of modern Development Economics. Even though these concepts are being critically reviewed, their influence (on Development Economics) can still be found in many areas.

During my Development Economics Studies I felt that the underdevelopment subjectivity was often related to features such as poverty, illiteracy, mental simplicity and ignorance[3]. Especially the ignorance towards other nation’s rich culture and history emphasizes the hegemonic attitude of Western nations. Culture and history are often minimized to a cultural background that should “not be neglected”. It seems that Development Economics often analyzes problems that were caused by Development Economics itself or fewer cases by Colonialism, such as urban poverty, exploitation of labor, illiteracy (compared to Western education standards), insurance and credit market failures. Solutions that are frequently proposed, such as free markets, (Western) education, infrastructure, agricultural reforms, growth pools and financial credits only reinforce the ideology of growth.

Certainly the influence of Western nations upon other cultures has caused severe problems that cannot be easily reversed. Yet this does not justify any actions that reinforce these wrong concepts, such as calling other nations underdeveloped, developing or developed, nor to further enforce the ideology of growth. Instead we should review the past (including Colonialism) and admit and emphasize mistakes that were made, in a similar way as it was done by Germany after WWII with the Holocaust. This would lay the foundation to transform Development Economics into a better understanding of different cultures and mutual helping in the sense of learning from each other.

Bibliography

Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development - The Making and Unmaking if the Third World. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1995.

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[1] With "The West" I am referring to industrialized countries, mostly the USA and Western European countries.

[2] I attended Prof. de Janvry’s course in the fall semester 09/10 at the University of California Berkeley. Besides this course I have attended other Development Economics courses, such as Prof. Bardhan’s Development seminar.

[3] This has nothing to do with the excellent teachings of Prof. de Janvry, but rather with Development Economics in general.