Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General on his speech at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 challenged world leaders to use the coronavirus pandemic to “rebuild our world for the better” by also working together to tackle other global threats such as climate change. The outbreak that has resulted in at least 200,000 deaths and almost 3 million infections globally caused widespread economic hardship as countries impose lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus.
“It has exposed the fragility of our societies and economies to shocks,” the United Nations chief said, adding that “the only answer is brave, visionary and collaborative leadership. He continued: “Let us use the pandemic recovery to provide a foundation for a safe, healthy, inclusive and more resilient world for all people”(2).
FDAI intends to contribute to the discussions on what should the new economy look like. FDAI will be lifting from the chapters/pages of the book titled Full Humanity Development: A Discourse on Ends and Means written by its Executive Director, Rex T. Linao, PhD.
Modernization Paradigm of Development
Development has traditionally meant the capacity of a national economy, whose initial economic condition has been more or less static for a long time, to generate and sustain an annual increase in its Gross National Product (GNP) at rates between 5% – 7% or more. In lieu of the GNP, there is an alternative economic index of development – – the income per capita or per capita GNP – – to take into account the ability of a nation to expand its output at a rate faster than the growth rate of its population.
Indeed, development has always been seen as an economic phenomenon in which rapid gains in overall and per capita GNP growth would either “trickle down” to the masses in the form of jobs and other economic opportunities or create the necessary conditions for the wider distribution of the economic and social benefits of growth. This development paradigm has been instrumental in bringing to the fore the city of technocracy and all its blessings, conveniences, and the like. However, such “great” contribution of the same paradigm of development did not occur without costly prices. The same has rightly been pointed out to have wantonly caused environmental decay, dehumanization, corrosive poverty, social disintegration, and bureaucratic complexity. Given these costs, a serious doubt is now cast as to the real value of such development framework.
Thus, various quarters called for the dethronement of GNP and the introduction of a more holistic paradigm of development. Even the World Bank, which during the 1980s championed economic growth as the goal of development, joined the chorus. World Bank now considers development’s foremost challenge as improving the quality of life of world’s poor, which encompasses quality education, higher standards of health and nutrition, less poverty, a cleaner environment, more equality of opportunity, greater individual freedom and a richer cultural life. Also because of the same longing for a more holistic paradigm of development, alternative development concepts such as sustainable development and human development emerged.
Clearly, there have been claims and counterclaims as to what essentially is constitutive of development – – too much in fact that one is likely overwhelmed when attempting to make sense out of these continuing developmental debates. But what truly is development? When can one say that development has, indeed, benefited humanity?
It has been said that human beings are the ones and only concerns of development; they are the only objects and subjects; the only means and ends of development. But when development focuses only with economic growth, measured through GNP, it apparently falls short in addressing concerns of human beings’ existence. Definitely, human beings are not only economic; they are as much as political, cultural, spiritual, and ecological entities. Therefore, for development to be of service to humanity, it must concern itself also with other aspects of human existence, not economic alone. Hence, humanity’s single-minded quest to be at the zenith of growth is not only wrong, it is in itself suicidal.
It is important to fully know the nature of the modernization paradigm of development in order to come up with knowledgeable critique as to its impacts to the society, ecosystem, and people’s spirituality (3).
The Modernization Paradigm of Development is characterized by the following:
- It holds that all places, especially the so-called Third World, is in the process of development from a traditional to a modernized state;
- It holds that the Western Model is the only progressive model to which all countries should aspire; and
- It has a positivist reduction of the study of development to measuring and comparing indices of growth.
The economic historian Walt W. Rostow was so sure that there is an inner logic and continuity in linear stages of growth: that there is no other way for a society but to develop, starting from being a traditional society and ending with a society that enjoys high mass consumption — following the development experiences of the west. Such a theory was so appealing that development technocrats and political leaders embarked in a singular goal: to be in the highest stage of growth in the shortest time possible. But we’ve come to realize that Rostow’s stages of growth is not true as borne out by the following:
- The Linear Model is ahistorical;
- The development of underdevelopment dilemma;
- The ecological limits of high mass consumption as a universal condition; and
- The discursive construction of the self and the other.
Humanity has been warned about how unsustainable the development path it has taken. Facts and figures showing how the so-called development causes economic disorder (i.e. only very few billionaires compared to billions living in abject poverty); dehumanization (i.e. it is already very difficult to be truly human in a society that worships money); and environmental decay (i.e. the climate heating, among others) abound. But humanity cannot wean itself from its addiction to development. If at all, humanity only pays lip services to sustainable development, human development index, and the like.
But experiencing natural and man-made disasters with frequency and severity that are unheard of before, humanity might have finally come to realize that it is time to change course. But humanity is acting as if it could still buy more time as it cannot wean itself from the trappings of modernity.
The COVID-19 pandemic though somehow forced the change that must have been taken decades ago. That it takes only the smallest and most formless element of nature to force humanity to find ways to change course must be humbling enough. Indeed, SARS-CoV-2 has put humanity in its proper place: that it is not above nature; in fact, it is only the last arrival on Earth but is so far the most destructive as it single-mindedly trains its eyes on achieving (economic) development. Today’s pandemic humbles humanity; its enormous achievements are no much against the smallest and most formless element of nature. The lockdowns sent humanity to their rooms, forcing them to think how ecologically destructive its ways of living have become.
Degrowth
There are individuals and groups in the society that/who have been calling for “degrowth”, for a form of society and economy which aims at the well-being of all and sustains the natural basis of life. To achieve degrowth, there is a need for fundamental transformation of ways of living and an extensive cultural change. Advocates of “degrowth” intone:
The current economic and social paradigm is “faster, higher, further“. It is built on and stimulates competition between all humans. This causes acceleration, stress and exclusion. Our economy destroys the natural basis of life. We are convinced that the common values of a degrowth society should be care, solidarity and cooperation. Humanity has to understand itself as part of the planetary ecological system. Only this way, a self-determined life in dignity for all can be made possible (4).
Full Humanity Development
How to go about “degrowth”? In 2009, FDAI published a book titled Full Humanity Development: A Discourse on Ends and Means. The book argues that the Modernization Paradigm of Development is unsustainable and an alternative paradigm must be at hand. The book offers Full Humanity Development as the alternative, one that seeks five ends of development:
Michael P. Todaro enumerated three core values that serve as a conceptual basis and practical guidelines for understanding the inner meaning of development: 1) Sustenance: The Ability To Meet Basic Needs; 2) Self-Esteem: To Be A Person; and 3) Freedom From Servitude: To Be Able To Choose. The three core values in Todaro’s framework represent common goods sought by all individuals and society and these all relate to fundamental human needs that find expression in almost all societies and cultures at all times.
The first core value corresponds to economic aspect of human life; the second to cultural aspect; and the third to political aspect. By all indications though, the society focuses more on the development of the economic aspect of human life. Hence, the society’s obsession with capital, with GNP. This should not be the case, the society should have given equal emphasis to the 3 core values, or as argued, to 5 core values in order to attain full humanity development. The additional two core values are: Spiritual Growth: To Be Fully Human and Ecological Integrity: To Be Responsible Stewards.
The first three core values are no longer explained here as they are already well-known though not all are pursued in any development works. The added two core values though need some brief explanations (n.b. next uploads shall provide the full explanations).
Spiritual Growth: To Be Fully Human
Development as we know it today owes its intellectual roots to scientific heritage that assumes that all natural, psychological, and social processes can be fully explained by material and physical processes. It is from the same scientific heritage that luminaries such as Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Adams Smith, Karl Marx, Auguste Comte, John Maynard Keynes, Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner and others came from.
The materialist conception envisions development as the accumulation of material wealth, powered by atomistic, self-seeking enterprises. Public policy initiatives are thought of and implemented according to the “carrot-stick approach” of the behaviorist social psychology of B.F. Skinner. Education is mostly geared toward training the masses to be absorbed in the engines of industrial production. Politics and economics, implicitly following the dictates of Charles Darwin, are viewed as the arenas where the fittest struggle to overcome and survive the challenge of the opponents. Nature is considered as a mechanism to be exploited and plundered to serve the short-term goals of the development process. This approach became successful in the inorganic sciences, the realm of dead substances where it is appropriate. It laid and has continued to provide the foundation for the scientific and technological revolutions that have created the physical structures of modern industrialized societies. But is this in consonance with what humanity truly is?
In the so-called developed society, human beings appear to have lost any consensus and ultimate meanings and values in life as they steer themselves mainly by economic and financial signals serving as pseudo-values. Hence, even if human beings experience the best form of economic progress, they would still find life to be kind of empty, kind of meaningless, kind of dull and dulling. They are then forced to the conclusion that they are grounded upon and orientated toward a further reality, an ultimate connection, an ultimate meaning for their lives, a primordial mystery which they may call God or the Great Power. To encounter this God, in mystical experience, is more precious than all else beside. Here is the pearl of great price, for which human beings shall gladly sacrifice everything else in the world.
The awareness that it is as much a spiritual being has significant implications on the way people conduct their lives and the way they view development. It leads into realizations that any development model that is explicitly materialistic or that remains silent on spirituality or erodes it is a betrayal of the essence of humanity itself.
Ecological Integrity: To Be Responsible Stewards
The father of modern science, Francis Bacon, introduced a scientific method that views nature as a female to be tortured through mechanical inventions. He was quoted as saying that nature must be:
“stretched out on a rock’” and “bound into service”. Scientists were to act as “searchers and spies of nature” in order to discover her “plots and secrets”. She would be “dissected by the mechanical arts and the hand of man,” and “forced out of her natural state and squeezed and molded,” so that “human knowledge and power meet as one.” New forms of animal life were to be created and existing ones manipulated by experiment. Animals were maintained for vivisection and medical research. “We will try all poisons and other medicines upon them … by art likewise we make them greater or taller than their kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and stay their growth; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is, and contrariwise, barren and not generative.
Following the exhortation of Bacon, human beings have wielded an instrumental approach to nature. Fortunately, or unfortunately for them, they become successful in their quest for mastery over nature. And as they feel mastery over it, they now feel apart from the natural world. They could no longer accept themselves as mere parts of nature because the advancement that they have experienced has left them a vague feeling that they are omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. They feel that the overall trend of their experiences is that they are taking charge, and that they almost have all the necessary implements and strategies to control the earth. Their feeling of accelerating mastery of their world makes them more arrogant, which further leads to attitudes that are very much harmful to Earth.
They no longer experience themselves to be part of nature but an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. They think to be the masters of everything and that they could continue to develop themselves at the expense of other organisms. They view the world as worthless, no value at all apart from its service to humanity.
The deepening roars of the implements invented to aid human beings in exploiting fastly the Earth is almost everywhere. From one area, they would soon transfer to another area; for they think that they are living on a virtually illimitable plane. This thinking of them has contributed much to the fast depletion of the Earth’s resources because they think that there is always somewhere beyond the known limits of human habitation, and over a very large part of the time that human beings have been on Earth, there has always been like a frontier so that they could just exploit everything at a time the resources that could be found in the place where they currently live. After all, somewhere out there; there are lots more. This kind of thinking has to stop.
By now, human beings must have already realized how bad it is to sacrifice the environment in the altar of development, as evidenced in the climate breakdown, the global heating, the extinction of species, and so on. Indeed, sacrificing the environment in the quest for development is akin to an animal that eats its tail in order to live – eventually, it gets to eat its whole body.
Is this fictional animal happens to be the human beings?
End Notes:
- First of a series.
The trigger of this initiative was an invitation to write about degrowth for a UK-based journal.
For now, cited as major reference in writing the piece is the book titled Full Humanity Development: A Discourse on Ends and Means published in 2009 published by the Mindanao Center for Policy Studies. References cited in writing the said book will be listed in the next uploads.
3. This will be elaborated in the next upload.