Ch. 13 Journal

"Half a Century of Development"

"Has the idea of development ever been useful?" (p. 308)

Amartya Sen, Nobel Peace Prize winner says yes, but only in the context that development should be about the enrichment of human lives. I agree with her. Development enables countries to boost their economy, increase human rights, women empowerment, improve education, public health, government infrastructure and the like. Overall, development is a good thing. When a country is developing, it is working towards improving whatever state its in and progressively working towards change. I think the recent theory of development has gotten very jumbled, complicated and theoretical when it is simply a matter of economics, and liberty from colonialism. This is generally the "western" view. Yes, there are many oppositions that development is bad, but only when politics are corrupt, or there are mixed motives, or, when development styles are imposed on countries. Development works when it happens to meet the specific needs of a country. Development should be tailored to each individual country because there is no "one-size-fits-all" plan.

The concept of development is a good thing because it gets people thinking about how their country fits into the global state of affairs, and it gets people thinking about history. Development is meant to be an equalizer and we can draw from historic examples of when people have made mistakes. History in the context of development gives people a guideline for identifying progress and recognizes disparities. Also, when the economy improves, so do the peoples' livelihoods. The more money is flowing into the country, the more capable the ruling powers have to invest in their people and their land. The problem arises concerning the "usefulness" of development when the money doesn't always go where it was planned to go. Or, rather there is no plan at all for development and money just trickles into the hands of the elite few. That is when negative things happen as a result of misuse and abuse of power, but development itself is not to blame.

After 50 years of development, there has been so much research conducted, case studies and literature on development. Globalization has been happening for so long but with the increase in info technology, communication and media sources, conversations about development has sky-rocketed. It has come a long way since the 1950s.

1940s: Marshall Plan

1944 Bretton Woods:

Conference of 44 nations, established the IMF, World Bank, UN, GATT/WHO.

1950s-60s: golden years

1970s: debt-driven expansion

1980s: development in reverse

neoliberalsim, LLDCs (lesser developed countries) grew in number

1990s: the end of development?

Development was 'declining' in the 1990s due to many changes. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the neoliberalization policies, the collapse of South-East Asian countries, the fall-back of conservative politics, change in policies through international organizations, compression of space and time through globalization, time as a commodity

vocab:

terms of trade= pricing of commodities sold compared to the pricing of commodities bought (p. 294)

Import Substitution Inducstrialization (ISI)= setting up domestic industries that originally come from imports, attract foreign investors to set up facilities in national boundaries