Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Robert Windt <meridian_power@yahoo.com.au>]

 DEVELOPMENT: THE RADICALLY ALTLERNATIVE VIEW.

Ted Trainer,
Visiting Fellow,
Univ. of NSW. Kensington, Australia.
30.3.05
http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D99.Development.RadView.html
>From The Pacific Ecologist, Mid 2005.

The vast development literature, at both academic and
activist levels
fails to attend to the distinction between the
overwhelmingly dominant
conventional conception of development, and what might
be termed
Appropriate Development. Indeed even critics of
development theory
and practice, notably among the NGOs and on the
political left,
unwittingly adhere firmly to the conventional,
capitalist conception
of development and show little sign of recognising
that any other is
possible.

The purpose of the following discussion is to make
clear the enormous
difference between these two conceptions, to argue
that conventional
or capitalist development causes and cannot solve the
Third World's
major problems, and that the alternative path could
easily do so…if
the power and interests of those who currently benefit
from capitalist
development could be overcome.

Following are some of the core taken-for-granted
elements in the
dominant conception of development, followed by
critical comment and
the alternative view.

<Development, progress and improving human welfare are
essentially
about increasing the amount of goods and service
people can buy. The
more that can be produced and sold the more wealth and
benefit there is.>

<Development is therefore basically about increasing
the volume of
business turnover, i.e. the volume of production for
sale, and thus
the GDP. In other words economic growth is more or
less equivalent to
development, or at least its overwhelmingly important
element>

Firstly consider the extreme narrowness in not only
identifying
development as a predominantly economic business, but
of assuming that
of all the important elements of an economy the only
thing that
matters is whether sales are increasing. Obviously
development should
be about improving all aspects of a society, including
the quality of
food and water and health services, the opportunities
for leisure and
cultural activity, the level of debate and discussion,
the processes
for government and administration, the moral
standards, the geographic
and aesthetic conditions in which people live,
citizenship and social
responsibility, social cohesion, equity, concern for
those less
fortunate, the quality of life, security, ecological
sustainability,
and especially improving the conditions of the
poorest. When within
this wide area we com to think about the economy, the
goal should be
to improve it, not just to indiscriminately enlarging
it all the time.

Secondly, the indiscriminate element in the
conventional approach to
development is seriously mistaken. It says "Don't
worry about what to
develop – just free capitalists and markets to
decide." But a
sensible discussion of development must begin with
crucial questions
such as, what do we want produced first, where should
development
resources be focused to do most good, what should we
make sure is not
developed, what kind of economy do we want to build,
and when will we
know we have a satisfactorily developed economy?
Increasing the
amount people can buy might be relevant, but it is far
from the whole
or the central point. Appropriate development is not
possible unless
deliberate decisions are made about goals and means
and deliberate
action taken to develop what's socially desirable, and
often this will
require contradicting and preventing what capitalists
and free markets
would do.

In other words, Approriate development focuses on
developing what is
needed, and that is totally different from development
defined as
facilitating whatever will maximise GDP or business
turnover. Many
regions that have high rates of growth of GDP have had
very little or
no improvement in the conditions of the poor, and
there are some
remarkable cases where the "poorest" people have a
high quality of
life despite extremely low GDP per capita, such as
Kerala and Ladakh
(below.).

In fact the relation between growth and Appropriate
Development is in
general strongly contradictory. If the goal is to
maximise GDP this
will actually prevent appropriate development, because
it will ensure
that development resources will go into producing what
will maximise
sales to people with money, not into what will most
satisfy urgent
needs. Hence 60 years of conventional development have
greatly
enriched the rich while the Fourth World of more than
1 billion people
are now stagnating or going backwards. About forty
countries now have
lower GDP per capita than they had 20 years ago.

To define development as increasing the GDP is
precisely what suits
the rich, because it puts top priority on the freedom
to invest in
developing what is most profitable and will result in
most sales, on
freedom for those with more purchasing power to gear
production to
their demand, and on structuring Third World economies
to supply goods
to the rich countries. All of these are exactly what
the owners of
capital and what consumers in rich countries want but
they obviously
shift Third World productive capacity from meeting the
needs of Third
world people to meeting the demand of rich world
investors and
consumers.

Some of the most appropriate development initiatives
would
dramatically reduce the GDP. For example if some of
the land growing
luxury crops like coffee to export to rich countries
was transferred
to the production of food by and for local people, the
GDP would drop.

Thus the more that increasing the GDP is taken as the
goal of
development, the more inappropriate the resulting
development will be.
Increasing the GDP is not a goal of Appropriate
Development; some of
its elements may increase the production of some items
for sale, but
others will reduce it considerably. A well-developed
Thailand for
instance would have far less work, production, trade,
foreign
investment and GDP than it has at present.

- Development results from the investment of capital.
Therefore it is
necessary to persuade people with capital to invest,
or to borrow it.
- What is developed is decided by those who own
capital. Governments
must attract owners of capital in to invest.

In our society capital is mostly owned by a very few
people and they
decide what is to be developed by investing their
capital in whatever
will maximise their incomes.

The concept of Appropriate Development recognises that
there can be an
important role for capital, and it is not opposed to
foreign
investment and loans. But it emphatically rejects
"capitalist"
development. There are two crucial points here.
Firstly it is
farcical to assume that if you allow the things to be
developed in
your country to be determined by what will most enrich
a few already
extremely rich people living on the other side of the
world then you
will get development of things that are most likely to
meet your most
urgent needs!

What you will get of course is development of
enterprises that will
use your land, resources and labour to produce
luxuries to export to
rich world supermarkets, at the lowest possible return
to you. And if
you are one of the perhaps 50 countries where
transnational
corporations can't maximise their profits producing
anything at all,
then you will get no development at all.

This is absurd, morally repugnant, literally
catastrophic, and totally
avoidable. All those fifty countries have immense
productive capacity
and could have developed into very satisfactory
societies without any
poverty and with thriving economies and rich cultural
systems and a
good quality of life for all, if development had been
conceived in
terms of putting those resources into producing to
meet needs.


The crucial point here is that conventional capitalist
development
results in inappropriate development, i.e., it does
not result in
development of what is most needed. The basic question
to ask is
"What is being developed?" Conventional capitalist
development
develops things that will benefit the rich, the
factory and plantation
owners, and the overseas consumers.

But the second point is much more important.
Appropriate Development
rejects the assumption that capital is important or a
necessary factor
for development.
(Note that even Marxists take capitalist development
for granted; they
assume that there can't be development without
investment of capital,
although they do not want the capital to be privately
owned.)

This is the fundamental contradiction between
conventional and
Appropriate Development. Little or no money capital is
needed for the
development that can meet basic needs and provide all
with a good
quality of life. All the resources necessary for this
are there, in
the land and labour of the people. All that is needed
is the
organisation that an Appropriate Development vision
brings, so that
people work together to devote the productive
resources around them
immediately and directly to producing what they need.

Hence the painfully tragic situation constantly
visible wherein
millions of people suffer malnutrition, poor housing,
inadequate water
supply, poverty, unemployment, depression, illness
etc., while there
are all around them abundant food producing resources,
house building
resources, etc.

It is not that poor people never understand any of
this. Many pursue
Appropriate Development as best they can. The problem
is mostly that
the rich, especially the rich countries, will not
permit Appropriate
Development. (Detailed below.)

<Therefore, plunge into the market! In order to
acquire things money
must be earned by the production of something that can
be sold. In
order for the country to be able to pay for
development and to acquire
goods, it must earn from exporting.>

<The process of development is best determined by
market forces.
Market forces maximise efficiency in the allocation of
resources.
Market forces must determine what is produced, who
gets it and what is
developed. Non-market exchanges must be eliminated.
All productive
items, including land, must be made into commodities
for sale in a
market. Productive activities which take the form of
"subsistence"
outside the market must be moved into it.>

The market system could play a (minor) role in a
satisfactory economy,
but the market is directly responsible for most of the
poverty,
suffering, conflict, ecological destruction and
underdevelopment in
the world. This is because market forces ignore need
and what is just
or appropriate or ecologically necessary, and respond
only to monetary
bids. In a market system things go to those who can
pay most. Market
systems for allocating things or deciding what is to
be developed are
therefore precisely what rich people, corporations,
banks and
consumers want…because market systems guarantee that
they can take all
the available resources while the poor get few if any.
Thus each
person in America gets about 26 barrels of the world's
scarce oil
every year while the poorest one billion people get
almost none of it.
Thus 600 million tonnes of grain, a third of world
production, is fed
to animals in rich countries every year while more
than 1 billion
people are malnourished. These crucial contradictions
are direct and
inevitable consequences of the fact that we have a
global economy in
which who gets resources is determined by market
forces. That is the
way of proceeding that obviously enables the richest
few to take what
the poor need.

Even worse, when market forces are allowed to
determine what is
developed the productive capacity of the Third World
is devoted not to
producing what Third World people need, but to what
consumers in rich
countries want. A glaring illustration is the fact
that in some Third
World countries more than half the best land grows
luxury crops to
export to rich countries. Similarly, most of the
factories on their
land produce goods to export, not things their people
need.

Advocates of the market claim that it is the most
"efficient" way of
allocating things. But this is true only if
"efficient" is defined
merely in terms of what will make most profit. If on
the other hand
your goal is to meet human and ecological need, then
obviously the
market is the most appallingly inefficient system!

Consider the benefit that "trickles down" to the
people from this
arrangement. People in Bangladesh producing shirts are
paid 15 c an
hour, part of which they must then spend buying from
supermarkets
owned by rich world corporations. They would be far
better off if
most of their work time could be going into the
production of
necessities in small local farms and firms they owned.
But rich
countries and their agencies such as the World Bank
simply will not
allow this -- development is only allowed to take the
form that suits
corporations seeking to maximise profits according to
market forces.
The Banks Structural Adjustment Packages expressly
prohibit anything
else, and they dismantle any other arrangements
governments might have
had in place, especially subsidies for poorer people.
The only form of
development they permit and enforce is development of
precisely what
suits corporations and rich world consumers.

Just think what would happen if markets were not
allowed to determine
allocation and governments decided what was to be
developed and who
was to get the things produced. Good governments would
make sure that
their people got the wealth the land produces. Bad
governments would
make sure that the local ruling elites got most of it.
Either way
rich world corporations and consumers would get less!
So that's not
acceptable to them –- they want a system that enables
them to get most
of the available wealth. Having market forces
determine who gets it
not only ensures the rich get the wealth, but it
legitimises the
process; -- it makes it seem OK because everyone is
free to bid in the
market. (This is why the rich world spokespeople,
notably President
Bush, constantly harp on the importance of "freedom".
What they mean
however is only the freedom of the rich to take what
they want and
invest in what they want, as distinct from the freedom
of poor people
to escape hunger or to produce for themselves what
they need.)

Obviously the development of what is appropriate in
view of the urgent
needs of people, societies and ecosystems is not
possible unless a
great deal of production and distribution and
investment takes place
contrary to market forces. Many things should be
developed that are
not very profitable and many things should be
developed that can never
pay. The general principle is that market forces
prevent appropriate
development. Yet again, conventional development
theory totally rules
out any "interference with market forces."

Another serious fault with a market economy is that it
pits us all
against each other as individual competitors in the
market place. But
the best way for humans to do things is cooperatively.
Most things
work out much better if they are done by people
working together,
pooling their capacities, striving for the common
good, and making
sure that all are looked after and no one is dumped or
trampled. But
conventional economics all disqualifies all collective
values. Again
this suits the rich and powerful very nicely – they
don't want people
to get together to take control over their situation –
they want
everyone to compete as isolated individuals against
them, the rich, in
the market where the rich can win and take what they
like.

Thus, Appropriate Development rejects the absurd
conventional economic
assumption that the best for all results if
individuals compete
against each other pursuing their self-interest in
free markets. In a
satisfactory society there could be much freedom for
individuals, many
small private firms, and a (minor) role for market
forces (under
careful social control), but the main institutions and
procedures
would have to be basically cooperative and collective,
and there would
have to be considerable regulation of the economy.

<Plunge into the global economy! Individuals and
nations must find
something to produce and sell, because they can't
expect to be able to
acquire anything unless they have been able to sell
something,
including labour. So, crank up some export industries,
and entice in
foreign investment. Trade! That's crucial if you are
to be able to
accumulate capital, pay for imports, and for loans and
infrastructure
development.>

Again the fundamental mistakes are the assumption that
the only thing
that matters is getting money and using it to buy
things, and that you
can't have anything unless you export into the global
market and earn
the money to bur it from the global market. These
assumptions totally
ignore the key to Appropriate Development, which is
the immense
capacity for self sufficiency outside the monetary
economy.
Conventional development theory and practice have no
interest in the
fact that households, communities, localities and
nations can easily
produce for themselves most of what they need outside
the monetary
economy and with almost no dependence on capital or
markets or
corporations or banks. (They might not produce as
"efficiently" as
distant corporations, but that is of no consequence.)
The main
purpose of this paper is to drive this point home and
it will be
elaborated below.

Thus a core principle of Appropriate Development is,
minimise economic
connections with the rich countries and the global
economy. Borrow
very little if anything. Export only a few surpluses
in order to be
able to import only a few important items. Allow
foreign investors
into your nation only if they will agree to produce
necessities on
your terms. Maximise local and national
self-sufficiency. This
principle enables security from the devastation the
global economy can
instantly inflict if export prices fall or if capital
moves out. No
matter what happens to coffee prices or on Wall St you
can continue to
provide most if not all you need for a high quality of
life.

Consider the people in Bangladesh being paid 15c can
hour to make
shirts for export. Compare the volume of necessities
they could buy
with their $5 weekly wage with the volume of food,
furniture, clothing
etc they could be producing for themselves and their
village if they
could spend that week working in local cooperatives
producing
necessities. The real benefit to them would have to be
something like
one hundred times as great as they get now.

<Globalisation is good. It brings a bigger, more
unified and
integrated world market into which Third World
countries can export
and from which they can purchase from the cheapest
suppliers.>

Globalisation has been a massive catastrophe for the
poorest half of
the world's people. (For extensive documentation see
http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/DocsGLOBALISATION.html.)
It forces
the poorest and weakest to compete with the very
strongest for
resources and markets. It prohibits Third World
governments from
regulating, protecting, assisting or intervening, that
is it prevents
them from taking control of their own development.
Development is
only of whatever corporations want to develop and
unless governments
assist this their country will be boycotted by
investors and banks and
the World Trade Organisation. Globalisation enables
the corporations
to come in take all the resources, markets and
businesses they wish.
Globalisation forces poor countries to compete against
each other to
export resources to rich countries as cheaply as
possible.
Globalisation enables the corporations to destroy
businesses and
livelihoods, by taking the sales and putting local
people out of work.
Globalisation allows the corporations to take over
industries meeting
basic needs such as water supply, and maximise profits
by jacking up
prices and cutting supply to the poor. If governments
resist they
come under massive attack from rich world
institutions; e.g., they
will be cut out of trade and cut off from loans.

- Development is slow. Development problems can't be
solved quickly
because capital can't be accumulated quickly.

Development is uneven. Some people and sectors will
develop more
rapidly than others. Inequalities will increase. Those
rich in the
first place will gain more.

Conventional development has seen significant
improvements in Third
World living conditions over the last 60 years.
Averages for infant
mortality, literacy rates and life expectancy have
improved greatly.
However the fact that significant progress has been
made does not mean
that conventional development is satisfactory. The
major criticisms
of the situation are:-

As has been explained, most of the benefit has gone to
the rich in the
Third world and especially to the rich countries and
their
corporations. Conventional development delivers only a
miniscule
fraction of the wealth generated to Third World
people. Appropriate
development would produce far less increase in GDP,
but all of the
benefit would go to the people in proportion to their
needs.

The rate of improvement is extremely slow. Let's
ignore the many
countries where GDP per person is actually falling. In
the other cases
the real incomes of most people would take 30 to 100
years to double,
and after 60 years of this path half of the world's
people would still
have an average income of about $800! Thus it is a
grossly
unsatisfactory rate of development even when narrowly
defined in
dollar income terms.

Consider how intolerably slowly conventional
development benefits most
people. Assume that the poorest billion are increasing
their $1 a day
incomes at 1% p.a. It would take them 350 years to
rise to $25 a
day, and it would take something like 200 years for
them to rise to
the present average income in rich countries.

A development model should be judged mainly by how
well it solves the
most urgent problems, i.e., improves the conditions of
the poorest.
Yet there is a great deal of evidence that
conventional development is
making those conditions worse.

Appropriate Development enables all people to meet
basic needs and to
achieve a good quality of life in a few years if not
months. There is
no excuse for anyone being left behind, let alone to
have to wait
generations until satisfactory conditions trickle down
from the
obscenely rich.

Clearly therefore, conventional development is a
process of
expropriation…of taking wealth from others. Once Third
World people
had all the land and forests and fish…now they have
hardly any of
these while the wealth they produce mostly flows out
to rich people
far away. That is theft, but it is disguised because
it mostly
happens via the normal working of market system.
Conventional
development has developed the Third World into a state
whereby it
produces mostly for the benefit of the rich.
Conventional development
is therefore best described as a form of plunder.

<The ultimate goal of development is to become like
the rich
countries, with high material "living standards" and
GDP, and with
predominantly "modern" or Western ways.>

This is the most ignored element in the entire
discussion of
development. This goal of conventional development is
totally
impossible. There are nothing like enough resources on
the planet for
all people to rise to present rich world living
standards" and rates
of resource use – let alone those the rich countries
will have as they
continue to pursue growth. (See "The Limits to Growth
analysis,
http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/06b-Limits-Long.html )

Appropriate Development also enables the preservation
of indigenous
culture against the onslaught of Western
popular/consumer culture. And
the domination of corporate media. Mostly small scale
and local radio
systems can be quite sufficient and effective. Local
people can
provide most if not all of the artistic and dramatic
material we need.

<Rich countries help poor countries to develop. They
give aid,
foreign investment and they trade with them.>

Rich countries are certainly very keen to promote
conventional-capitalist development in the Third
World, i.e.,
development of the kind that enriches themselves. But
they will not
tolerate Appropriate Development, and they can't
because it would mean
their own demise. They cannot maintain their "living
standards" or
their economies unless they go on getting most of the
world's wealth
and Appropriate Development would mean the end of that
situation.

The basic relationship between rich countries and poor
ones for the
last 500 years has been one of invasion, looting and
thuggery. World
history has been about the struggle among the
strongest nations to get
control of and dominate an empire. Thus beginning with
Spain and
Portugal a series of western powers has led the
conquest, destruction
and plunder of the Third World. In the last century
the struggle to
control and expand empires generated two world wars,
in which the
British were exhausted and the US surged into the
dominant position.
Since World War 2 the US has intervened in the Third
World with
military force about 60 times, killing more than 16
million people, in
order to put down threats to its control. It now
maintains the empire
from which rich countries derive much of their wealth.

Our empire is run by the corporations and the
governments of the
richest countries which go to a great deal of effort
to keep Third
World regimes to the policies that benefit us, that
is, to adhere to
conventional development strategy. As is explained
above, the empire
is mostly kept in place by the normal working of the
economic system.
This allows the very few who own most of the capital
to develop
whatever will most enrich themselves. This
automatically forces poor
people to go on suffering low wages in plantations and
sweatshops
while the wealth they create flows out to our
supermarkets.

But from time to time poor Third World people object
to what's
happening and then force and fear are necessary to
keep them in the
plantations and factories. Rich countries have a very
long and very
extensive record of assisting Third World regimes to
keep people quiet
in the plantations and factories. This includes
financial and
military assistance, subversion, assassination, arms
supply, training
of torturers and direct military destruction and
invasion in order to
get rid of regimes that will not rule in our
interests, or install
ones that will. (For extensive documentation on the
nature and
functioning of your empire see
http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/10-Our-Empire.html).
This is of course
not how they ever describe what is happening, but it
is the outcome.
Consider the invasion of Iraq, portrayed now as for
"humanitarian"
purposes, but US corporations now own most of the
firms in the country
worth owning, as well as more secure access to oil.

The high "living standards" we in rich countries have
could not be
maintained without the repression and violence
required to maintain
our empire. We cannot expect to go on getting far more
than our fair
share of world resources unless we keep in place the
systems which
deprive most people of a fair share. Many people who
profess concern
for the plight of the poor, or who want peace in the
world, or who
want ecological sustainability, fail to grasp that
their own rich
world "living standards" are the basic causes of the
problems. Such
goals cannot be achieved until the rich countries stop
hogging far
more than their fair share and far more than all can
ever have. ( If
world resources were shared equally now you and I
would have to get by
on about 1/6 of the per capita amount we now consume.)

Notes on Appropriate Development at the practical
level.

Following are some brief illustrations of the main
theme being argued,
the great power of Appropriate Development to quickly
enable a high
quality of life for all, when local people put local
resources into
producing what they most need, via simple
technologies. (These ways
are as applicable and necessary in rich countries as
in poor; on the
need for rich world transition to The Simpler Way see
http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/12b-The-Alt-Sust-Soc-Lng.html)

First a note on my credentials for making these
claims. I live in
frugal ways on a relatively self-sufficient homestead,
and for many
years I have been associated with the Global
Eco-Village Movement in
which thousands of small groups are now living more or
less according
to the principles of The Simpler Way, many of them in
an effort to
demonstrate the kinds of social practices that must be
adopted if
global problems are to be resolved. From these sources
and experiences
I have no doubt that many of the simpler ways outlined
below are
workable, easily practised, and rewarding.

Food. All food can be produced within home gardens,
community
gardens, "edible landscapes", and commons and small
local farms,
within the settlement or close by. The energy cost can
be almost zero
except for steel tools, little machinery (perhaps a
tractor owned by
the farmers coop), pipes, small pumps for irrigation,
small dam
construction. There need be no use of artificial
fertilizers given
total recycling of food, household, crop and animal
wastes. There
must be intensive use of Permaculture design
principles. There would
be mostly hand tool gardening, with intensive
harvesting of tree
crops, and little ploughing (mostly by horses.)
Poultry, rabbit and
fish production would occur in small pens and ponds,
via cooperatives
or small firms. There would be small local dairies.
There would be
widespread use of commons and "edible landscapes"
throughout
settlements providing free fruit and nuts

Building. Houses, premises for firms, community
facilities, storage
and animal sheds can be built from earth, bush poles,
kiln-fired
tiles, sod roofs etc., at very low and sometimes
almost no dollar or
energy cost.

Transport. The greatly reduced demand for goods would
be met mostly
by work and leisure places located close to home.
Highly
self-sufficient settlements require little importing
or exporting of
goods or materials.. Access to work, leisure and
shops/markets would
be mostly on foot or by bicycles. Leisure-rich
localities involve
little travel for recreational purposes. Only a few
private or
community cars and light trucks would be needed. There
would be
local bicycle factories and repair. Much of the
diminished need for
transport and ploughing could be met by horses. Thus
there would be
very low demand for biomass produced liquid fuels from
local land.
Small firms build drays, carriages, buggies, horse
powered equipment,
boats and barges.

Furniture. Furniture would be made to last, mostly
from wood, bamboo
and local fibres. Wooden gates, fences, handles,
seats, window
frames, cabinets, beds etc can be made by hand tools
or simple
machinery at little energy cost. There need be little
use of plastic
or metal. There would be intensive repairing and
recycling.

Machinery. Windmills, watermills, pumps, 12 volt
electrical systems
can be made and/or maintained by local handymen and
small firms, using
steel strip and rod, lights, motors, PV panels etc
mostly supplied by
regional factories. Small localised systems for water
and energy
supply and waste recycling. These can be simple and
constructed and
maintained by ordinary people (with access to
professional expertise
as required.)

Hardware, kitchenware, appliances, hand tools, glass,
paints, stoves,
fridges, heaters, cutlery, pottery, soap, pots, pans,
etc. mostly
produced in local regional factories and foundries.
Machinery powered
ostly by wood fuelled Stirling engines and
electricity, plus other
renewable energy sources. Goods designed and built to
last and to be
repaired, reducing lifetime energy and materials use.

Clothing and footwear. This can be made and repaired
in the home or
small local firms, including basic slippers, sandals,
working dresses,
hats, shirts, trousers, via treddle or electric sewing
machines, from
bulk cloth and local wool. Clothing would be mostly
tough, simple and
functional, intensively repaired and recycled.
Regional factories
would mass produce cloth simple machines, rope,
leather, footwear,
appliances. There would be use of woollen goods, from
local sheep,
via spinning and knitting as hobby/craft production.
Belts, bags,
harness from hand produced leather work. Mass
production of work
shoes etc in small local factories. Intensive
repairing and recycling.

Materials. Many sources in the locality, including
earth, herbs,
timber, clay, insulation, wool, leather, fibres, plant
sources of
chemicals, oils, medicines, waxes, soaps, dyes,
bamboo, stone,
leather, feathers, rushes and reeds. Much use of wood
and plant
sources. Local timber plantations and small bush
carpentry firms,
mostly using hand tools. Sheep kept locally, used for
fire break
clearing, fertilizing, pets. Much material should come
from village
commons, i.e., land owned and worked collectively.

Leisure, entertainment. Much of this can be home and
community based,
including productive crafts, hobbies, drama groups,
local musicians,
courses, lectures, discussion groups, concerts,
celebrations and
festivals. There would be a leisure-rich landscape,
including little
farms and firms, artists, ponds, forests, and
community facilities
such as neighbourhood workshops, commons . Leisure
committees would
organise events.
--------------

These technically simple practices can provide most
basic necessities
quickly and easily, via households, small firms and
cooperatives. The
pace of life and work could be very relaxed; far less
work needs to be
done than is done at present. Most of the development,
administration
and maintenance of communities would be carried out
through voluntary
committees and working bees, and town meetings
practising
participatory democracy.

These ways require little or no capital, foreign
investment, or trade.
They mostly take place outside the market sphere and
they make little
contribution to the GDP. The role of the state should
be to
facilitate local development, by providing the
infrastructures,
materials that can't be locally produced, such as
steel, and by
providing educational and advisory services.

Especially important in Appropriate Development are
the collectivist
spirit and institutions. Perhaps the most erroneous
and vicious
element in the dominant neo-liberal doctrine is the
assumption that
people must function as isolated entrepreneurs seeking
to maximise
their own welfare. A society cannot be made up of
individuals pursuing
self interest. A society only exists in so far as
there are
collective values, such as concern for the public
good, the welfare of
the other, public standards and institutions, and
especially for the
welfare of those less fortunate. Central in
Appropriate Development
are things like the commons, the ponds , quarries,
community
workshops, woodlots and plantations, water sheds,
water distribution
systems, waste recycling systems and edible landscapes
which the
community owns and manages for the good of all. This
is done through
the voluntary committees and working bees. Dependence
on centralised
authoritarian and distant bureaucracies is eliminated.

Thus Appropriate Development is essentially about
communities taking
control over the development and management of these
collective
infrastructures and arrangements. This can quickly and
easily
eliminate many problems, notably unemployment; all who
want work can
be given a share of the work that needs doing. But
this is not
possible unless communities collectively organise to
share work…and
obviously nothing like that can happen if labour is
treated as a
commodity to be used, priced and dumped according to
the whims of
market forces.

This is also the only way ecosystems will be
protected, i.e., by
people who realise that their welfare depends heavily
on keeping their
local sources of food and water in good shape.

Thus Appropriate Development can quickly raise all
people to a high
quality of life, even in the poorest regions. It might
not be
sufficient; it might not be able to meet all needs.
There is always a
need to produce some surplus for export in order to be
able to import
the few necessities that can't be locally produced.

Consider Ladakh.

One wonders what conventional development economists
from the left and
the right would make of Ladakh, a region near Tibet
where people live
in extremely difficult conditions at around 14,000 ft,
with only hand
tools, animals and no modern technology, on an average
GNP per capita
of almost nothing. Yet this is a complex, culturally
rich, and
admirable society, with a great deal to teach the
affluent societies
about civility, humanity, community, social justice
and ecological
sustainability. (Norberg-Hodge, 1991).

The Ladakhis are kind and generous. They have
extensive community
support systems. They look after and value their old
people, they
have a rich spiritual life, a relaxed lifestyle, and
robust and
sustainable food producing systems despite fiercely
cold winters and a
short growing season. Their production is
labour-intensive, yet the
pace of work and life in general is relaxed, with much
time for
ceremonies and religious observance. No one is
isolated or lonely,
they do not waste but recycle everything, they have no
interest in
power, domination or competition. They are very
conscious of their
dependence on nature, they are multi-skilled and
practical, and they
live simply. There is no crime and no poverty and no
drug problem and
no social breakdown. Above all they are notoriously
happy people.

A strong case could be made that the people of Ladakh
have a far
superior culture to that of the rich western
countries. It is quite
disturbing to ask of the Ladakhis "What development do
they need?" The
traditional Ladakh villages are in my view, more or
less
satisfactorily developed. A few possible technical
changes suggest
themselves, such as to do with improved infant health
care and perhaps
the introduction of more tree crops and windmills. But
they do not
need supermarkets, television, freeways, cars,
throwaway products, and
packaged imports, higher incomes or a higher GNP. In
fact it is
precisely the coming of these things, the penetration
of Western
economic forces, that is now rapidly destroying the
ancient culture of
Ladakh.

Ladakh's impressive level of development has been
achieved without
movement down the dimension of increasing monetary
value of
production, sales, incomes, exports, etc and without
accumulation of
capital. It is due to the organisation of existing
resources,
especially the labour, skill and co-operative
dispositions of the
people into forms which enable easy, pleasant and
secure production of
the basic goods and services which provide them with a
very high
quality of life. The existence of Ladakh, and many
other "primitive"
and "peasant" societies confronts us with the serious
mistake embodied
in the assumption that development has to involve
generations in
suffering while capital is slowly, painfully and
inequitably
accumulated, and while most of the benefit of
development flows to others.

Be very clear about the goal.

It is very important to accept that Appropriate
Development is not a
path to rich world living standards or "prosperity", a
consumer
society, glamorous cities, high incomes or great
national wealth,
power and prestige. The outcome will not be expensive
possessions,
palatial houses full of gadgets, or jet-away holidays.
Some things
will be produced much less "efficiently" than the
transnational
corporations can produce them. "Living standards" will
be far lower
than they are in the rich countries. But this is not
important for a
high quality of life or an admirable society. The aim
is to guarantee
materially simple but satisfactory living standards to
all, and to
preserve culture, traditions and ecosystems.

It is not that we must reluctantly abandon the goal of
developing to
rich world affluence and must accept the low "living
standards" of
Appropriate Development as a compromise. We are
strenuously rejecting
the conventional goal, firstly because it is
impossible for all to
achieve and therefore condemns the world to alarming
problems of
deprivation, environmental destruction and conflict.
More importantly
we are rejecting consumer society because The Simpler
Way is far more
satisfying, because living simply in a highly
self-sufficient
community, devoting most of your time to arts and
crafts and gardening
and community activities is far more rewarding than
competing
frantically to survive and succeed in consumer
society. The Simpler
Way is a far superior culture compared to that of
consumer society.

Prospects?

Appropriate Development is of course a mortal threat
to the interests
of transnational corporations and banks, Third World
elites, and
people who shop in the supermarkets of the rich
countries. It is
incompatible with globalisation, and with some of the
fundamental
elements in Western culture, such as notions of
progress, "living
standards",the supremacy of competitive individualism,
and especially
acquisitiveness and wealth seeking.

How can Appropriate Development take place? How can it
begin? It
will not be initiated by officials. It is being
initiated and it can
only be built by ordinary people turning away from the
conventional
path and just doing it. The Zapatistas do not even
recognise
conventional theory and practice; they are just
getting on with their
own form of development.

Daily one is confronted by the distressing images of
impoverished,
suffering millions of people –who are idle while
surrounded by
abundant productive capacity. Consider the "drug
mules" of Columbia,
desperately poor people who swallow heroin capsules
and ferry them
into the US, taking huge risks in order to provide for
their families.
Or people who have to sell some of their children. Or
those who sit
on the sidewalk all day trying to sell a few shoelaces
or boxes of
matches. Or those who pick your tea or the cocoa for
our chocolate on
wages we couldn't survive on. All that is lacking in
these
situations is the organisation and harnessing of the
available
productive capacity, and the main factor blocking that
organisation is
the lack of an Appropriate Development vision.

Billions of people are trapped and enslaved in
conditions of appalling
poverty, exploitation and oppression not by the guns
and prisons of
the dominating classes, but by the belief that
development equals
conventional-capitalist development. The single most
powerful action
that can be taken towards emancipation for the Third
World is to help
people to understand and reject the vicious ideology
that is
conventional-capitalist development theory and
practice, and to
realise that there is another way. The supremely
important task for
anyone claiming to be concerned about the fate of the
Third World is
to help people to the Alternative Development vision.


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