development – what it is

The notion of development sounds ancient and historical. Sixty years have passed since the time Truman gave life to this concept which he successfully used to divide the world into poor and rich, legitimising the existence of the “Third World” and classifying it as a place inhabited by people who “lack” necessary resources and tools to overcome their status of “underdevelopment”. Development was considered the project which “eliminates poverty”. After the failure and disillusionment of various development theories a new era of critical development thinking – post-development – has commenced. In this essay I intend to examine the critique of development of those post-development authors who rejected development and those who claim to have found alternatives to development. In line with these authors I particularly aim to outline the reasons why development needs to be rejected and what needs to be refused in order for it to be functional in today’s world of constant struggle and dissatisfaction.

As Sachs (1992: 3 in Pieterse J.N. 2000, p. 175) claims “it is not the failure of development which has to be feared, but its success.” Sachs refers to the success of a particular development – the one utilised by the “developed” countries as a tool to homogenise humanity and eradicate its roots to facilitate the path to achieve total control over the world. What post-development writers reject is not development – the project of improving people’s lives but the “Post-World War II” (PWWII) development project, which consists of “ideas and practices premised upon the belief that some areas of the world are ‘developed’ and others are not and that those which are not can and should set about achieving the ‘development’ which has thus far eluded them” (Matthews S. 2004, p. 375). As a result, the success and failure of the PWWII development project lies in the eye of the beholder, namely it depends on where one is coming from. For the South all development has brought is nothing but destruction of resources, forests and culture. On the one hand, for instance, deforestation in Ghana has led to sharp increases of malnutrition and disease in the South (McMicahel 2008, 161-164). On the other hand, the increase of exports has benefited the North economically and supplied people with various food commodities. In northern countries economic growth and availability of diverse food is considered development. In the South, on the other hand, development is not necessarily the equivalent of economic growth. It rather entails a plurality of meanings depending on the context, that is the environment, history and peoples. In my opinion, the PWWII development project has not brought development in the entire world. Instead it has infected humanity. Various multinationals such as Nestles, Starbucks and Monsanto control our food supply and make sure farmers behave according to the rules of the system, that is they get sentenced if they try saving seeds in order to reuse them for the next season. The multinationals are obliging them to use genetically modified seeds instead in order to produce more and make more profit (Food Ink. Robert Kenner, Fortissimo Films, 2008. Film). This harms the environment and our health. Furthermore, millions of acres once used to feed poor countries are now used to grow kiwis, strawberries and asparagus for upper-middle-class consumers (McMichael 2008, 161-164). As a result, what the PWWII development project has brought about until now is nothing but destruction and underdevelopment both in the South and in the North. Most of the people living in “developed” countries are either unaware of what is going on or have no choice but buying what the supermarket offers because they cannot afford expensive food such as organic aliments. The frequent eruption of volcanoes, tsunamis and cyclones which according to the Shamans of the Amazon (2010, youtube) is the manifestation of the anger of nature which has not been looked after are other factors leading to total chaos in the world and which human beings are totally unaware of. I think that post-development writers such as Escobar or Esteva do not reject development. They reject the PWWII development project practised until now, known as development and are opened for alternatives to it.

To put into practice true development we need to dismantle what development discourse has created until now. It has “colonised reality and thus became reality” (Escobar 1992, p.419 in Pieterse 2000, p.180). Furthermore, all the prejudices and concepts about the Third World and poverty we have stalled in our minds until now need to be eradicated. In my opinion, this is only possible if we undergo a mental process of tabula rasa which will allow us to “open up the possibility to think reality differently” (Escobar 1992, 424 in Pieterse 2000, p. 180) and depict the world for what it is. “Human existence is nourished by true words with which men and women transform the world. To exist, humanly, is to name the world” (Freire 1996, p.69). Thus, “to speak a true word is to transform the world”(Freire 1996, p.68). I think, everything is relative and in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, if everything is relative, development is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As a result, dichotomy gives rise to unauthentic words and consequently limits the process of transforming reality (Freire 1996, p.69). Therefore, development does not need to be planned since it is a natural and spontaneous process that manifests by itself. It ought to be accepted as it is and comes. As a result, there is no need for countries to worry about the development of other countries. Moreover, every country or peoples go through a development path which is diverse, distinct and valid only in the context it originated. I agree with Rahnema and Bawtree (1997, 385 in Matthews 2004, p.376) according to who “the people whose lives have been traumatised by development changes do not refuse to accept change. Rather, they want change that could leave them free to change the rules and the contents of change, according to their own culturally defined ethics and aspirations.” What has shaped our reality is discourse power representing other places (the power to name, to describe, to publish, to claim and construct knowledge) which translates the differences between the West and non-West into superiority of the former and justified political interventions that underpinned imperialism (McEwan 2009, p.65). The realisation of this fact is a crucial step forward which enables us to combat old mind constructs. I think that this realisation which is only achievable through a high spirit of awareness constitutes the alternative to development.

Reality takes a complete different shape if we annul all the discourses that have been created by development agents and theorists until now. In this way development is everywhere and underdevelopment is nowhere. An alternative to development, therefore, consists of making present the non-existent produced by the monocultures of knowledge, universal and global, linear time, classification and capitalist productivity, created by the Enlightenment thinking (Gibson – Graham 2005, p.5). In Jarga, for example, development exists. It is place-specific and determined by a mesh of traditional practices and relationships of gifting, borrowing, volunteering, sharing and reciprocated individual and collective work all of which are existent economic practices that have been rendered non-existent (Gibsom – Graham 2005, p. 15-16). An example of sharing is the tihap practice through which rice farmers receive money or fertilizers before or during the land preparation and repay the donor in rice, with interest added in, after the harvest season (Gibson-Graham 2005, p.15). I think it is necessary to change one’s thought pattern in order to see through and thus be able to speak a true word (Freire 1996, p.69) to finally change one’s attitude and behaviour. This transformation represents the essence of development which according to me has not been annulled by post-development theorists. I see a net affinity between those who reject development such as Escobar and those who are searching for alternatives to development such as Gibsom–Graham. Both are actually rejecting imperialistic and universalistic development that has shaped today’s society until now, the so called PWWII development project, and searching for alternatives to it. I think that an alternative to development is the acceptance of the diversity of the world which gives rise to different realities all of which deserve to exist in the way the people create them, that is with their culture, belief, personality, language, religion and way of expressing. I agree with Etounga-Manguelle according to who “a project premised upon a set of values cannot succeed in absence of those values” (Matthews 2007, p.380).

If we change our thought pattern we transmogrify our reality that is dualism into pluralism, homogeneity into heterogeneity, poverty into wealth. As a result, poverty can be a resource rather than a deficit (Max Neef 1982, 1991; Chambers, 1983 in Pieterse 2000, p.177). Changing our thought pattern means fighting the concept of orientalism, namely western representations of southern cultures (McEwan 2009, p.60). This makes reality more human and less inhuman. “Culturally perceived poverty need not be real material poverty: subsistence economies which serve basic needs through self-provisioning are not poor in the sense of being deprived” (Shiva V, 1998b, 10 in Pieterse 2000, p.177). If poverty is only a construct of the mind created by planners and development actomaniacs who “give the uniformed public the distorted impression of how the world’s impoverished are living their deprivations by presenting them as incapable of doing anything intelligent by themselves” (Rahnema 1992, 169 in Pieterse 2000, p.177) then the realisation of this fact automatically changes development and thus reality. We then eliminate the concept of poverty in our mind and start looking at people for who they believe they are, namely rich and wise rather than poor and ignorant. The annulment of development is the abandonment of previous mind construct. We shall therefore stop referring to it as development and accept reality for what is rather than for what should be or what it is not. Discourse power has created a farce condemning indigenous populations to near extinction, firstly making them think of themselves as inferior, underdeveloped and ignorant and secondly presenting them to the world as the ‘illiterate’, ‘malnourished’, ‘small farmers’, all of which are abnormalities created by development discourse aimed later to be treated and reformed (Escobar 1997, p.92). As a result, it seems to me as if development has been created intentionally in order to “underdevelop” people, namely taking away their dignity as human beings.

There is more evidence that outlines how complex the nature of development discourse has been. Anisur Rahman’s critique to post-development outlines how trapped people such as him are in the development discourse. He tries to save development by stating that “development is a very powerful means of expressing the conception of societal progress as the flowering of people’s creativity” and asking a fundamental question: “Must we abandon valuable words because they are abused? What to do then with words like democracy, cooperation, socialism, all of which are abused” (1993, 213-214 in Pieterse 2000, 183). These words might be valuable in theory, but in practice they are nonexistent. Democracy which is supposed to give the people an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives represents a farce, since in reality people’s lives are ruled by “private tyrannies” as Noam Chomsky calls them (Pilger 2002, 72), like the WTO (World Trade Organisation) for instance, an undemocratic multinational corporation, firstly because it is not elected by the citizens, secondly because it excludes other countries to participate in the decision making of trade (Black Gold. Marc Francis and Nick Francis, California Newsreel , 2006.Film) and third because it controls the global trade by establishing what supermarkets have to supply (Food Ink. Robert Kenner, Fortissimo Films, 2008. Film). Thus, “to glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on humanism and to negate people is a lie” (Freire 1996, p.72). On the other hand, cooperation which implies togetherness and team work among countries is inexistent in reality. Instead people’s relationships are determined by separatism. If countries cooperated, then they would exchange resources equally and trade fairly. Instead “Iraqi children die because there is no chemotherapy and no pain control – the UN Sanction Committee had banned nitrous oxide as ‘weapon dual use’“(Pilger 2002, 50), while Africa has become more dependent than ever before. If Africa’s share of world trade increased by just 1 percentage point, it would generate a further 70 billion dollars a year or five times the amount Africa currently receives in aid (Black Gold. Marc Francis and Nick Francis, California Newsreel , 2006.Film). These examples prove Escobar’s statement to be right according to which the ‘discourse of development’ has been a ‘mechanism for the production and management of the Third World (1992b, 413-414 in Pieterse 2000, p.189) and “caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (McEwan 2009, p.63). Moreover, they prove that development discourse has been sustained by utopian and quixotic concepts such as democracy, cooperation, freedom and independence all of which, in reality, are nothing else but the equivalent of imperialism. The use of these concepts have facilitated the elites to achieve what they intended, namely being the managers of the world. I agree with Escobar (p.91) according to who the most important exclusion, however, was and continues to be, what development is all about: people”.

In this essay, I have shown how post-development writers do not actually reject true development. They reject the PWWII development project. Thus, the rejection of development and the search for alternatives to it have the same objective and represent therefore the same concept. What the PWWII development project has contributed to is the eradication of people from their culture and the homogenisation of humanity which is anti-people and therefore anti-development. I conclude affirming that development exists. It cannot be seen if people remain unaware and incapable of thinking with their own minds. Awareness would not allow discourse power to colonise their minds. Development, therefore is visible only by those who accept the world for what is, namely with all its diversity and vibrations. Furthermore, “those who are able to recognise themselves as the oppressed are among the developers of this pedagogy” (Freire 1996, 35-36). An alternative to development is both the acceptance of the plurality and diversity shaping the world and the realisation that development occurs spontaneously and is determined by the people and the environment it originates. Once humanity accepts these two facts, there will be no reason of naming development anymore since development will just be.

Poetic Lyric

References

Black Gold. Marc Francis and Nick Francis, California Newsreel , 2006.Film.

Escobar, A. (1997). ‘The Making and Unmaking of the Third World through Development’.
In M. Rahnema and V. Bawtree (eds) The Post-Development Reader. Zed, London, pp. 85-93.

Food Ink. Robert Kenner, Fortissimo Films, 2008. Film

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Group. Chapter 1,
pp.25-52.

Gibson-Graham J. K. (2005). ‘Surplus Possibilities: Post-development and Community Economies.’ Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 26(1), 4-26.

Matthews S. (2007). ‘Post-development theory and the question of alternatives: a view from Africa.’ Third World Quaterly, 25(2), 373-384.

McEwan, Ch. (2009). ‘The Origins of Post-colonialism’. Postcolonialism and Development. Routledge, New York, Chapter 2 Excerpts, pp. 60-75.

McMichael, P. (2008). ‘Instituting the Globalisation Project’. Development and Social Change:
A Global Perspective. Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, Chapter 6, pp. 149-189.

Pieterse, J. N. (2000). ‘After Post Development’, Third World Quaterly, 21(2): 175-191.

Pilger, J. (2002). The new rulers of the world, London: Verso.

Pushedforfreedom (2010, May 22), Shamans of the Amazon speak of our destructive
nature. This is a case of rebellion against technology and modernisation seen as the cause of destructive nature (Youtube clip). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udcSlVic2jg

development without developing

Hau’ofa, E. (1993). ‘Our Sea of Islands’. In E. Waddell, V. Naidu and E. Hau’ofa (eds.).

A New Oceania: Rediscovering our Sea of Islands. University of South Pacific, Suva, pp. 2-17.

The author presents a vision of Oceania based on his observations of behaviour at the grassroots. He raises the awareness of the reader by referring to smallness as a state of mind, highlighting the distinguishable characteristics of the people of Oceania who conceived their world in macroscopic proportions and saw themselves belonging to Oceania, “a sea of Islands”. This on the other hand was seen by Europeans as merely Islands in a far sea. According to the author paying attention to what people do rather than to what they should be doing allows us to see the broader picture of reality (p. 12).

This paper shows how myths, legends, oral traditions and cosmologies were all treasures which constituted the life of the people of Oceania and their richness. Labelling them barbaric only because they are different, shows Europeans’ judgmental attitude and lack of sensing the diversity of humanity and their codes. The people of Oceania are naturally expanding social networks through reciprocity and therefore already progressing. Development is a natural part of their life. The west has misused the meaning of it in order to construct a reality that puts all non-westerners in one box called “underdeveloped”. Development here has fed people’s lethargy until becoming what Paulo Freire calls the “culture of silence” (Freire 1996, 12). Notwithstanding the evil force embedded in development, it is worth observing one vivid fact this paper reflects on: it is significantly harder to “colonise” people’s minds when they operate interdependently like the people of Oceania, rather than dependently such as the Third World (p.13).

Cowen, M. and R. Shenton (1995). ‘The Invention of Development’. In J. Crush (ed.).
Power of Development. London: Routledge, pp. 27-43.

This paper presents the complexity and indispensability of the term “development” through different theories of the nineteenth century which show its vastness going from an economical, political and social interpretation of it (Adam Smith, Thomas Maltus, Saint – Simonians, August Compt, Friedrich List) to a far deeper philosophical view based on individuality – the necessity of choice and the radical rejection of conformity (p.39). According to the latter perspective, “development can only occur where the conditions of development are already present” (p. 40). Esteva’s and Mill’s theories awake some truth within development. Esteva highlights the importance of awareness while Mill the significance of choice. For Esteva “in order for someone to conceive the possibility of escaping from a particular condition, it is necessary first to feel that one has fallen into that condition” (1992, 7).

Development can only come from “within” as stated by Mill according to who people need to choose their own path and employ all their mental faculties (p. 39). Development cannot possibly come from the outside or a past reality. History is past knowledge and is not the key for development since society is constantly undergoing radical transformations. Any theory based on history is a mere assumption and therefore invalid. If development comes from within then there is no room for the West to investigate into solutions leading to the achievement of development. This is a concept existing only in the mind of human beings. The West has used its tools of discourse to transmogrify this concept into a fact. Hau’ofa refers to the people of Oceania and states that “there are no more suitable people on earth to be guardians of the world’s largest ocean than those for whom it has been home for generations” (1993, 14).

Rist, G. (2002). ‘The Invention of Development’, The History of Development. Zed
Books, London, Chapter 4, pp. 69-79.

This paper describes the devastated post war situation characterised by the emerging of the USA as a controlling power. The USA did this by determining a new way of conceiving international relations. Their main focus was rebuilding the North, hence pushing inadvertently the changes of the South into the background. President Truman gave light to a new world view by redefining development as a transitive phenomenon and consequently altering the meaning of “underdevelopment” to a “naturally occurring state of things” (p.73). Underdevelopment was not the opposite of development, but only its incomplete form (p.74). As a result, development became a goal achievable through a determined application of modern scientific and technical knowledge.

Truman projected a new world-view. On the one hand he proclaimed freedom and equality for all nations liberating the ex-colonies from their status of dependency. On the other hand he drew a new picture of the world dividing it into developed and underdeveloped countries and people. What Truman alimented with the rise of underdevelopment is what the Brazilian author Paulo Freire calls sectarianism, an obstacle to the emancipation of mankind (1996, p. 19). Development and underdevelopment do not exist. Truman created this concept and fed the human mind with the illusion of being able to “realize the aspirations for a better life” (p.71). Development here is a reminder of what they lack and are meant to become (Esteva 1992, 10). It is a way of exploiting the South by an evil and quixotic promise of independence. Development is a new way of dependency alimented by free markets. Moreover, development is a synonym for dehumanisation which marks those whose humanity has been stolen and those who have stolen it (Freire 1996, 26) or in other words the oppressed and the oppressor respectively.

Esteva, G. (1992). ‘Development’. In W. Sachs (ed.). The Development Dictionary. Zed,
London, pp. 6-25.

This paper shows the darkness of development. It is seen as a series of actions towards the achievement of prosperity which is Truman’s policy. Development transmogrified two third of the people of the world into a mirror of others’ reality that belittles them, defines their identity and classifies them as underdeveloped (p.7), a perception that already existed in countries such as Latin America. It has been deepened through the rise of this term and become a fact.
It is noticeable how the meaning of development has changed from a metaphorical connotation which explained the natural growth of plants and animals to the process of evolution of living beings (Darwin), to the natural process of social change, combining nature and history and converting the latter into a programme.

Development seems to be connoting a plurality of meanings and at the same time annulling or naturalising those when seen with the eyes of the “now”. Historical development cannot be the continuation of natural development. Analysing today’s world by referring back to history means applying thought and intention to reality and consequently changing its naturalness. History is an accumulation of facts valid only in the past. Using historical facts to culminate today’s meaning of development means dismantling the world of its interconnected processes which form its totality and thus changing its reality. Any meaning given to development forms a certain imagination in people and consequently creates their reality. The term development today is a judgement originated by thought which divides and classifies the totality of the world into rich and poor and other binaries. It is not a fact but a concept which loses its validity as soon as individuals cease comparing each others’ realities.

McMichael, P. (2008). Development and Social Change. A Global Perspective.
‘Instituting the Development Project’, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA., Chapter 2, pp.25-54.

The author of this paper outlines the features of the development project seen as a natural response to the process of decolonisation. It was a plan of the nation state and a strategy for world order deploying a method based on the division of labour. The result of this was an unequal ecological exchange. It compelled non-European countries to reduce their agriculture to an export monoculture. In this way the sustainability and prosperity of the industrial countries was secured and dependent on the extraction of raw materials of the South. The sustainability of the human community which previously depended on a local system has been threatened. Over-harvesting substituted the previous process of producing only what necessary.

Development is a reality which exists only for those who are brainwashed by the elites and the media. Development is not the destiny of human kind. It is a tool to control the actual development of the other countries. It is the disease of the South which already contains the tools for its development and therefore does not need to cooperate with the West. The West is destroying human nature through its technological advancements. At the same time it preaches hope, solutions and order in the name of development. As a result, development “under-develops” and devalues other people and countries. Overharvesting “under-develops” countries while the creation of the stereotype of poverty devalues people accordingly. It is worthwhile noticing how overabundance and wastefulness dismantle the Islamic concept of falah according to which prosperity is not achievable through materialism (Sardar 1997, 52). In this case the notion of development and its practice goes against indigenous knowledge. According to the Shamans of the Amazon, for instance, the frequent eruption of volcanoes, tsunamis and cyclones are the manifestation of the anger of nature which has not been looked after. They consider technology destructive and see themselves as “the people who know” (Shamans of the Amazon 2010, youtube). In conclusion, a new conscience of the people needs to be formed in order to redevelop and get back to the status quo of humanity, where what is grown is strictly connected to what is eaten and not determined by money (McMichael 2008, 33).

Escobar, A. (1988). ‘Power and Visibility: Development and the Invention and
Management of the Third World’, Cultural Anthropology, 3(4): 428-443.

Escobar depicts the post war scenario of the world showing the functioning of development and mapping of the Third World. The former is based on the inevitable process of industrialisation imposed onto “poor” countries through planning, reorganising economic and social life while the latter has been classified by development policy based on discourses and programs. The visibility of the practices rendered development programs as techniques of power and knowledge apparent. As a result, development altered long-standing cultural practices, meanings and their social relations respectively.

Development has passed from merely being a potent discourse to a powerful missile of controlling the world, transmogrifying its natural diversity into homogeneity. Its meaning has clearly and intentionally been distorted and has strategically shaped people’s perception of the world. The introduction of development as a plan is a rationalised method of ruling the world and dividing it conveniently into binaries such as poor and rich. Moreover, it is a way of imposing one’s values onto other people who cannot be simply categorised as belonging to one group only, namely the Third World. What is known to be the Third World today is again a very restricted way of looking at it. The Third World constitutes a plurality of realities each of which functions differently and needs to be approached accordingly. Development can only exist if seen in its context. It is only valuable if it comes from the inside-out rather than from the outside-in. Accordingly, development does not need to be integrated with Western knowledge. Indigenous people possess their own systems of belief and knowledge through which they are able to progress. Progress does not go hand in hand with technology. Likewise prosperity is not the result of an abundance of materialism. Both progress and prosperity are a state of happiness based on total freedom. As a result, development is the happiness of the people living in that particular country.

Pieterse, J.N. (2000). ‘After Post Development’, The Third World Quarterly, 21(2): 175-191.

This paper shows the colossal intricacies and complications of development both as a theory and policy. At the same time it displays the enormous dilemma of post development and alternative development which the author considers flawed. The former rejects development but does not offer any constructive action while the latter seems to be attributing to it a narrow meaning excluding its polysemic realities and therefore reproducing the same result. The author embraces a new view of development seeing it as a vivid aspect of the Third World as well.

Post development thinking and development are two interconnected concepts which do not reject but rather attract each other. One cannot be thought of without the other. Development connotes infinite realities and therefore cannot be seen in only one perspective. Like poverty or any other concept, development is in the eye of the beholder and therefore connotes positive and negative realities. The meaning of positive and negative is also pluralistic and varies from eye to eye. Poverty, for instance, can be a deficit or a resource (Pieterse 2000, 177). It depends on the reality one comes from and is looking at it. Therefore, any concept incorporates an infinite corpus of meanings due to a polysemic reality. The interconnection of plural realities is what makes development so vast and complex. In order to see the beauty of it one needs to see things as they are.

Schlech, S. and Haggis, J. (2008). ‘Culture and Development’, in: V. Desai and R.Potter
(eds.). The Companion to Development Studies. Hodder Education, London, pp.50-54.

The author shows the pivotal but undefined role culture plays in the process of development. On the one hand culture explains why some countries succeed and others fail in development (Harrison and Huntington, 2000, as cited in Schlech and Haggis 2008, 50). On the other hand culture is used as a development tool by a variety of development actors to hold societies together giving them a coherent structure which can be used for development interventions. These development actors succeed in displaying an altered and well defined world through the utilisation of techniques of definition such as the International poverty Line. The Third World, for instance, is an artificial creation of the West.

Culture is a highly complex feature of humanity that incorporates plural realities and therefore cannot be simply categorised. Culture can be considered as the result of one’s conditioning by present and past experience. Therefore, culture contains a traditional and modern nature. The former is not barbarian but part of the past, while the latter is part of the present. Modernity and tradition are synonyms of new and old and do not imply “right” or “wrong”. Those societies labelled “underdeveloped” are already “modern” and “developed” because they are different from yesterday and will naturally grow without the influence of an external force imposing its culture upon them and making them underdeveloped. These well-developed societies have been framed as “underdeveloped” under one unique culture formed by powerful institutions such as the UN.

Briggs, J. (2008). ‘Indigenous Knowledge and Development’. In V. Desai and R Potter
(eds.). The Companion to Development Studies. Hodder Education, London, pp. 107-111.

The author of this paper analyses indigenous knowledge and its applicability and validity in the process of development. Indigenous knowledge has become significant because it allowed people to live in harmony with nature while being able to make a living (p.107). According to the author, the reason why the validity of indigenous knowledge has not been acknowledged is because firstly, it is complex, changing, irrational and therefore compared to a rational and controlled Western science does not give credibility because it remains undefined. Secondly, it is place-specific and consequently not easily transferable over the globe.

The approach of the author and several other theorists of development towards indigenous knowledge ultimately highlights the distortion of the term development which has shifted its pure and innate meaning of “societal progress as the flowering of people’s creativity” (Pieterse 2000, 183: Arisur Rahman 1993, 213-214) to a means of power over the globe. The validity of indigenous knowledge has already been confirmed as it has necessarily been integrated into the World Bank supported programs. This shows the West’s limitations in the progress of development whose goal is the achievement of global economy and society through a process of homogenisation. Development can only be country-specific because people, countries and time are different. As a result, it is necessarily based on the principle of accepting diversity. The development of a country needs to be seen with the eyes of the indigenous people living in that country who do not limit themselves to only one way of development. Therefore technology transfer cannot be a universal way to achieve development. This shows the limitations of the West in the process of development. Where there is a way there lies limitation. Development, therefore, is multiple, plural and diverse.

Sardar, Z. (1997). ‘Beyond Development: An Islamic Perspective’. European Journal of
Development Research, 8 (2): 36-55.

The author’s aim is to clarify that development does not fit non-western countries and therefore when it is imposed on them it fragments and destroys societies based on different world views which is referred to as “traditional”. Sardar’s idea of development is rooted in the discourse of “Islamation of knowledge” (p. 46-53). The author shows the flaws of development which are hidden in western rhetoric of democracy and human rights leading to the imposition of free-market and consequently framing the Third World in a situation of dependency. Non-western countries have been sustainable before the west discovered the notion of sustainable development. They have always enjoyed the rights of long life, security and community participation. The West has threatened these rights by suppressing tradition. As a result, traditional cultures can develop within their own systems of belief and knowledge. They are dynamic and constantly changing according to their own logic. Respecting their own system of progressing is what gives richness and meaning to their lives. Sadar foresees a “multiciviliasational” future which will drastically change the meaning of development. There will be more than one way of being human and there will be more than one way to “develop” (p.46).

Development implies opening up to other worlds. In essence there are infinite realities and therefore infinite ways of development in the world. There is no right or wrong way. However, there will be only one way until people become aware of their condition and realise that they have choice. “Those who recognise, or begin to recognise, themselves as oppressed must be among the developers of this pedagogy” (Freire 1996, 35-36). However, no reality transforms by itself. The achievement of freedom is based on choice. The South needs to choose “authentic comradeship” and reject gregariousness (Freire 1996, 30). In conclusion, for development to fully be applicable the West needs to get rid of its xenophobic beliefs, be humble and embrace the emergence of diversity and plurality.

Poetic Lyric

References

Briggs, J. (2008). ‘Indigenous Knowledge and Development’. In V. Desai and R Potter
(eds.). The Companion to Development Studies. Hodder Education, London, pp. 107-111.

Cowen, M. and R. Shenton (1995). ‘The Invention of Development’. In J. Crush (ed.).
Power of Development. London: Routledge, pp. 27-43.

Escobar, A. (1988). ‘Power and Visibility: Development and the Invention and
Management of the Third World’, Cultural Anthropology, 3(4): 428-443.

Esteva, G. (1992). ‘Development’. In W. Sachs (ed.). The Development Dictionary. Zed,
London, pp. 6-25.

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Group. Chapter 1,
pp.25-52.

Hau’ofa, E. (1993). ‘Our Sea of Islands’. In E. Waddell, V. Naidu and E. Hau’ofa (eds.).
A New Oceania: Rediscovering our Sea of Islands. University of South Pacific, Suva, pp. 2-17.

McMichael, P. (2008). Development and Social Change. A Global Perspective.
‘Instituting the Development Project’, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA., Chapter 2, pp.25-54.

Pieterse, J.N. (2000). ‘After Post Development’, The Third World Quarterly, 21(2):
175-191.

Rist, G. (2002). ‘The Invention of Development’, The History of Development. Zed
Books, London, Chapter 4, pp. 69-79.

Sardar, Z. (1997). ‘Beyond Development: An Islamic Perspective’. European Journal of
Development Research, 8 (2): 36-55.

Schlech, S. and Haggis, J. (2008). ‘Culture and Development’, in: V. Desai and R.Potter
(eds.). The Companion to Development Studies. Hodder Education, London, pp.50-54.

Pushedforfreedom (2010, May 22), Shamans of the Amazon speak of our destructive
nature. This is a case of rebellion against technology and modernisation seen as the cause of destructive nature(Youtube clip). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udcSlVic2jg

free trade: no trade – no freedom

Today we live in a world of consumerism and materialism. Money determines if you eat and what you eat. The insatiable desire of countries with economic wealth and technological power for resources has infected other cultures with the same illness of consumerism dragging them to a state of poverty, need and dependency – a condition alimented by “free trade”, a strategic and well thought method. Behind the apparent initial aspiration towards an equitable development through “free trade” there is a reality where disequilibrium and infinite disadvantages for the periphery occur. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the failure of “free trade” and show how this method adopted by “the new rulers of the world[1]” (Pilger J.) leads to poverty and creates intentional underdevelopment in the South. Moreover, my aim is to discuss the reasons of the implausibility and inadaptability of “free trade” in development by displaying some of the invisible and disastrous realities hidden in today’s process of globalisation.

“Free trade” is a strategic tool used by “private tyrannies[2]” as Noam Chomsky calls them (Pilger 2002, 72) to keep the economy under control. It has been disadvantageous for countries such as Chile, for instance, known to be the “new democracy” in Washinton (Pilger 1999, 64). In Chile, in the 1980s all state enterprises were sold off to multinational corporations in the name of “free markets”. As a result, a country which prior to Pinochet had maintained a reasonable standard of living for most of its people was ravaged. Industry was dismantled and currency was devaluated (Pilger 1999, 64). This dragged 40% of Chilean people into poverty (McMichael 2008, 159). As a result, “free trade” is not conducted between nations, but “as transactions within 180 multinational corporations” (Pilger 1999, 72). Underdevelopment is a consequence of the partnership formed between “developed” nations and powerful elite classes in less developed countries. This, for instance benefited the minority class of Latin American elites only, rather than its entire population. The independence of an ex colony from a nation during the period of decolonisation was transmogrified into dependence of the country on powerful multinationals using “free trade” as a development tool to play the game of dictating global rules. Taiwan, Singapore and Korea were those who succeeded by not using the Washington Consensus policy and therefore proofed “free trade” to be not functional. Korean steel and shipbuilding industries, for instance, developed and became more competitive than those of Britain in the industrial sectors, not because of hyper-mobile productive capital that relocated from high-cost Britain to low-cost Korea, but because of a successful alliance between the Korean state and local capital in developing these industries (Kiely 2008, 183).

Furthermore, “free trade” preaches “market freedoms” but celebrates control over resources threatening the environment and resource regeneration. Global managers of today’s “market freedoms” extract resources from resourceful and therefore developed countries to satisfy their own interests of high mass consumption for the North. This “under-develops” resourceful countries such as Chile, Ghana and Brazil. Chile’s export boom overexploited the country’s natural resources beyond their ability to regenerate. In Ghana timber exports increased from 16 million dollars to 99 million dollars from 1983-1988 reducing its tropical forest to 25% of its original size. Deforestation has led to sharp increases in malnutrition and disease. The deprivation of food, fuel and medicine in Ghana and the replacement of rainforests with cattle ranches in Brazil which contract with European markets have led to poverty in the South (McMicahel 2008, 161-164). These facts contradict the Millennium Development Goals of human rights – the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, security. In today’s society millions of acres once used to feed poor countries are now used to grow kiwis, strawberries and asparagus for upper-middle-class consumers (McMichael 2008, 161). “Free trade”, therefore, is being adopted to satisfy the needs of the insatiable desire of the rich towards more materialism and consumerism rather than eliminating poverty. This means that it is profit rather than development oriented. According to the Shamans of the Amazon, for instance, the frequent eruption of volcanoes, tsunamis and cyclones are the manifestation of the anger of nature which has not been looked after (Shamans of the Amazon 2010, youtube). I think that underdevelopment is being created intentionally by putting the South into a comparative disadvantage. As a result, liberalisation is not about freeing trade, but about consolidating a corporate food regime (McMichael 2008, 171). It is worth mentioning the invalidity and implausibility of Ricardo’s economic theory of comparative advantage rooted in “free trade” policy. Firstly, because as Engels claimed, when countries are progressing the demand for manufactured goods are superior to primary goods such as food. As a result, trade via specialisation is a comparative advantage for countries producing manufactured goods and a comparative disadvantage for those producing primary goods such as the South. Secondly, because specialising in the production of a particular commodity means overproducing resources for exports and consequently threatening resource regeneration. I believe that self-sufficiency is the equivalent of development. Therefore, a self-sufficient country does not need to overproduce since it is already developed. Overproducing resources means working for the development of other countries at the expenses of one’s own underdevelopment.

Another reason of why “free trade” leads to underdevelopment and poverty is because of the strategic and atrocious game played by undemocratic private tyrannies such as the WTO, a multinational corporation that is not elected by the citizens and is therefore more powerful than the state. This shows the inapplicability of Friedrich Von Hayek’s argument according to which “liberalism makes it possible to utilise the knowledge and skills of all members of society to a much greater extent than would be possible in any order created by central direction” (Peet and Hartwick 2009, 81). There are some facts outlined by the Australian journalist John Pilger which I find necessary to refer to in order to comprehend why “free trade” is a misnomer and how the WTO which is the pumping vein of “free trade” contradicts the principles it is based on, namely non-discrimination, reciprocity, transparency and fairness. These facts, therefore, show the imperialistic nature of “free trade”. “Children in Iraq die because there is no chemotherapy and no pain control. The UN Sanctions Committee had banned nitrous oxide as ‘weapons dual use’. Yet this was used in caesarean sections to stop bleeding, and perhaps have a mother’s life.” (Pilger 2002, 50). As a result, it is clear that development via “free trade” remains a quixotic fantasy created by powerful corporations in order to satisfy their personal needs. If “free trade” is supposed to eliminate poverty through an equal exchange of resources, then the UN Sanctions Committee in New York should provide the medicine to Iraqis to survive. As a fact “free trade” certainly does not eliminate underdevelopment. On the contrary, it creates underdevelopment. Moreover, although the medicines are made from material extirpated from the South, the countries which are allowed to obtain them get charged a high price. Also, “if diseases are common in developing countries but are not a particular public health problem in the developed world, there is unlikely to be a profitable market for new drugs” (Matthews and Munoz Tellez 2008, 565). “Free trade”, therefore consists in no trade and no freedom.

Moreover, “free trade” in practice turns out to be a comparative disadvantage of the South due to exploitation of the workers and unequal income distribution. In Haiti, for example, workers work overtime to produce baseballs for the USA and get paid 38 cents for every dozen baseballs sewn. Three and a half to four baseballs can be sewn a day. (Pilger 1999, 65). This contradicts one of the principles of neoliberalism according to which workers get paid what they are worth. According to Marx, the value of a commodity is calculated by the labour time invested in a product (Peet and Hartwick 2009, 151). Today, however, brands are produced as opposed to products. What determines the value of a commodity today, such as sugar for example is not labour time but the name of the brand. This makes the value unquantifiable. We are living in a “private label decade” (Klein 2001, 6). Unequal trade and income distribution determine the essence of “free trade”. Exploitation of workers in developing countries producing manufactured goods for First World countries seem to be inevitable since a similar or even better product and mass-production technologies could sooner or later be manufactured by other countries reducing the price of the product. Since these mass-production technologies may involve large amounts of labour, it is convenient for firms to move production to developing countries with lower labour costs (Gwynne, Klak and Shaw 2003, 164-6 as cited in Gwynne 2008, 202). According to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) figures, by the late 1990s, almost 50 per cent of manufacturing jobs were located in the developing world (Kiely 2008, 183). As a result, while people in the North are being bombarded by products of mass consumption with the sole purpose of “getting the economy flowing[3]”, people in the South are being exploited in the name of “development” and “free trade”. Therefore, development connotes unlimited economic growth for rich countries at the expenses of the less privileged via “free trade”. “Underdevelopment is generated by the same historical process which also generates economic development: the development of capitalism” (Frank 1966, 18 as cited in Peet and Hartwick 2009, 168).

To sum up, “free trade” seems to be a quixotic development tool which in theory draws a positive picture of its intentional development policy, but in reality practices unfair trade. Its literal meaning and discourses allude to a utopian development where all countries can achieve economic growth and comparative advantage by “liberalisation”, that is to “free” markets for an equitable exchange of resources. In reality, trade makes poor countries poorer and rich countries richer since “freeing” markets actually means being under International Financial Institution (IFI) supervision and controlled by powerful multinationals such as the WTO. “Free trade” is a misnomer. It entails hidden but evident imperialistic goals. This means that in reality, progress and change are also illusions since nothing has actually changed in real life since the period of colonialism and imperialism: In the past people used to conquer territories through colonisation. Today they conquer resources via “free trade”.

Poetic Lyric

References

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Pilger, J. (1999). ‘The Crusaders’, Hidden Agendas. Great Britain: Vintage, pp. 59-98.

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Pushedforfreedom (2010, May 22), Shamans of the Amazon speak of our destructive
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Simon, D. (2008). ‘Neoliberalism, structural adjustment and poverty reduction strategies’, in: V. Desai and R. Potter (eds) The Companion to Development Studies. Hodder Education, London, pp.86-91.

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[1] With this term Pilger J. refers to the multinationals.
[2] With this terms Noam Chomsky refers to the multinationals.
[3] Meaning the more people consume the more money circulates and finally the faster the economy grows. This, however, leads to global rather than national growth of the economy. I believe that development within a country can only be achieved if the focus is on the nation rather than the globe.