Evolution of Development Thought
- Evolution of Development thought
- Evolution means the gradual development of something.
- Development can be defined as simply how societies change over time. It is not exclusive to the economic aspects, but rather a multi-dimensional process involving re-organisation and re-orientation of the entire economic and social system. It is a process of improving the human lives quality wise, for example, education, health, income and services.
- Development thought has been described as knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live (Sen 2005). It can be defined simply as the ideas, concepts and theories that constitute our knowledge of how societies change. Therefore, this presentation traces the evolution of responses to the questions: What is development? How does it happen? What can policy do to make it happen?
Concern over development has been with us for as long as people have existed, for it is fundamentally about the improvement of the human condition. But its study as a formal line of enquiry is more recent. It dates back to what W. Arthur Lewis (1988: 28) terms the “superstars of the eighteenth century”, the contributions of David Hume, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and James Steuart. The classicists’ scope was what we would today term questions of economic growth, the distribution of wealth and the principles underlying personal behaviour and public action. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, thought on development was greatly influenced by French philosophes, which focused less on economic factors and more on the promotion of greater equality and freedom and a just society. Worthy of note also, were the efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in France to codify both law and national education available to all citizens.
In the 1960’s, the Modernisation theory was brought forward. Under this theory, it was believed that development is achieved when a country has high industrial outputs and exports goods to the world economy. Science and technology can be used to advance industry and stimulate economic growth. This theory argues that people have to leave their traditional ways, which are said to be counter-productive and adopt the modern and western ways to achieve development. Walt Rostow (1960) supports the view that modernisation can be used to advance and stimulate economic growth. Economic growth then provides jobs and can increase living standards.
Moreover, around the 1970’s there was the Dependency theory. Andre G. Frank states that in a globalised world, countries that are wealthy increase by exploiting and under-developing the poorest nations through unfair trade. Rich countries play a role in creating poverty. This theory explains that the world is divided into two regions: The Core, which is the developed and the periphery which is the underdeveloped. Resources flow into the core for industrial production and high value consumer goods flow back to the periphery.