Development Education: An Introductory Explanation

Karmayogi

February 27, 1982

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT

Development as Social Evolution

Planned Development after World War II

Development as a Function of Capital and Technology

Other Important Factors in Development

Fundamental Flaw in the Factor Theories

II. A STORY OF DEVELOPMENT

The Story

Commentary

III. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND

Lewis’ View

The Role of Agriculture

Impact of Harsh Physical Conditions on European Development

The Stimulus of Political Pressure on European Development

Contrasting Conditions in the Tropics

Original Impetus to European Development

Role of Capital in the Development of the West

The Role of Technology

IV. ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS AND SECONDARY FACTORS IN DEVELOPMENT

Three Essential Conditions

Secondary Factors in Development

Development of Democratic Institutions in England

Social Energy as the Motive Power for Development

The Role of New Ideas and Values in Development

Development as a Multidimensional Phenomenon

V. THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION IN ANCIENT GREECE

Overpopulation

The Athenian Solution

Similarities between England and Athens

VI. SELF DEVELOPMENT VS PLANNED DEVELOPMENT

Self-Development of Society

Planned Development

Insufficiency of Existing Theories

VII.THE DEVELOPMENT OF POST-INDEPENDENT INDIA

Pre-Independent India

Evolution of the Freedom Movement

Freedom Movement becomes a Prosperity Movement

Release of the Nation’s Energy

Population Pressure and Food Production

The Green Revolution

Subramaniam’s Strategy

Parallel between India, Athens and England

VIII.GROWTH VS DEVELOPMENT

The Economists’ Distinction

Social Growth and Development

Distinction between Growth and Development in Greece and Europe

Growth and Development in Various Fields

The Dynamics of Growth and Development

Analogy from Biology

IX. PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT

Development Defined

Levels of Development

Stages of Development in the Individual

Stages of Development in the Society

Development and Harmony

Planned Development

X. DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION

 

 

Abstract

Development is the natural process of social evolution by which man and society advance to higher levels of activity and organisation and knowledge in all fields of human life. It is a complex multi-dimensional movement involving simultaneous, complementary and reciprocal changes in many interrelated and interdependent levels and sectors of the society. Like the biological evolution of life forms, the development process is governed by natural laws and sequences which are discoverable.

Growth is a horizontal expansion of the society at its existing level of activity, a quantitative increase in its output or a multiplication of existing systems and institutions; whereas development is an upward vertical movement of the whole society to a higher level which involves a transformation of existing systems and institutions. Growth is reproductive of what is, development is creative of something new.

The tendency to confuse growth and development has led to many oversimplified and erroneous theories of development. The role of a single factor like capital or technology in the growth of the western industrialised nations after the Second World War has led theorists to postulate that development also is simply a function of one or more external factors. But in practise as well as in theory this approach has proved inadequate.

Development is an organic process, rather than a mechanistic one. It is driven by the energy of the organism, individual or social, and cannot be powered by any outside source. It depends on a creative and adaptive response of the organism itself to a pressing physical necessity or an opportunity of which it has become aware. External conditions can present the necessity or opportunity and external factors like capital or technology can provide the means, the instruments, for development; but neither the conditions nor the factors are the motive force which drives the process.

The development of society, like the development of personality, involves the conversion of raw energy into skilled activity, the integration and coordination of many skills into systems, and the organisation of systems into social institutions which function to achieve the goals which the society has set for itself.

For the last 30 years many nations are attempting to replace the slow process of natural social development by a consciously directed and vastly accelerated process of planned development. But in either case the process of development is the same and the laws which govern it are also the same.

I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT

Development as the process of social evolution effecting multidimensional changes in all fields of social life — Planned development after World War II stimulated by technological progress in the West — Development as a function of capital and technology — The Reconstruction of Europe after the war and beginning of aid to developing countries — The insufficiency of capital and technology and the recognition of other important factors in development — Fundamental flaw in the factor theories — Logical inversion: mistaking the result for the cause.

Development as Social Evolution

Though it has come to have a special connotation and importance in recent decades, the term development refers to a process which is as old as human civilisation itself. The association of primitive men to form wandering groups, the conversion of these nomad tribes into cultivators established in stationary settlements, the aggregation of small villages to form river-bed civilisations, and the transformation of these agrarian societies into urban civilisations are several stages in the historical evolutionary progression of social development.

The transition from each stage to the next involves not only a change in the outer form in which the community is organised, but also changes in every aspect of its existence and functioning, e.g. its activities and institutions, tools and techniques, customs and conventions, beliefs, values, ideas etc.[1]

This movement has proceeded largely uninterrupted for thousands of years from prehistoric times to the present day transformation of agrarian colonial India into a modern industrial nation; and it has determined the direction and nature of changes in every field of human existence – physical, social, economic, political, cultural, psychological, etc. — changes which are interrelated and interdependent, because they are all governed by the same underlying laws and are all part of the same unified social fabric.[2]

Planned Development after World War II

In the present century and particularly after the Second World War, the world has entered a new era in which the long slow process of natural development is being more and more superseded by an accelerated process of planned development by government. This shift is most apparent in the centrally planned communist countries of Eastern Europe and in the less advanced countries of the Third World, but it extends to nearly all nations in some measure regardless of their economic persuasion. It has been prompted by a desire among the less economically developed nations to reduce the disparity in living standards which exists between themselves and the industrialised nations of Western Europe and North America.

The disparity which has brought about this change is itself largely the result of the industrial and technological revolutions which began in England early in the last century and led to a rapid economic development of a relatively small number of countries in the West. So great was the impact of technological change on these nations that it is commonly believed that technology alone was the cause for their rapid advancement, and the wider conception of development as an integrated movement of the society as a whole has been lost sight of.[3]

Development as a Function of Capital and Technology

This narrower conception, or misconception, of the process has in turn given rise to the idea that rapid development can be artificially induced in society through the introduction of modern technology and a large capital investment under the direction of a central coordinating body, the government.[4]

The view that development is essentially an economic or technological process may be traced back to the years just after the Second World War when the war-ravaged nations of Europe were seeking to reconstruct their shattered industrial economies and when one after another former European colony in Asia and Africa emerged from colonial domination as a free and independent nation. Immediately following the war, the allied powers founded the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Bank. The Bank was originally intended to serve as an instrument for the reconstruction and development of Europe, though later its purview was broadened to include the development of poorer nations throughout the world.

In practise World Bank was not able to meet the capital requirements of even its European borrowers, and as a result the United States introduced the Marshall Plan for European Recovery and expended some $17 billion during the years 1948 to 1951. The results of the Marshall Plan were indeed very impressive. In four years the industrial production in the Marshall Plan countries rose 44% and agricultural output rose 9% above prewar levels ushering Europe into an era of unparalleled prosperity. The Marshall Plan was so successful that expectations were aroused around the world that equally dramatic results could be achieved in developing countries as well by massive infusions of foreign capital and modern technology.

In 1949 U.S. President Truman announced the Point IV Plan to provide technical assistance to underdeveloped countries largely in the fields of agriculture, public health and education. During this period U.N. agencies like WHO, FAO and UNESCO also introduced programmes to transfer modern technology to developing nations.

It soon became apparent that technical assistance by itself was not enough to generate rapid development. The recent example of Europe’s dazzling progress under the Marshall Plan led to the conclusion that investment capital was the missing ingredient. Gradually foreign aid programmes in the form of monitory grants and loans were established by the most advanced industrial nations, and in the 1960’s multilateral aid by international institutions increased to significant levels.

Other Important Factors in Development

But the theorem that development is primarily a function of capital and technology and the resultant belief that the poor nations could rapidly build up their economies if only sufficient capital was made available through economic aid proved to be a grossly oversimplified view of the development process. The experience of the post-war period has shown that neither capital nor technology nor both together are sufficient to generate rapid development.[5]

Only much later it was recognised that the reconstruction of Europe and the development of former colonies were not parallel phenomenon. Even prior to the war, the nations of Europe had well-developed industrial sectors and relatively high levels of prosperity compared to the newly independent nations of the Third World. They had highly educated and trained populations, more extensive transportation facilities, more sophisticated networks for communication.

The social climate of European nations was far more conducive to change. There were fewer and less powerful barriers to innovative behavior and upward social mobility. There was a greater awareness of and openness to new ideas.[6]

This has led development planners to postulate many new theories of development and to proclaim the importance of many other factors in the development process such as education, physical infrastructure, of transport and communication, export trade, financial institutions, legal reforms, redistribution of land, nationalisation of industry, etc. There are few indications that these new theories have succeeded where the older ones failed.

Fundamental Flaw in the Factor Theories

The fact is that all of these notions are based on a facile and superficial approach to a profound and complex phenomenon. They all begin with a simplified view of the development process as it has naturally occurred in the West. Often they fail to distinguish between the economic expansion (growth) of the USA and Europe after the war and the long natural development of these nations over the last few hundred years. This view is then extended and applied to other countries which are in an entirely different phase of the development process.

But underlying this confusion there is a fundamental flaw in all these approaches. They all focus on the outer forms and results of development in the West, e.g. capital accumulation, sophisticated technology, heavy industry, education, social welfare programmes etc. and mistake these effects for the original cause and inner essence of the process. By a process of logical inversion development comes to be understood as a fortuitous aggregation of various external physical factors in much the same manner as some biologists are now trying to explain away the genesis of life as a fortuitous combination of physical elements. What is completely missing in this mechanistic view is a knowledge of the source of energy which initiates and drives the whole mechanism, the central ideas or guiding principles which determine its direction, and the dynamics of the process by which this energy and these ideas transform and reorganise the physical and social life of the society.

This process of mental inversion by which the result is mistaken for the cause, the outer form for the inner content, a symbol of the goal for the means to attain it, appears to be a normal phenomenon of human psychology. For example, in India today the college degree has come to be regarded as an end in itself, a source of great social prestige and a mark of competence; whereas in fact the degree is only a symbol and outer form representing the substance and content of higher education. The degree symbolises knowledge and without that knowledge the degree has no intrinsic value. Yet society today does value the degree irrespective of the knowledge of the one who possesses it. A secondary social value of prestige has been accorded to something with no inherent value of its own. This may not lead to any problem in the field of social prestige but when this outer symbol, now largely devoid of meaning, is taken as a basis for action in the field of knowledge, it can lead to calamitous error. The opinion of the educated man is accepted regardless of his real knowledge and often in areas where he possesses no knowledge at all.

II. A STORY OF DEVELOPMENT

An allegory of the development process — Felt need and knowledge — hasty imitation of the result without knowledge of the process — development as an integrated movement of the whole society.

The role of this process in development is illustrated by the following story.

The Story

Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a little house. He was a poor man, and had to work hard to provide for himself the bare necessities of survival. His hut was on a flat piece of land, surrounded by weeds and scrubby brush, just as it was when he came to settle there.

When, at the end of a long day’s work, the man sat down to rest after his evening meal, he looked out the window at the jumble of greenery surrounding him, and felt dissatisfied. First it surprised him that this should be so, even with a full belly and a chance to catch some leisure. But then he realized that he was unhappy because he remembered a trip once to the mountains, and recalled the miraculous feeling of beholding tall trees overhead, the awe inspired by their reaching to the sky, the pleasure of listening to the rustling of the leaves. That wonderful experience was in sharp contrast with the stark reality of the ugly weeds around his house.

It took some time for the resolution to mature in him: He must have some trees. It was not easy to turn this resolution into reality. He spent days and weeks observing the trees in the forest and trying to transplant them into his yard. But finally it worked. Trees began to grow where only weeds had been, and he felt happy and contented, even though he was still struggling hard to make ends meet.

Years passed and the trees matured, and one year, to the amazement of the man, they began to yield fruit. The fruit was large and juicy and most desirable to look at and to eat. Year after year the amount of fruit multiplied, and the man became wealthy and well nourished eating some of the fruit and selling the rest on the market. As he grew older, he now enjoyed an easier and more pleasant life.

Just around that time a young man moved to his area and built a house next to his. He was a poor fellow, and, like his neighbor in his younger days, worked hard to make ends meet. As he sat, after a long day’s work, on the porch of his house, his eyes kept gazing at the wonderful fruit growing across the fence in his neighbor’s yard. His feelings ran in many directions. He envied the neighbor for being rich, and he was also vexed by the contrast between his being so poor and the neighbor being so rich. From time to time, he was also taken by the feeling of how nice it would be to be shaded by those beautiful green leaves and waving branches, but he quickly dismissed this feeling as not appropriate for a poor man.

Finally, he resolved that he must also have that fruit, and have it quickly. He reasoned that he was poor, and could not wait much longer to become more affluent. He decided, therefore, that he would produce the fruit and the fruit only.

His reasoning was simple. First, he decided that trunks, roots, branches, and leaves on the tree were useless, so he must do without them. Let the rich bother with those irrelevant objects. Second, he came to the conclusion that with the neighbor’s trees already there, he could avoid the arduous task of transplanting trees from the forest. So he set out to work.

He asked his neighbor for some twigs off the fruit trees, and stuck them into the ground in his own back yard. But no fruit came at all, and in fact the twigs wilted and died soon. He then tried again, and this time obtained small saplings from his neighbor, and planted them. They seemed to survive, and so our young man proceeded to tend to them in his own way.

He carefully trimmed the roots from time to time so they should not reach too far into the ground and use up too much nourishment and water. As small branches and some leaves began to grow, he carefully cut off all branches but one (the one which looked similar to the branch carrying fruit on his neighbor’s tree) and on that branch carefully trimmed the leaves so that nothing useless was produced by his tree.

The result however was disappointing. His trees did grow, but assumed weird shapes and yielded no fruit. In spite of his care, and although he had spent money, time, and resources to tend to them, the much desired results were not there. And year after year, whenever he wanted to have fruit, he had to squeeze some money out of his meager income to buy it from his rich neighbor.

He himself grew older. He finally became weary of this struggle and, as a last resort, decided to have a long talk with his rich neighbor to find out the great secret of growing trees which richly bear fruit. His neighbor, however, did not tell him any great secrets. He said nothing about magic nutrients, clever tricks, sophisticated procedures which assure fruit on the trees. All he told him was his own life story, his desires and motivations in growing trees in the first place, and his surprise at eventually finding the fruit on the trees.

Then, in a reflective mood, he added: “I think my real fortune was in not having had a neighbor whose tempting fruit trees I could behold. Had I had one, I would easily have been led astray, just as you were by my trees. When we want to reproduce other’s results we are often blinded by them and fail to see the complexity of the essence which brought about those results. Not having such results to replicate, I was lucky enough to have been carried away with an aspiration to catch the essence, and thus was rewarded also with the results.[7]

Commentary

The older man in this story can be said to represent those nations which have developed naturally over the last few centuries. He was motivated by the desire to bring the beauty of the mountain forest to his own home. His desire was so strong, it became a felt need of his being. The need matured into a resolution to act. He lacked knowledge of the proper technique for transplantation, but he closely observed the natural process of nature and worked hard and tried repeatedly until he succeeded in making trees grow on his own land. The fruits came much later, unexpectedly and effortlessly as a result of his effort.

The young man represents the nations of the Third World which are attracted by the developmental achievements of the West and anxious to imitate them. This young man is attracted, not by the beauty of the trees which motivated the older, but by the fruits. He is anxious for quick results. His desire is an impulse rather than a mature resolution. He hastily seeks after the fruit without first seeking knowledge of the process by which the fruit is produced, which the older man gained by careful observation. In his eagerness to obtain the fruit, he actually hinders his own progress by pruning the roots, branches and leaves of the tree.

This story illustrates the natural tendency of those who imitate to set their eyes on a goal without sufficient knowledge or appreciation of the process by which it is to be achieved. The tree represents society. The older man yearns for it to grow and flourish and beautify life. He nurtures every part of the tree, because he cares for the whole which is beautiful. The fruit he gets is a natural expression of the healthy growth of the whole tree. The younger man cares only for the fruit and in his anxiety to obtain it, actually stunts and deforms the natural growth of the tree. The young man’s obsession with the result makes him ignore the real means by which he can achieve it.

Development is a process whereby the whole society evolves in a harmonious and integrated manner. It can be abridged only by a greater knowledge of the process, the energy which drives it, the laws which govern it, and the stages through which it passes. Being integral it can never be hastened by ignoring or eliminating any aspect of the whole.

III. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND


Lewis’ view: technology and capital were not the primary determinants by which countries industrialised — Agricultural surplus creates purchasing power and stimulates industrialization — High agricultural productivity in Europe was the result of an adaptive response to harsh physical conditions which forced man to be energetic, dynamic, and innovative — The proximity of European states generated a political pressure with similar effect — Conditions in the tropics –Necessity as the original impetus to European development — Capital as a product of development and a stimulus to further progress — Technology as an instrument not the motive power of development.

The real question before us is whether capital, technology, and the other factors we have examined are the root cause of development or mainly the result of some deeper cause. To answer this question it may be useful to examine in some detail the early stages of industrial development in Europe.

Lewis’ View

In his book The Evolution of the International Economic Order, Arthur Lewis examines the genesis of the Industrial Revolution in England and comes up with some very interesting observations. Lewis challenges the traditional view that capital and technology were the primary factors responsible for the Industrial Revolution in Europe and that their absence in other countries explains why industrialisation remained for a long time confined to only a few nations in this region.

Lewis cites the fact that technology involved in the early stages of industrialisation was relatively simple and available to all nations. It did not require sophisticated skills or very large scale operations. More important, it did not require very much capital and what money was needed was easily available as loans.[8]

The Role of Agriculture

If neither technology nor capital was the crucial factor which determined whether or not a country industrialised, what was? According to Lewis it was the prior development of agriculture in that country.[9] By 1850 England was the only country in the world whose agricultural population had fallen below 50 percent of the labour force. The shift of population from agriculture to industry in England actually preceded the Industrial Revolution. The movement was stimulated by the high productivity of the English farmer, who produced about 1600 lbs of wheat per acre as compared to 700 lbs of rice per acre produced by farmers in the average tropical country. The result of the English farmer’s high productivity was agricultural surplus which created buying power and demand from the farming community for non-agricultural products. This demand stimulated the development of manufacturing industries long before new technologies made them more efficient and more profitable. In other words, agricultural surplus naturally gave rise to a division of the economy into two distinct sectors.[10]

High agricultural productivity was not confined to England alone. On an average the European farmer produced six or seven times as much as his tropical counterpart. Thus the common belief that tropical countries preferred to remain agricultural because of a comparative advantage in productivity is simply not true. In fact, according to Lewis, the difference in food production per man between European and tropical nations was much greater then, than the difference in industrial output per man is today.

Impact of Harsh Physical Conditions on European Development

If the Industrial Revolution had its origins in agricultural surplus, we must ask what made this surplus possible. The high agricultural productivity which generated surplus in Europe was generated by man’s adaptive response to the harsh conditions in these northern countries. Physically life in a cold country requires a very strenuous effort even for mere survival. The growing season is only 3 to 4 months a year during which the farmer must store up enough food for the remainder of the year. Even fruits, herbs, nuts, and roots are available only a part of the year. Man was compelled to produce his entire year’s requirement in just 3 to 6 months. The long severe European winter necessitated warm clothing and a well-built shelter stocked with not only food but also fuel sufficient for cooking and heating during the cold winter months when movement out of doors was not possible.

In an attempt to assure himself at least the minimum necessities of food, warm clothing, fuel, and shelter, European man was forced to take an enormous physical effort just for his survival. It was only natural that this grim necessity should prompt him to greater activity and ingenuity to somehow solve the problems arising from a hostile physical environment. The cold weather itself urged him to move rapidly just to keep warm. His body required more food to support this greater activity and maintain body temperature. (It is common knowledge that during winter people eat more for these reasons). This pressure forced on him the habit of very hard work. The relative shortage of labour also forced him to devise better equipment to improve his productivity.[11]

The Stimulus of Political Pressure on European Development

In addition to the pressure of physical necessity, European man was subject for long centuries to the constant threat of attack from aggressive neighbors. For nearly four centuries beginning about 1500 which roughly marks the transition of Europe from a congerie of petty feudal interests into a system of competing sovereign nation – states, the continent was subject to an almost endless series of wars.

In the 16th Century Europe was composed of nearly 50 major and minor city states and kingdoms which gradually coalesced into larger states and empires. Nowhere else in the world were so many different peoples derived from such diverse origins forced to live so close together. These newly formed states were themselves the product of countless wars among innumerable barbarian tribes — the Celts, the Franks, the Angles, the Saxons, the Slavs, the Huns, the Vikings, etc. Each state encompassed an inmixture of primitive peoples with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds over which a thin veil of Christian ‘civilisation’ had been laid.

The one thing all these peoples shared was the pressure of necessity and the habit of responding to it with hard work and constant innovation. It was perhaps no coincidence that the western civilisation, which in the last two centuries has spread around the world, should have been born in conditions so rigorous that they prompted the European peoples to unparalleled human activity.[12]

Contrasting Conditions in the Tropics

Obviously similar physical and political conditions did not exist in any other part of the world, particularly in the tropics. In the warmer countries the growing season was year-round. There was no necessity for clothes or shelter. There were no long winter seasons for which food and fuel must be stored far in advance. The warm climate itself discouraged heavy physical exertion and the abundance of natural vegetation provided an additional source of food throughout the year.

The milder conditions in tropical countries such as India generated in earlier times a relatively great prosperity which prompted these people to channel their energies into higher cultural and religious activities rather than exclusively into physical toil and warfare.

Original Impetus to European Development

The original impetus for development in Europe was man’s response to the pressure of a hostile environment. The task to assure mere survival necessitated such an arduous effort that man was forced to become energetic, dynamic, adaptive, innovative and inventive. The accumulation of capital arose from his successful endeavour to provide himself with greater security. The proliferation of inventions for production and defense arose from the need to supplement his own physical labour with more powerful, efficient and effective means. The development of a scientific outlook and mechanical skill arose from these conditions and his effort to master them. But mastery itself was not the result of either the capital or the technology; mastery was achieved by his energy and dynamism, physical courage and effort, endurance and perseverance. Even today the descendants of the early European entrepreneurs have far less regard for capital and machines which are the hallmarks of western development, than do the aspirants of the developing world which regard capital and technology not only as symbols of achievement but as the very keys to progress.

Role of Capital in the Development of the West

What then was the role of capital in the development of the West? Clearly it was not the original stimulus or motive power. We have already seen that capital accumulation was itself a result of the production of agricultural surpluses generated by hard work in the fields and later by industrial surpluses generated in the factories. Abundant and overflowing human energy aided by better equipment and techniques produced surplus food which enabled more and more men to leave the fields to work in factories and gave the farmer the purchasing power to demand manufactured goods. This surplus represent the ‘capital’ for industrialisation.

Money is a symbol for material resources, human energies, machines — for all powers of production. As such it has come to play an indispensable role in development as a representative of the productive power which gives to money its value. The accumulation of capital presupposes the generation of productive force in one form or another by one agent or another.

The error of those who place inordinate stress on the need for capital is in believing that money is the key to the whole process. Money is one of the factors which can stimulate development, but its powers are limited to the extent that other essential ingredients are present. Capital cannot be generated without a prior development of the society. Development is possible without capital, but capital alone is insufficient to generate development.

The Role of Technology

The same holds true of technology. The introduction of the new technologies which marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution provided the physical opportunity, the instrumentation, but not the motive power for development. Technological advance was itself the product of the greater interest, energy, and activity which Europe invested in material production (and also in warfare!). Where there, is energy, interest and a willingness to experiment, invention is bound to follow. The Industrial Revolution was not the product of a single or small number of discoveries, but of countless innovations and inventions over a period of several centuries. At the bottom of this creative activity was an urge for mastery of the environment and a willingness to sacrifice everything in the quest for that goal.[13]

Technology like capital can be an instrument for development. But as Lewis has shown, the availability of new technology and capital is no guarantee that development will take place. As for capital, the utility of technology for development depends on the presence of other essential factors and conditions.

IV. ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS AND SECONDARY FACTORS IN DEVELOPMENT

Three essential conditions: pressure of physical necessity or opportunity, motivating urge, awareness or knowledge –Secondary factors: physical, economics, financial and commercial infra-structure — The Development of democratic institutions in England — Relationship between political liberty and economic activity — Ancient Athens and Renaissance Italy as examples of democratic city-states –Evolution of democracy from the city-state to the nation-state through transformation of the feudal institution of representative assembly into parliamentary government –Democracy as a support to industrialisation in England — Social energy as the motive power for development — Role of new ideas and values — Development as a multidimensional process to which many factors contribute.

Three Essential Conditions

What then are the essential conditions or factors required for development? First of all there must be either the pressure of physical necessity or physical opportunity. We have already seen how physical and political conditions in Europe fostered human attitudes and habits quite conducive to development. Even before the new technologies were introduced, the dynamism of the European farmer produced surplus food and purchasing power and brought about the creation of an industrial sector.

The new technologies presented an opportunity which the dynamic European could exploit and which became the means for him to channel his surplus energy into more productive and profitable activity; while the tropical countries faced with a similar opportunity failed to respond.

The second essential factor is the motivating urge for change. Opportunity alone does not spur man to develop unless he feels a compelling need which drives him to take the required effort. This need had been engendered in the European as a drive to guarantee his physical security by an ever greater mastery of the environment. The need was not merely physical, it was sanctioned by social approval and even supported by a religious ethic of hard work. Centuries of struggle have created an intense need for action and achievement which can be seen expressing itself today generations after the original compelling necessity which engendered it has long since disappeared.[14]

The third essential factor is an awareness of the opportunity and knowledge of how to exploit it. Lewis says that the new technology was available to all countries, but it is arguable whether all countries had an equal awareness of its existence or faith in its value. Logically those countries on the continent which were nearest to England or closely related to her like the USA were likely to be exposed much sooner and more fully to the powers and potentialities which it offered. Though the technology was simple, countries which already had an established industrial sector would be better able to appreciate its value and adapt to the changes it brought about.

The pressure of physical necessity, the presence of an opportunity, a felt need and willingness for the required effort, awareness of the opportunity, and the knowledge of how to exploit it are all essential factors for development without which it cannot take place or its place will be severely retarded.

Secondary Factors in Development

In addition to these primary factors there are important secondary factors or conditions which also contribute to rapid development. First and most obvious are physical infrastructure facilities like roads, ports, merchant fleets, railways, communications network, etc. Europe in general and England in particular possessed relatively advanced transport facilities in comparison with other countries. English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian merchant fleets and navies had been circling the globe for a few centuries in search of raw materials, and it was a relatively simple adjustment for them to shift the emphasis to a search for new markets for their industrial manufactures.

Equally important is the contribution of an economic infrastructure. We have already noted that, even prior to the introduction of new technologies, in most European countries an industrial sector was already developed, primarily to meet the indigenous demand for manufactures generated by high agricultural productivity. Furthermore, during the previous century the foundations of an investment climate or capitalist environment had already been created in Western Europe; a whole new set of financial institutions had been established which did not exist elsewhere in the world. In 1750 there were 20 banks in London, by 1800 there were 70. Outside London there were 12 in 1750 and 400 in 1800. Although industrialisation was initially stimulated by indigenous demand, it gained momentum only when manufactured goods found much larger markets overseas. England had the rest of Europe nearby as a relatively prosperous market, and most European powers had established ocean trade which made marketing of the new products relatively easy.

Development of Democratic Institutions in England

In addition to a supportive physical infrastructure, a conducive economic climate, and commercial and financial institutions, there was another factor which distinguished England from her neighbors on the continent and perhaps goes a long way in explaining why England ranked first, the American colonies second, and other European powers only a distant third in exploiting the early opportunities for industrialisation. The factor referred to is the nature of political institutions in these countries.

History abounds with examples of the relationship between political liberty and economic activity. An oppressive political and social climate suppresses human energies and individual initiative which are the motive powers for development. The economic revolution in ancient Athens which we will examine shortly and the unprecedented prosperity of the Italian city-states 500 years ago were accompanied and facilitated by a liberal political atmosphere which permitted the release and expression of the latent energies of the society.

At the beginning of the 15th Century almost all of Europe — with the exception of Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and parts of Germany — was divided into large feudal kingdoms. The exceptions were organised as city-states. Among these exceptions the city-states of Italy excelled all the rest of Europe and attained a very high level of prosperity by replacing the aristocratic form of government with democratic institutions fashioned after the model of ancient Athens and by substituting a commercial and industrial economy for a purely agricultural one, which Athens also did.[15] None of the large feudal states were able to rival the economic achievements of these city-states, because their political climates were not conducive to individual initiative and social change.

England was the first of the nation-states to successfully establish a flourishing economy on a larger scale. Since city-state democracy was based on the direct participation of all citizens, it was impractical to even attempt extension of this form of government to much larger political entities, especially considering the very poor state of transportation and communication in earlier centuries. England solved this problem by adapting an old feudal institution to serve a new purpose.

Feudal Europe had developed the tradition of periodically convening a parliament or conference of feudal lords, so that these lords could air their grievances to the king, who would undertake to rectify matters in return for their pledge of allegiance and material support. In order to keep the number of participants to manageable proportions and to minimize the problem of transport over long distances, a system of representation by proxy was introduced whereby certain persons elected to represent to the king on behalf of all the feudal lords.

England transformed this feudal institution of representative parliament intended for the criticism of government into a democratic institution for the conduct of government and thereby solved the problem by creating the new political system of constitutional monarchy. This new system in turn generated a very favourable climate for industrialization.[16]

Even the enormous wealth of the New world did not enable Spain to compete with England on the economic plane. Nor could the French monarchy’s patronage of commerce and industry stimulate activity comparable to that in England. While England was adopting democracy on a national scale, these countries replaced their traditional feudal institutions with powerful centralised monarchies which, like their predecessors, were not conducive to development.

Social Energy as the Motive Power for Development

The mainspring and motive power of development are abundant and overflowing human energies, and these energies thrive in conditions of freedom where man is given the opportunity to seek the fulfillment of his needs and aspirations.[17]

The Role of New Ideas and Values in Development

There is yet another category of secondary factors whose importance should not be minimized, i.e. the role of new ideas, new social values, and new attitudes in the development process. The foundations for the Industrial Revolution were laid in thought long before they were realised in physical form. The so-called “Protestant ethic” of hard work was a stimulus to activity from the sphere of religious values. The Enlightenment and the birth of modern science during the previous two centuries created a conducive intellectual climate for the reception of new ideas and belief in the power of science and technology over matter.[18] The French Revolution that began in 1789 not only proclaimed new social values — liberty, equality, fraternity — it actually transferred political power from the king to the urban middle class and transferred ownership of rural land from the aristocracy to the peasantry.[19]

These changes, particularly the last mentioned, were part of a world-wide social revolution which continues even today and is the source of what Toynbee called the creative psychic energy of the western middle class. For it is not profit alone that urges man to action. The felt need to raise himself up seems to issue more from the desire to improve his position in the social hierarchy than to obtain greater material comforts. The upward social movement which development makes possible for the individual in respect to other individuals and for the society in respect to other societies is an intense stimulus to action. The new social ideas and values of the 19th and 20th Century have profoundly influenced the scope for social mobility and consequently the course of development.

Development as a Multidimensional Phenomenon

We have now examined several important secondary factors — physical, economic, institutional, political, social, intellectual — in the development process. Though we may wish to emphasize the importance of one factor or another in a particular case, it must be obvious that all are more or less essential to the process. We may even go so far as to pronounce as erroneous any view which holds anyone of these factors — be it capital or technology or agriculture — in high esteem to the exclusion of the others. Development is an integrated movement of the society as a whole and that movement requires many conditions for its genesis and many factors for its successful progression. When we focus on specific factors and conditions, it should not be to assign inordinate value to any one, but rather to discover which ones may be missing or insufficiently present and to discern in what manner this deficiency retards or alters the course of development.

V. THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION IN ANCIENT GREECE

The response of the Greek city-states to overpopulation by geographical expansion (growth) — threat of social revolution in Athens — Athenian solution: shift from subsistence farming to cash crops for export (development) which stimulated industry, mining and trade and resulted in an outburst of creative energy — Democratisation of political institutions –Parallel between Athens and England — Capital accumulation as a result of development — Social Energy as the prime mover.

Having examined the role of primary and secondary factors in the development of Europe, it may be useful to consider an earlier example of development to further clarify our view of the process and highlight some of its other dimensions.

The 8th to 4th Centuries B.C. was the period during which the city-states of ancient Greece developed rapidly — economically, politically, and culturally — giving rise to the Hellenic civilisation which was the predecessor of and foundation for modern western civilisation.

Overpopulation

During the early part of this period all the city-states of Greece were confronted by the intense physical pressure of overpopulation which arose as a result of their successful military conquest of threatening highland neighbors (as India’s present population problem arose as a result of a successful campaign against infantile mortality and epidemic diseases).

After millenniums of erosion the relatively poor soil which remained was not sufficient to produce all the food required by an expanding population. Each of the city states responded differently to this pressure. Some which bordered on the Mediterranean solved the problem of surplus population by seizing and colonizing agricultural territories overseas. Sparta, which could not move overseas because it was inland and surrounded by neighboring city-states, tried to seize additional lands from her neighbors and was embroiled in costly and repeated wars which compelled her to militarize the entire Spartan society and which led eventually to the extinction of that society.

The Athenian Solution

In Athens the problems became particularly acute. The pressure of overpopulation had become so severe that peasant families which had once owned vast tracts of land found their holdings reduced below subsistence level by frequent subdivision among sons of the new generations. Many were forced to sell their land and migrate to the towns to become traders, craftsmen, or labourers. The importation of slaves reduced the free labourers to destitution. The rich were unable to collect their dues and the poor were brought to the verge of violent social revolution.

Athens chose a different course than the other states. She shifted her agricultural production from subsistence farming to cultivation of cash crops for export. The Athenians turned from stock-breeding and grain-growing to intensive cultivation of olives which flourished on rocky soil and whose oil had a vast export potential which could generate sufficient earnings to supply all her food requirements and more. Later the scale of agricultural operations was increased through the organisation of mass-production. To market the oil, it had to be packed in jars and shipped overseas. Clay was mined from the sub-soil to provide material for a growing pottery industry. An intensive exploration for silver was undertaken, since international trade required a money economy. A large merchant marine was established to carry the produce overseas and carry back to this small peninsula luxuries and delicacies from distant markets. To protect the merchant ships a powerful navy was organised.

While the other city-states responded to the pressure of overpopulation by a horizontal expansion, growth, in the existing plane of their functioning; Athens alone chose the far more arduous path of vertical transformation, development, through exports, industry, mining and foreign trade. Concurrent with this transformation a torrent of creative and dynamic social energy was released which stimulated development in every sphere of Athenian life.[20]

An important factor in Athen’s response was the introduction of simple but drastic economic reforms which abolished in one stroke all existing debts, cleared the land from all mortgages, and eliminated the threat of civil war.

Nor was change confined to economic innovation. Athens also carried through a political revolution by which her political institutions developed so as to give a fair share of political power to the new classes created by her economic revolution. An aristocratic constitution based on birth was transformed into a bourgeois constitution based on property which in turn was gradually converted into a full democracy without birth-qualification or property-qualification. The new industrial and merchant classes grew up in an atmosphere of political and social liberalism which released their latent energies and creativity. This shift was accompanied by the introduction of a new constitution, Solon’s code, which marked the end in Greece of government by changeable decrees and the beginning of government by written and permanent laws. These new ideas and new institutions were later adopted by the rest of the Hellenic society and spread overseas.

Furthermore, this economic and political development was enhanced by the creation of new aesthetic forms — painted vases, sculpture, drama, and architecture — and in the formation of a cosmopolitan civilization of high intellectual and linguistic attainments.

Similarities between England and Athens

The example of ancient Greece is similar to that of 19th Century Europe in several respects. First, we find in both the stimulating influence of harsh physical necessity compelling man to great effort which resulted in rapid and enormous development. Second, inspite of the poor soil conditions there was a vast physical opportunity, export of olive oil and later wine, which the other city-states either failed to recognise or which they felt required too arduous an effort. Third, the outburst of dynamic energies and their expression in every walk of life which marked the Athenian episode is similar to that energy which is a characteristic mark of western society for more than a century. Fourth, technology of a very rudimentary and crude form did play a role in Athenian development, as it did in Europe. Fifth, Athens also created new economic institutions (a money economy) and political institutions to support the development process. The importance of the political revolution in Athens cannot be overstated. For we have already seen that the Industrial Revolution in England was supported by a liberal political climate which gave considerable freedom to the middle class and that this atmosphere, which was not available in Western Europe to the same extent, was highly conducive to the release of human energies on a very large scale and the channeling of those energies into productive activity.

What role did capital play in Athenian development? Much the same as it played in the early phase of the Industrial Revolution, an insignificant or subservient one. In the case of Athens also capital accumulation was the result of development, not the cause; for which we have the testimony of an anonymous Athenian writer of the generation before Plato.[21]

Physical necessity in the form of overpopulation, opportunity in the form of crops which could grow on poor soil and overseas markets waiting to be exploited, a permissive political climate and new political institutions, new economic institutions, the physical infrastructure of a merchant fleet and navy, and legal and social reforms were all important factors in the rapid development of ancient Athens.

But the prime mover and driving force for change was the abundant and overflowing energies of the population released by political reforms, stimulated by adversity, and channeled into new economic activity. The magnitude of these energies can be seen from the Athenian response to an invasion by Persia. At the time Persia was the greatest empire the world had every seen, extending from Egypt in the West to northern India in the East and encompassing every important country with the exception of Greece. In 491 B.C. a Persian fleet of 600 ships carrying 200,000 men landed on the coast of Greece near Athens. An Athenian army of 20,000 including plantation slaves was quickly mobilized to meet 100,000 Persians. When the battle was over 6400 Persians and 192 Greeks lay dead, and the Persian fleet hastily left for home.

VI. SELF DEVELOPMENT VS PLANNED DEVELOPMENT

Self-development by individual rather than government initiative — Emergence of planned development by government to catch the west — Insufficiency of existing theories –Principles and Laws the same for both types.

Self-Development of Society

Throughout history the development of society has been accomplished primarily by an unconscious, unplanned, sporadic process initiated by individuals within the community on their own resources and for their own individual benefit. Man worked for his own self-development and that of his family, and under conducive circumstances the cumulative effort of many individuals led to a natural development of society as a whole. The individual’s duty was confined to the defense of the community, but did not include any responsibility for the prosperity of all its members.

The duty of Government too has been largely confined to protection of the population and some minimum community functions such as road laying. Where Government has ventured beyond these narrow limits, it has usually done so in order to preserve political stability in the face of growing discontent as in the case of Athens already cited; or it has done so to ensure national unity and foster national integration as France did late in the last century with a massive public investment in roads, railroads, and public education.[22] But such activities were not the common rule and those that were undertaken were aimed to serve narrow Political goals or to line government coffers. The development of trade, technology and industry was the business of individuals; and government had little or no role to play in the prosperity or poverty of the population it governed.

Planned Development

This situation changed radically after World War II. Freedom movements in many countries which had long been striving for national independence suddenly found themselves holding the reins of government. Having sought and achieved freedom on behalf of an entire population and not just for the acquisition of personal power, it was inevitable that they should now seek the fulfillment of the next pressing aspiration of the people, to banish poverty and usher in prosperity.

Thus the stage was set for a new phase of history and a new era of social development. The age-old slow, natural, individualistic, unconscious process of social growth was to be converted into a conscious, planned, directed movement of development by government.[23]

Newly independent nations like India set for themselves the goal of catching up with the west and dove headlong into the task unmindful of the fact that, with the sole exception of Communist Russia whose experience was limited and only partially relevant, they had neither knowledge or experience of the process nor even a sound theoretical basis on which to act. Before launching upon centrally planned development, no one clearly defined exactly what development is or formulated the means to achieve it. Instead they defined the goals to be achieved by a process which was and still remains somewhat of a mystery.

Insufficiency of Existing Theories

We have already discussed the process of logical inversion which resulted from a superficial view of development. Mistaking the goals of development for the means, the form for the content, money and machines were proclaimed as the engines of growth for the development process. When these two factors proved insufficient, others were gradually added piecemeal in an effort to complete the formula which would automatically produce results similar to those achieved in the West.

But this piecemeal approach can never be satisfactory, no matter how many ingredients are added to the recipe. For as we have noted earlier, development is not a mechanical invention or a chemical reaction; it is a living creative process. It is not sufficient that we discover all the required factors or conditions, though by itself this is a great advance over the common view. For our knowledge to become complete, precise and useful, it is necessary to understand the dynamics as well as the components of the process, the forces which energise it, the ideas which direct it, the conditions which limit or stimulate it, and the relation of these forces and ideas and conditions to one another and their interaction during the various stages of the process.

One principle can guide us in this effort and serve as a criterion for evaluating the results. The process of development, whether it is the unconscious natural evolution of the society or the consciously induced and directed effort of a government, is essentially the same and the laws governing its movements are also the same. Therefore we may judge the rightness and fullness of our knowledge by the extent to which the theories, principles and laws we formulate hold as true for one form of development as they hold for the other.

VII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF POST-INDEPENDENT INDIA

Pre-Independent India — British authoritarian administrative institutions — Evolution of the Freedom Movement: awakening the nation’s aspiration, skills of leadership, national organisation, formulation of goals — Freedom Movement becomes a Prosperity Movement: new ideals and new goals –Release of the nation’s energies expressing as social unrest –Population Pressure and Food Production — The Green Revolution: releasing farmer’s enthusiasm through higher prices and guaranteed market — National Demonstration –Upgrading agricultural scientists and reorganising research –Organisationa1 Infrastructure — Parallel between India, Athens, and England.

Let us now examine an instance of planned development and see how far it parallels the examples of natural development already cited.

Pre-Independent India

In pre-Independence India the native energies of the population were suppressed by an authoritarian fear-based system of colonial rule in which individual initiative was discouraged and obstructed by a rigid administrative apparatus, the world’s largest imperial bureaucracy. The government institutions established by the British were aimed at the preservation of law and order and the collection of taxes. Whatever efforts were taken to build up the country, e.g. construction of roads, railways, schools, etc. were undertaken primarily to make the country a more effective supplier of raw materials required by British industry and a better market for British goods. The sheer weight of foreign domination under conditions highly unfavourable to individual initiative or social change generated social stagnation and enormous physical inertia.

Evolution of the Freedom Movement

The origins of the Independence movement can be traced back to the Great Revolt of 1857 and the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885. In the following 60 years countless national leaders emerged advocating Independence by one means or another and trying to evoke an aspiration in the people for freedom. As the decades passed the freedom movement gained momentum, the response of the masses shifted gradually from fear to hope to an urge for liberation. The early initiatives were in the form of violent revolt, terrorism, and sabotage. As the leadership grew more experienced, they became more skilled. They turned from physical violence to the power of the word to awaken the people, terrorism gave place to inflammatory literature, social protest, and economic boycott. The movement created a strong central organisation, framed clear goals, united behind a recognised leadership. By the time the British left India, the nation had begun to stir, the enormous latent energies of a huge population had begun to move into action. Once the population awoke, there was no force on earth that could have long resisted the demand for freedom.

Freedom Movement becomes a Prosperity Movement

The achievement of political freedom was the first crucial step in unraveling the countless knots in which the nation’s energies were tied –psychological knots of fear, submissiveness, ignorance, inertia, and social knots of casteism, feudalism, authoritarianism, regional chauvinism. The ideal of political freedom was superseded by the ideals of social freedom and economic opportunity for all. The abolition of untouchability, universal suffrage, rights for women and labour, upliftment of the poor were powerful social ideals which were adopted as the political platform and goals of the government.[24]

Release of the Nation’s Energy

As these ideals were translated into new social values, new goals, and new activities, the long dormant energies of the nation were awakened and released from deeper and deeper layers of the social fabric.[25] The characteristic expression of this emerging social energy when it erupts on the surface is social unrest. Where the social fabric is permissive or responsive, the disturbance may be mild or short-lived. Where it is rigid and resistant, the long suppressed energies may burst forth in a more violent fashion.

This movement attained maturity when the first generation born after Independence, to whom colonial fear and authoritarianism were unknown, reached adulthood. It expressed as the assertion of industrial labour and the college student. It continues today at still deeper levels as the assertion of the farmer and the harijan.

Population Pressure and Food Production

This was the intellectual and social climate which formed the stage for India’s post-Independent development effort. There was also a pressing physical necessity for change generated by the rapid expansion of the population after the improvement in public health and medical facilities which resulted in a dramatic decline in infant mortality and increase in life-expectancy. The population which had been growing at the rate of 11 to 14% per decade during the previous 30 years, grew by 21.5% between 1951 to 1961 and 24.8% between 1961 and 1971. This physical expansion was itself a sign and symptom of a social awakening.

During the same period agricultural production also grew substantially, but not as rapidly as population. From 1951 to 1961 total food grain production increased by 27%, but in the following five years it actually declined by 10% resulting in a marked decline in per capita availability of food grains. The situation was aggravated by two successive drought years in 1966 and 1967 forcing the government to import more than 18 million tons of food grains in these two years to avert a recurrence of famine on a greater scale than the Bengal famine of 1943, which took 3 million lives. U.N. experts estimated that 30 million lives were in imminent danger.

We saw earlier how the successful effort of the Greek city-states to ensure their security against invasion led to a problem of overpopulation and that this physical pressure spurred Athens to rapid social development. Though demographers have viewed this pressure of population exclusively in negative terms, it played a similar stimulating role in modern India resulting in the Green Revolution.

The Green Revolution

The emergence of new ideas, the release of greater social energy, and the pressure of physical necessity formed the background for India’s agricultural development effort. Opportunity was also present, for new high-yielding varieties of wheat had already been developed in the West and proven successful in several countries. Yet energy, necessity and opportunity are not enough. There must also be awareness of the opportunity, a felt need, and a supportive physical and social infrastructure.

Several of these important elements were still absent. The farming community had little knowledge of the new technology and even less confidence in it. Even high level planners and administrators questioned whether with 2000 years of experience there really was anything about agriculture which Indian farmers did not already know. There were also serious doubts about the adaptability of the new varieties to Indian conditions and the farmers’ willingness to accept them.

Subramaniam’s Strategy

It was during this period that Sastri became Prime Minister and requested C.Subramaniam to take up the portfolio of Food Minister, a position which had been thus far the political deathbed of every politician who occupied it from the days when Dr.Rajendra Prasad held the post in the interim cabinet. Being a farmer himself, Subramaniam was quick to perceive that any strategy to raise agricultural production could only succeed if it tapped the abundant social energies now corning to the surface by releasing the enthusiasm of the farmers for a departure from tradition. Though food was in short supply, many who needed it lacked purchasing power, thus keeping farm prices at an unprofitably low level. So long as prices were low and offtake unassured, Subramaniam argued that farmers would produce only at subsistence levels to meet their own needs.

His strategy for releasing the farmer’s energy and enthusiasm was to guarantee him an attractive price for his produce and a buyer; and he believed that a mere marginal profit of 10% or so would not be sufficient for that purpose. Unless the farmer saw the likelihood of 200 or 300% profit, he could not be made to depart from conservative age-old tradition; as those who risked their life 500 years ago sailing to India in search of spices or roughing it on the American frontier in search of gold were motivated by the lure of fantastic gain and would not have been moved by any ‘reasonable’ incentives. The introduction of a guaranteed floor price for food grains and the establishment of Food Corporation to purchase the marketable surplus were the mechanisms he proposed for this purpose.

In the normal process of slow evolutionary advance, isolated success in one place gradually spreads over wider areas. But given the urgency of the situation, the Government could not wait patiently for the slow proliferation to occur. Therefore they launched a National Demonstration programme establishing 1 lakh demonstration plots throughout the country on the farmers’ own lands; for as Dr.M.S.Swaminathan argued at the time, it is only the demonstration on his own property or that of his neighbor that will really release his enthusiasm.

In the course of natural development an individual or group which discovers or introduces a new lever for social change emerges as the leadership of the movement, e.g. the merchants of the 17th and 18th Century, the industrialists of the 19th etc. The natural leaders of the agricultural revolution were the agricultural scientists who developed and adapted the new technology to Indian conditions. But at the time this group was accorded only second class status and low pay and its activities were directed by professional bureaucrats. Subramaniam realised that if the agricultural scientists were to emerge as leaders of the movement, their economic and social position must be brought on a par with the other branches of science and they must be given freedom to direct their own affairs. This was the rationale behind the reorganisation of agricultural research under ICAR and the appointment of scientists as directors of all research institutes.

The adoption of new skills requires not only a new leadership, but also a vast army of trained technicians. Before railways and automobiles became widespread and common a huge reservoir of talents had gained knowledge and skill in their manufacture, utilization and repair by a natural process of informal education by apprenticeship and life experience. When new skills are introduced consciously, this reservoir of technicians must be consciously and rapidly trained. The founding of the 22 agricultural universities and opening of new colleges and polytechnics was designed to meet this need.

Energy and skill are only the early stages and preconditions for development. For the process to take root and continuously grow, there must be a supporting infrastructure and organization.

In this case the required organization had three parts or levels: organization for production, to produce the seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides required for the new technology; organization for storage to provide a safe rainproof shelter for the huge surpluses which the new varieties generated and which in some places were piled up along roadsides rotting in the rain; organization for marketing to lift the production from grain surplus areas and distribute it in deficit areas. The first level of organisation was provided for by establishment of Seeds Corporation and Fertilizer Corporation, the second by constitution of Warehousing Corporation and the third by Food Corporation.[26]

This comprehensive and integrated strategy resulted in an accelerated development of agriculture in India within the span of ten years. Production of food grains rose by nearly 50% from 1966 to 1971 and by another 12% from 1971 to 1976, an increase of 68% in a decade.

Parallel between India, Athens and England

The events just cited bear a striking resemblance to those in ancient Athens and 19th Century England. In all three cases new ideas, new values, and a new social climate preceded or supported development in the material sphere. In England the ideas of the enlightenment, the emergence of science, the social revolution in neighboring France, and the democratization of political institutions preceded industrialization. In Athens the new social ideas and the shift from aristocracy to democracy came after the agricultural revolution, but were essential for its completion and for avoidance of social revolution. In India political freedom, new social values and social legislation were essential prerequisites which set the stage for the Green Revolution. In each case these changes helped to awaken, stimulate, and release the latent social energies of the population.

Similarly all three cases involved the appearance of an opportunity in the form of a new technology; agricultural for Athens and India, industrial for England. In none of the three cases was capital a major determining factor in initiating the movement. In fact, in India’s case the absence of sufficient foreign exchange for importing food grains on a long term basis was an important stimulus to development. The creation or prior existence of a physical infrastructure, new economic institutions, and a greater social organization were also common factors in all three cases.

VIII. GROWTH VS DEVELOPMENT


The Economists’ Distinction — Growth as quantitative expansion — Development as structural transformation –Distinction between growth of some ancient Greek city-states and development of Athens — Distinction between development of the West in 19th Century and its growth after World War II — Examples of growth and development in various fields — Dynamics of growth and development –Growth as expression of energy to multiply forms at the same level — Development as upward movement of energy to create new forms at a higher level — Analogy from biology.

Before attempting to define what development is in explicit terms, it is necessary to distinguish it from another process with which it is often associated and confused, the process of growth. Though the words are commonly used as synonyms, we are justified in making a distinction by the very fact that there are two distinct processes which need to be differentiated.

The Economists’ Distinction

Such a distinction has been made in economics where the two terms, though often used interchangeably, are also used to denote two different concepts. Economic growth means more output, while economic development implies both more output and changes in the technical and institutional arrangements by which it is produced and distributed. To the economist, development is a wider term which includes a horizontal expansion of activity, e.g. higher GNP, as well as a structural Change in the economy, e.g., a shift from agriculture to industry.[27]

It is possible to have growth without development; but probably not the reverse, development without growth. Liberia underwent a process of economic growth without development when it experienced a rapid rise in export of primary commodities owned largely by foreign companies without any structural changes leading to expansion in other sectors of the economy and without institutional changes leading to a diffusion of greater income to the indigenous population.[28]

The same distinction between these terms can be applied to the growth and development of society as a whole.[29] In fact even among economists there are some who believe that while a purely economic growth is possible, a purely economic, as opposed to a wider social development is not.[30]

Social Growth and Development

Growth is the natural process of expansion common to all life which is largely spontaneous and subconscious. Growth is a horizontal expansion or multiplication of existing forms and activities in the same plane. It involves an increase in quantity, not an increase in quality. Whereas Development denotes a qualitative or structural change, an upward vertical movement, a raising of the organization or activity to higher level of complexity, efficiency, effectivity.

Development usually involves a horizontal expansion as well, since higher levels of activity are broader and more all-encompassing; but it is the qualitative change which is determinative. Growth is reproduction of what already exists, whereas development is creative of something new.

Distinction between Growth and Development in Greece and Europe

We have seen that many of the city-states of ancient Greece attempted unsuccessfully to solve the problem of over-population through geographical expansion, growth, by seizing agricultural lands and cultivating food grains in these colonies as they were doing at home. On the other hand, Athens chose the path of development rather than growth. Instead of trying to expand horizontally, she changed over to intensive cultivation of cash crops. This led eventually to an entire restructuring of the Athenian economy and the Athenian society; the introduction of new financial institutions, a revolution in the political system, the creation of an industrial sector, the shift from subsistence level self-sufficiency to a high level of prosperity dependent on foreign trade, etc. The development of Athens did result in an expansion of the economy and a higher standard of living; but that expansion was the result of profound changes in the whole society, rather than merely an increase in activity at the earlier level. Parallel changes accounted for the economic, social and cultural development of the city-states in Renaissance Italy.[31]

Similarly we can contrast the development of Western Europe during the early 19th Century with the growth of the western nations after the Second World War. The early industrialization of England involved a transformation of that country from a rural-based, agrarian society into an urban-centered industrial nation. It was stimulated by the acceptance of new ideas and social values, the introduction of entirely new types of technology, and the creation of new economic, political and social institutions. This vertical transformation occurred gradually and in stages and is still continuing today. On the other hand, the growth of the western industrialized nations after the last war is primarily a rapid horizontal expansion of pre-existing activities and structures rather than the evolution of higher ones.

Growth and Development in Various Fields

Let us now consider various expressions of these processes in different fields of social life. The introduction of a new level of education in the country, like the founding of the first Engineering college, is educational development; whereas the subsequent proliferation of engineering colleges throughout the country is growth of technical education. The distinction is not between building the first school and building many more after; it is between the nature of the effort required to introduce an entirely new type of education and that required to extend an already established form. The evolution of a course for Development Education and its integration into the university curriculum is educational development, whereas a multiplication of the number of universities offering the course is growth of development education.

Similarly, an increase in the number of law courts to handle an increasing number of cases is growth of the legal system; whereas the introduction of a court to entertain cases against corrupt government official is a development of the legal system. An increase in the number of laws governing the sale of property is growth of legislation; whereas the introduction of a Land Ceiling Act utilizing law to serve social goals is social development.

An increase in the acreage irrigated by tanks is growth of agriculture, whereas the introduction of the first bore-wells is agricultural development. An increase in the acreage under sugarcane is growth, whereas the introduction of high yielding varieties of cane is technological development. Increasing the number of milk-producing cows is growth of the dairy industry, whereas introduction of cooperative dairying is institutional development.

The Dynamics of Growth and Development

The dynamics of growth and development can also be distinguished. Growth is stimulated by abundant energy reproducing existing forms and requires effort only in the present plane of activity, whereas development takes place when this abundant energy is channeled upward by an effort of will, individual or collective, to express at a higher level of activity, organisation, or knowledge. The effect of growth is multiplication of what already exists, whereas development results in new, more powerful, more organised, more efficient and effective forms representing a higher level of knowledge, complexity, and refinement, or a wider, more universal sphere of influence.

When life flourishes at any level, it tends to expand. Once harmony is established life moves more and more easily and smoothly. When skills are integrated with normal behaviour, they become spontaneous and automatic habits, effortless and easy. What was accomplished with great difficulty when it was new and unknown, is done with great facility and greater efficiency after sometime. Less effort is required and more energy is available. At these times life naturally expands expressing the greater available energy as increased activity or as a multiplication of forms. This process of expansion continues until it reaches its natural limits where further expansion requires a greater energy, skill, efficiency or organization than is available at that level. This is the process of growth.

For progress beyond this point development must take place. The energy which cannot express by further horizontal expansion gradually accumulates in surplus, wells up in excess, overflows, saturates the plane in which it is organised, and thus generates a pressure upward for ascent to a higher level. Often the pressure of external forces adds to this reservoir of energy by releasing latent energies from a deeper level as the pressure of population did in ancient Athens and modern India.

This ascent always involves a greater effort of the will, a higher quality of effort or energy (such as the effort to overcome the traditional belief that manual labour is degrading or the willingness to give up the security of a salaried job and invest one’s savings in an industry). This effort is forthcoming only when there is a felt need in the individual or the society to establish itself at a higher level. (The need may be generated by the pressure of physical necessity, e.g. overpopulation leading to food shortage, or it may be the result of a social situation, e.g. the need to preserve one’s prestige by keeping up with the Joneses).

The surplus energy is directed by this effort of will for the acquisition of greater knowledge or the learning of new skills, e.g. cultivation of cash crops or high-yielding grains. It is directed to upgrade existing organizations or create more efficient ones, e.g. a nationwide marketing organization for food grains. It is utilized to remodel existing institutions or establish new ones, e.g. the transformation of the feudal parliament into a democratic institution.

Analogy from Biology

The distinction between these two processes can be clarified by an analogy from biology. Food provides the organism with the energy it requires for activity and for physical growth. Since the first necessity of the organism is for survival and self-preservation, the first priority goes to supplying sufficient energy to sustain it at the present level. When this requirement is fully met, the remaining energy can be utilized either to increase the organism’s range of activity or increase its size.

When the surplus energy is converted into new bone tissue with proportionate enlargement of the muscles, organs and other tissues, the organism grows vertically, it develops. Whereas when the surplus is converted into fat tissue it simply expands horizontally, it grows fat. The vertical movement expends all the available energy by transforming it into material for structural growth. The horizontal movement either expends the energy in more physical activity or stores it as fat.

What is it that determines whether excess energy is converted into new growth of bone or of fat? It depends on an inherent biological urge or tendency within the organism itself. In the absence of that urge more food leads only to physical obesity and dullness; just as more information in the absence of mental interest or curiosity leads only to accumulation of facts and boredom, not to greater knowledge.

IX. PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT

Definition of Development — Development as an evolutionary process, not a status or goal — Individual development as vehicle for social development — Levels of Development: physical, social, mental — Stages of Development in the Individual: energy, skill, behaviour, character, personality –Stages of Development in the Society: energy, skill, systems, institutions, organization, social personality — Harmony as a characteristic of society — Disharmony as a concomitant of development — Two responses to disharmony: creative and conservative — Disharmony generated by planned development — Tension and violence as signs of unbalanced development –Planned development as an artificial process, a simulation of nature, induced from outside or above — The analogy to education which is an artificial process of learning.

Development Defined

Development is a natural evolutionary process of change by which man and society establish hi her and more effective forms of activity and organization and knowledge in all fields of human life. It is the process of transition from one level or stage of organized social functioning to the next higher stage — higher in terms of knowledge, organization, efficiency, effectivity, complexity, universality, aesthesis.

This process is distinguished from a mere quantitative increase, a horizontal expansion of existing activities and institutions, growth. Development involves a qualitative change in the character of social energy, the type and scope of social activity, the structure and functioning of social institutions, and the nature of the beliefs, values, and ideas accepted by the society.

Development is a process — it is not a status or level or goal. Therefore it can never be defined or understood in terms of goals such as prosperity, luxury, technology, industrialization, modernisation, etc. which are only various expressions of development or stages of its progress.

Development is a natural evolutionary process which is governed by discoverable laws such as those Darwin discovered for the biological evolution of life forms. The word ‘evolutionary’ signifies that there are various stages or levels to the process and that each successive stage naturally issues from and builds on that which preceded it. Furthermore it indicates a natural growth of a living organism, individual or collective, rather than a mechanical construction or a makeshift arrangement of forms. It is an organic rather than a mechanical process, the unfolding of latent capacities and the releasing of potential energy from within the organism. This implies that the process is primarily dependent on a creative evolutionary force or urge within the organism and that the external factors represent the necessary circumstances and conditions for its expression, not the original motive power.

The process of development in the individual and in the society is the same, only the expressions differ. In fact the development of the society to a higher level always depends on a prior development of individuals within the society, a development of new ideas or aspirations in a ‘creative minority’ and a willingness of the majority to accept and follow them.[32]

Levels of Development

Development expresses at the level of activities, organization, and knowledge. Activities are physical, organizations are social, and knowledge is mental. Production, distribution, consumption, protection are essentially physical activities; but as a society develops, further progress even in the material sphere depends to an increasing degree on the development of more efficient systems, a wider organization, new institutions, greater knowledge and skill. As we have seen the material achievements of the Green Revolution in India depended to a very large extent on the creation of new institutions like FCI, Fertilizer Corporation, Warehousing Corporation; on the establishment of a national organization for production of seeds and distribution of food grains; or a more effective system for agricultural education and demonstration; and of course on the development of the new technology for cultivation and continuing scientific research.

Though development involves a series of complex interactions between the physical, social, and mental levels; as a rule it begins with the introduction of a new idea, e.g. Indian freedom, which gradually is accepted as an ideal of the society and a goal to be pursued. This primacy of the idea helps explain the leading role of education in planned development.

Stages of Development in the Individual

Energy is the motive force for the development process without which it cannot take place, but energy alone is not enough; for unless that energy is held under control and channeled in a constructive direction, it may just spill over and be wasted as unproductive excitement or destructive violence.

Skill is the capacity to channel energy in a particular direction to accomplish a particular purpose. when energy is expressed through skills it becomes productive. Initially skills are consciously acquired through education or life-experience. At this stage they are distinct patterns which have to be linked up with other skills and integrated with a wider pattern of activity.

At a later stage these skills become automatic and unconscious, almost second-hand, and they are fully integrated with the individual’s other skills as part of a larger pattern we call behaviour.

Each individual has many patterns of behaviour, but some are more organized than others and tend to be constantly repeated in a wide variety of activities and circumstances; whereas others recur very rarely and only under very specific conditions. Those patterns of behaviour which tend to constantly recur form parts of a deeper organizational structure which constitutes the individual’s character.

The organizational structures of character are separate and distinct tendencies which may be unrelated or even opposed to each other, i.e. striving for mutually antagonistic goals. The individual gains a capacity for accomplishment and mastery only to the extent that these propensities or traits of character are made subservient to a higher level of organization which controls and directs the expression of character through behaviour to achieve goals which the individual has set for himself. This deeper supraorganizational structure is what we call personality.

The type of the personality is determined by the ideas, ideals, values, attitudes and goals which it accepts and seeks to realize. The size of the personality depends on the magnitude of the energy which it can mobilize, control and direct to accomplish its aims.

Energy converted and channeled through skills, skills integrated and coordinated in behaviour, patterns of behaviour regularly recurring as organized propensities of character, character traits subordinated to a higher level of control by the personality — these are the natural stages in the development of the individual.

Stages of Development in the Society

A parallel sequence of stages can be identified in the development of society. Here the energy is the collective physical, social and mental energy of the entire population; and the skills are the collective physical, social, and mental skills of the whole society. We have seen, for example, in the case of India how the abundant social energy released by the attainment of political freedom and social reform were converted into productive skills for nation-building when the new technology of the Green Revolution was accepted by Indian farmers.

The integration and coordination of social skills results in the formation of systems of activity and interaction in the community which are equivalent to patterns of behaviour in the individual. The introduction of a guaranteed floor price for the farmer supported by a nationwide marketing organization to distribute what he produced were new systems without which the Green Revolution could not have been possible. Through these systems the farmer’s capacity to produce surplus food grains by use of his newly acquired skills in cultivation were linked to the demand for more food grains for consumption by assuring the farmer of a guaranteed floor price, a profit, for what he produced, as well as a guaranteed market.

Systems are the sub-units or expressions of recurring fixed patterns of social activity called institutions, which are equivalent to character traits in the individual. Every sector and level of society is composed of countless institutions — physical institutions like roads, ports, railways; social institutions like family, marriage, education; political institutions like elections, parliament, nations; economic institutions like markets, wholesale trade, labour unions; financial institutions like currency, banks, mortgage; legal and administrative institutions like courts, tax-collection, planning, etc.[33]

Every forward movement of society requires the remodeling of existing institutions or the creation of new ones. The establishment of Food Corporation, Fertilizer Corporation, Warehousing Corporation, Indian Council for Agricultural Research, 22 agricultural universities, Agricultural Refinance Corporation, Agricultural Prices Commission are but a few of the new institutions which have played important roles in the Green Revolution. Earlier we discussed the evolution of the representative assembly in Europe from a feudal institution into a democratic parliament as a key factor in the subsequent industrialization of England. The democratization of the city-state through new political institutions played a similar role in the development of ancient Athens and Renaissance Italy.

As the individual has an organizing personality which controls and directs the propensities of character for its own development, society too has a central organizing social personality which is reflected in its customs, traditions, conventions, values and ideals and which expresses as the society’s aspiration and determination to move in a particular direction. This social personality gives a direction to the collective energies of the society, channels them through skills, systems and institutions for the realization of social goals which are in accordance with its aspirations, values, and ideals.

The type of the social personality, like the individual, is determined by the ideas, ideals, values, attitudes and goals which it accepts and seeks to realize. Its size depends on the magnitude of the energy at its disposal and its capacity to control and direct its expression for the fulfillment of its goals. Thus we have the sequence of stages in social development — social energies converted into skills, skills integrated and coordinated into social systems, systems forming the sub-units of institutions which function as components of a wider social organization under the direction of social personality.

This sequence is not a singular occurrence, but rather a pattern of development which applies to progress at any level and in any sphere of activity. It is this sequence that essentially distinguishes development from growth; for in growth there is only a reproduction of skills, systems, and institutions at the present level, whereas in development there is a change at each of these stages — development of new and higher skills, more efficient and effective systems, better organized and more powerful institutions — as well as in the society as a whole.

Development and Harmony

Society is an integrated whole. Its physical, social, and mental functions maintain a general equilibrium. Its energy, skills, systems and institutions normally interact within the framework of a wider social harmony. During the course of social development, naturally progress at all different levels and stages does not occur simultaneously. An upward movement at one point generates a temporary stress of disharmony which acts as a pressure to stimulate a parallel movement at other points with which it is connected.

At points where the society is expansive and progressive, it responds to the introduction of disharmony by an adjustment or remodeling of its existing systems and institutions or by the creation of new ones. At points where the society is closed, traditional and inflexible, it refuses to adjust by a change in attitude, structure or functioning. As a result the progress at one point does not stimulate appropriate changes at other points and the forward movement is retarded or obstructed. Every society has points where it is adaptive, progressive and dynamic, and others where it is traditional, outmoded, and anachronistic.[34]

Disharmony is likely to be more frequent and of greater intensity for countries in the process of planned development. This is so for a number of reasons. First, many of these nations were previously under colonial rule and inherited at the time of Independence institutional infrastructures originally created for an entirely different purpose. The administrative systems which the British bequeathed to India at the time of their departure were evolved primarily for the purpose of maintaining law and order and collecting taxes through a rigidly conservative, hierarchical and authoritarian system that is incompatible with the progressive, egalitarian and socialistic goals which Independent India has set for herself.[35]

Second, almost by definition planned development signifies not only a consciously directed progress, but also a very rapid upward movement. The problem of disharmony is very much aggravated by the accelerated rate of change which leaves very little time for a natural adjustment to take place.

Third, the very complexity of the process makes it almost impossible for human intelligence to perceive simultaneously all the ramifications and consequences of its planned initiatives and, therefore, to properly coordinate and balance change at different levels and in various sectors. In practise, given the limited knowledge and narrow perspective of most planners, the efforts of government are usually concentrated at a few points which are believed most important, and only after their initiatives generate a severe imbalance or disturbance is the importance of other points usually even recognised.

For these three reasons, disharmony is almost an inevitable accompaniment to planned development; and the result is a high level of tension and frequent outbursts of violence. These disturbances are usually viewed as signs of deterioration in morals or a failure by the government. But in actuality they are most often clear evidence of a rapid forward movement at one level or in one sector which has not been matched by proportionate progress elsewhere.[36]

Planned Development

Earlier we stated that the natural process of self-development and the process of consciously induced and directed planned development by government are essentially the same and that the laws governing their movements are also the same. Nevertheless it is necessary to make an important distinction between these two phenomena.

Planned development is an artificial process which attempts to simulate the natural process of social evolution. It is a conscious effort by the society to achieve in a shorter time and with greater efficiency the results achieved elsewhere by natural development.

In natural development the individual is conscious of an urge and perhaps a goal, but the society as a whole moves without a clear plan or organized effort, impelled by a need or moved by an opportunity. Whereas in planned development the goal is primary and the leadership is fully conscious of the plan, but the society as a whole may be only partially conscious of the urge which moves it. In the former case the urge is conscious, the plan more or less unconscious; in the latter the plan is conscious, the urge more or less unconscious.

Natural development is self-initiated. Even when it is an imitation of what has been achieved elsewhere, such as the imitation of England’s Industrial Revolution on the European continent or the imitation of Athen’s agricultural revolution by the other city-states of Greece, still the impetus and initiative come from the society itself in the measure it is awakened, prepared, and motivated. But in planned development the process is induced or initiated in one society by another society or in one part of the society by another part of the society; hence its inherent artificiality. (The very idea of harijan upliftment implies that someone else, a ‘higher’ part of the society, is uplifting this group).

In this respect the process of planned development parallels the process of education. For education also is an artificial process by which man passes on to future generations in a concentrated form the fruits of past knowledge and life-experience. In life man learns by repeated experiences which the mind later formulates as knowledge, whereas in education learning is induced by those who possess knowledge in those who do not with life experience playing a very subordinate role. The only difference is that development is a more comprehensive process which involves not only knowledge and training, but material accomplishments as well.

In both planned and natural development, three ingredients are required. First, there must be a knowledge or awareness of a potential (e.g. a new technology, gold under the ground, spices in a distant land). Second, there must be a motivating urge or felt need to realise it (e.g. a drive for material profit, social prestige, mental curiosity). Third, there must be a pressing physical necessity or opportunity driving man to action (e.g. pressure of famine, opening up of new markets, population growth). Where any of these three are missing — the knowledge, the motivation, or the physical requirements — development is either very slow or unsuccessful.

Planners and administrators regard development largely as a function of the third component, i.e. physical inputs like technology, capital, machinery. The last 30 years are replete with examples of development programmes which provided all the necessary physical inputs, but failed to achieve their objectives. Today greater recognition is also given to the first component, awareness, and education is now considered an essential input, if not the most essential, for development.

But planned development like natural evolution is a process which issues from within, and where the second component of psychological motivation or felt need is lacking, no real development can take place. While knowledge and physical inputs can be supplied from outside, the motive power must be released from within. The most important task facing social scientists and administrators is to discover the principles governing the formation of the psychological urge for change and the methods, if any, of hastening or intensifying that process.

X. DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION

Development as defined above is a process in society embracing every walk of life, every department of knowledge, every human activity; and the forms through which the process expresses are being continually created and modified at every stage of transition.

Development Education is a study of the motive force or energy which drives this process, the laws which govern its movements, the particular forms in which the fresh creations are cast and function. The study should embrace all the major fields of social life and discover the same underlying process in such diverse fields as agriculture and international trade, in the evolution of the hunter into a cultivator and monarchy into democracy.

The subject may be divided into several stages or levels of study:

Principles — the abstract laws that govern the process of development.

Processes — the course or pattern of movement through which these laws express.

Institutions — the systems, organizations and institutions which these processes create and utilize in expressing the laws of development.

Results — the social and material development that issues as an end result of the development process in various sectors of life.

 

[1] Myrdal defines development as nothing less than the “upward movement of the entire social system”. Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama, New York, 1968, p.1869.

[2] “It is one of the characteristics of civilization in process of growth that all the aspects and activities of their social life are coordinated into a single social whole, in which the economic, political, and cultural elements are kept in a nice adjustment with one another by an inner harmony of the growing body social”. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol.III, p.152.

Note: all quotations from Toynbee are from the 12 volume edition of A Study of History, Oxford University Press, 1956, unless otherwise specified. Wherever the same passage appears in the 2 volume abridged edition, Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1969, the corresponding page references are given in parentheses.

[3] “There can be no such thing as technological development in isolation… development is much more than the overt acceptance of material and technical improvements. It is a cultural, social, and psychological process as well. Associated with every technical and material change there is a corresponding change in the attitudes, the thoughts, the values, the beliefs and the behavior of the people who are affected by the material change”. George M. Foster, Traditional Societies and Technological Change, New York, 1973, p.4.

[4] “Technological development is a particular kind of change in the structure of society, in patterns of culture, and in individual behavior…’ ‘planned or directed’ or ‘guided’ change as distinguished from evolutionary or spontaneous or unplanned changes”. Foster, ibid., p.9.

[5] “The success of some programs such as the Marshall Plan led to over-optimistic notions of what could be achieved when the aid was extended to underdeveloped countries… The work of economic development was discovered to be far more difficult than the rebuilding of Europe because it required the transformation of entire societies and not simply their reconstruction… Economic aid is manifestly only one element in the complex of factors required to bring about economic development”. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Ed., Macropaedia, 7:525.

[6] “Western economic concepts and theories, and policies based on them, are often inappropriate and misleading when applied to current development problems. Economic analyses and policy have tended to focus on investment (whether in fixed capital assets or in ‘human capital’ called ‘education’) to the neglect of essential reforms of human attitudes and social institutions”. Paul Streeten, The Frontiers of Development Studies, London, 1972, p.10.

[7] Michael Moravscik, “A Development Fable”, International Development Review, 1978/1, Volume XX, No.1, p.27.

[8] “The industrial revolution started with the introduction of new technologies in making textiles, mining coal, smelting pig iron, and using steam. The new ideas were ingenious but simple and easy to apply. The capital requirement was remarkably small, except for the cost of building railways, which could be had on loan. There were no great economies of scale, so the skills required for managing a factory or workshop were well within the competence and experience of what we now call the Third World. The technology was available to any country that wanted it… and Englishmen and Frenchmen were willing to travel to the ends of the earth to set up and operate the new mills”. W.Arthur Lewis, The Evolution of the International Economic Order, New Delhi, 1978, p.7-8.

[9] Toynbee would agree. “Agriculture and animal husbandry have provided the base for all subsequent technological progress, including the current Industrial Revolution”. Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth, Oxford University Press, 1976, p.590.

[10] The role of surplus as a prerequisite and stimulus to the growth of civilisation is discussed by Toynbee in Volume XII, p.278. The real essence of surplus is surplus human energy available for channeling into new activities and greater effort.

[11] See Ellsworth Huntington, Civilization and Climate, New Haven, 1924 for fuller discussion on this theme.

[12] Toynbee cites many historical examples to suggest that up to a certain point the stimulus toward civilisation grows stronger in proportion as the environment grows more difficult. Vol.II, p.31. (Vol.I, p.112).

[13] Toynbee cites examples of societies advancing without improvements in technology and of societies decaying even while their technology improves. Vol.III, p.154-174 (Vol.I, p.229-235).

[14] Though the pressure of physical nature has been conquered and the political pressure in Europe somewhat reduced, the social compulsion on the individual to be independent and self-sufficient is a continuing psychological pressure on western man who has lost the security of close family and community ties.

[15] Italy’s development like Athen’s, was not limited to the material sphere. Culturally too Italy attained the heights of ancient Greece as manifest in the Italian Renaissance.

[16] “The English political invention of Parliamentary Government provided a propitious social setting for the subsequent English invention of Industrialism”. Toynbee, Vol.III, p.363 (Vol.I, p.280).

[17] “The Industrial Revolution had started in an 18th Century Britain, at a time and a place where an exceptionally high degree of freedom from regimentation on the economico-social plane had been enjoyed by at least a minority of the population… members of this economically free and powerful minority had been the creators of the industrial system… Moreover, the industrial entrepreneur’s pre-industrial spirit of freedom… had been the prime mover of the Industrial Revolution…”

“During the period between the Industrial Revolution and the outbreak of the First World War, the distinguishing psychological characteristic of the middle class… had been its unabated zest for work. The Western middle class’s fund of pre-industrial psychic energy had been ‘capitalism’s’ driving force… It was indisputable that the Industrial System, like any other technique, could work only so long as there was some fund of creative psychic energy to drive it, and that, hitherto, this psychic driving-power had been supplied to the western industrial system by the energy of the western middle class…” Toynbee, Vol.IX, p.564 -577, (Vol.II, p.367-371).

[18] This was especially true in England where science was directed by men of a practical bent, while on the Continent it was predominantly devoted to abstract research.

[19] The impact of the French Revolution on the subsequent development of Europe is a rich subject for study. The enormous social energy released by the Revolution is indicated by the following: “It was not so much the military genius of Napoleon as the revolutionary fury of the new French armies that cut through the old-fashioned 18th Century defense of the unrevolutionized Continental Powers like a knife through butter and carried French arms all over Europe”. Toynbee, Abridged Edition, Vol.I, p.330.

[20] “…an outburst of energy and growth in every sphere of Attic life – an outburst which had so powerful an elan that its influence was not confined to Attic soil but went coursing, in a great current of new vitality, through the veins of the whole Hellenic body social.” Toynbee, Vol.III, p.169.

[21] “The command of the sea has enabled the Athenians… to discover refinements of luxury through their extensive foreign relations… Moreover, the Athenians are the only nation, Hellenic or non-Hellenic, that is in a position to accumulate wealth…” quoted by Toynbee from Peudo-Xenophon in Vol.II, p.41.

[22] See Eugene weber, From Peasants to Frenchmen, London, 1979, for discussion of the Freycinet Plan.

[23] “Planned development was the means for securing with the utmost speed possible, a high rate of growth, restructuring of the institutions of economic and social life and harnessing the energies of the people to the task of national development”. Third Five Year Plan, (Govt. of India Planning Commission), 1962, p.7.

[24] “The task before an undeveloped country is not merely to get better results within the existing framework of economic and social institutions, but to mould and refashion these so that they contribute effectively to the realisation of wider and deeper social values. These values or basic objectives have recently been summed up in the phrase ‘socialist pattern of society’…. The accent of the socialist pattern of society is on the attainment of positive goals, the raising of living standards, the enlargement of opportunities for all, the promotion of enterprise among the disadvantaged classes and the creation of a sense of partnership among all sections of the community”. Government of India Planning Commission, Second Five Year Plan.

[25] “There is an excitement in this changing face of India as the drama of India’s development plans unfolds itself”. Third Five Year Plan, p.2.

[26] For a detailed account of the Green Revolution, see C.Subramaniam’s New Strategy for Indian Agriculture.

[27] See Kindleberger and Herrick, Economic Development, McGraw Hill, 1977, p.3.

[28] See Robert Clower, Growth Without Development, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, I11., 1968, p.vi.

[29] “While economic development focuses largely on materially-oriented issues (output, employment, incomes, composition of production, and so on) development in its totality deals with changes in the human condition. Economic development is clearly only a subset of this larger process. Kindleberger, op.cit., p.20.

[30] Myrda1′ s definition of economic development as nothing less than the “upward movement of the entire social system” implies this broader view.

[31] “In the Italian, as in the Athenian, case there was a radical remodeling of traditional institutions in order to bring them into conformity with the new-fangled way of life”. Toynbee, Vol.III, p.342 (Vol.I, p.275).

[32] “It is through the inward development of Personality that individual human beings are able to perform those creative acts, in their outward fields of action, that cause the growths of human societies…” Toynbee, Vol.III, p.233 (Vol.I, p.251).

[33] “When the requirements of technology constrained the founders of the earliest civilizations to assemble man-power in excess of the narrow limits of pre-civilizational communities, they invented a new social device: impersonal institutions. These can sustain larger communities because they can generate co-operation between human beings who have no personal acquaintance with each other”. Arnold Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth, Oxford University Press, 1976, p.592.

[34] “Ideally, the introduction of any new dynamic forces or creative movements into the life of a society ought to be accompanied by a reconstruction of the whole existing set of institutions if a healthy social harmony is to be preserved; and, in the actual history of any growing civilization, there is in fact a constant remodeling or re-adjustment of the most flagrantly anachronistic institutions… At the same time, sheer inertia tends at all times to keep most parts of the social structure as they are, in spite of their frequent incongruity with the new social forces that are constantly being brought into action by the creative energies of the growing society as its growth proceeds; …the new forces… perform by finding vent either in new institutions which they have established for themselves or in old institutions which they have successfully adapted to serve their purposes; and in pouring themselves into these harmonious channels, they promote the welfare of the civilization by giving fresh impetus to its elan”. Toynbee, Vol.IV, p.133-4 (Vol.I., p.325-6).

[35] One source of disharmony between the institutions of which a society is composed is the introduction of new social forces – aptitudes or emotions or ideas — which the existing set of institutions was not originally designed to carry”. Toynbee, Vol.IV, p.133 (Vol.I, p.325).

[36] “The element of retardation is likewise of the essence of revolutions; and it is this that accounts for the violence which is their most prominent feature. Revolutions are violent because they are the belated triumphs of powerful new social forces over tenacious old institutions which have been temporarily thwarting and cramping these new expressions of life”. Toynbee, Vol.IV, p.135 (Vol.I, p.326).