DEVELOPMENT THEORIES

Darshini Mahadevia
(Course: Theories and Evolution of
Planning)
Semester II
Faculty of Planning and Public Policy
CEPT University, Ahmedabad
 WHY STUDY DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
AS A STUDENT OF PLANNING?

 Planning is for Change and in the modern world we

talk of planned change, through planners.
 Deliberately engineered social change oriented to
specific goals.
 But, in development theory, there is also now a new
major strand (stream of argument) that challenges
the assumption of superiority of planned change in
contrast to change through open political debate
(negotiations of the stake holders)

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 CHANGE VS. STABILITY

 In history, over short period of time, one

finds rapid and continuous change
 On the other hand, over long period of time,
one finds long periods of stability
 What is primary? Change of stability?
 That depends upon one’s world view,
whether it is optimistic or pessimistic,
optimistic view looks at change and
pessimistic view looks at ‘Good Old Days’

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CHANGE VS. EFFECTIVE
CHANGE

 Change is something that is permanent (a

statement that is a paradox)
 Term effective change is value-laden

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AND SO THERE IS ETHICS OF CHANGE
 Most important ethical term associated with
discussion of change is ‘Progress’
 Term ‘Progress’ has many versions.

 There are three versions of term ‘Progress’

(Now even four from the perspective of the
South)
These are: (i) Eighteenth Century version
(ii) Nineteenth Century version
(iii) Post-Second World War
version

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Major development theories are informed
about the Western ethics of ‘Progress’ as
the Change indeed begun from the industrial
societies of the West. Now, when the
developing world is industrialising, question
of ethics has become important here as well
and hence this course.

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 Broadly, there are two main positions
from which ‘Progress’ is analysed
(i) Liberal-democratic – Change as evolution,
in which man viewed as ‘consumer’, that is
humankind is seen acting in selfish wants
(desires). A fairly pessimistic position.
(ii) Radical-democratic – Sees humans as
doers (actors) and humankind acting in light of
social goals, arguing that positive change is
possible. A fairly optimistic position.

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 Change, Social Change is viewed with
two perspectives (metaphors)
(i) Continuity, that is evolutionary change – Social
evolution, that is the survival of the fittest, which
Darwin had stated in ‘Biological evolution’
(ii) Rupture, that is radical change

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 EVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGE PERSPECTIVE

 Very convenient argument for those arguing for a ‘laissez

faire’ in economics, that is those pursuing indiscriminate
pursuit of wealth.
 Summarized in five points
(i)The object of enquiry is the whole
(ii) Idea of cumulative change – that there is no sharp
discontinuity
(iii) Idea of endogenous change – that the change arises
from within the system and not through external impetus
(iv) Idea of increasing complexity – there is shift from
simple forms to complex forms
(v) Idea of unitary direction of change.
 Liberal-democratic theories fall here.

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 RUPTURE AS A PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIAL CHANGE

 Very different from evolutionary

 Predominantly Marxist – Society is inherently build
of groups that have conflicting interests and
hence are in social conflict. These conflicts
provide motor for change.
 For example, Marxists argue that capitalist
entrepreneurs destroyed the local historically
outmoded social forms and created new forms of
social organisation in a society.
 Radical-democratic theories of change fall here.

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Liberal-democratic theories
(i) Liberal-market theories
(ii) Social-market theories

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 Liberal-market theories – These are earlier group of theories.
Within these there are three streams:
(a) An early UK/UN line which is heavily influenced by economics
(b) A line mixed in more sociology with economics, which is more
US product
(c) Neo-classical (resembling early economic theories) which
emphatically asserted the priority of market in human affairs and
sub-ordination of ‘state’ to market.
(State is considered external intervention in market processes)

 Development or progress is equated with economic growth

 Amenable to technical characterisation
 A relationship of super and sub-ordination legitimated
 Development theories coming from those who are developed,
through experts of the developed countries

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 Social-market theories – Reject the above
model and sociologized economics. Progress
is not just equated with economic growth but
with planned, ordered, social reform.
 Progress is ordered social reform
 Produced by other than economists and is
pragmatic, humane and plausible

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 Radical-democrat theories – Democratic
ethic and historical materialism strategy of
analysis. Marxist. Historical materialism is:
society under constant change, moving from
one level of material well-being to another,
the move carried out through conflict of
classes.
 Human is considered a doer or an actor in
this social change process. Process of change
built around ‘objective conditions’ of change
and ‘subjective forces’ of change.

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 The liberal-market and social-market theories
together are called orthodox theories
 They tend to take the whole business of development as
technical or/and obvious.
 Liberal-market see development as a matter of building
appropriate physical, social and economic structures,
largely as a matter of acquiring characteristics familiar
with the experience of developed nations.
 Social market see development as a business of
organising decent lives for people living in the Third
World, mainly disadvantaged groups among them.

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 But, the notion of development is not purely
technical and is certainly not obvious (that
is development will take place). It is an
ethico-political notion. Hence, the process of
bringing change, ‘planned change’ or
‘planned progress’ is not technical.

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 METHODS OF CHANGE

(i) either through political action by a range of

agents
(ii) or through planning intervention for ordered
change

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 ACTIONS FOR ORDERED CHANGE

i)State action to secure change – Intervention

by the State. It is the approach of agencies
committed to planning in pursuit of development
goal. Pursued by international agencies linked to
UN, by governments of new nations. Was an
influential approach during early phase of
decolonisation. Approach centres around agencies
of planned change.

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ii) Spontaneous through market – Argues for
spontaneous order and development generated
through free market. The markets are self-
regulatory (not regulated by the state) and there
is mimimal rule-setting by the state. Development
(economic growth) through maximization of
economic, social, political and cultural benefits.

Institutions promoting this approach are the

international financial institutions such as the IMF,
World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc.

This approach has failed to promise realisation of

maximum benefits to the poor of the Third World.
But, has a strong intellectual backing, as
development institutions continue to be 19
dominated by the economists.
iii) Political power for development – Central role
is allocated to public sphere within which rational
dialogue can lead to change. The institutional vehicles
for change are the NGOs, charities, and social
movements. In Europe, support has come from media,
political activism and academia. Critics point out that
this approach cannot resolve the situation when
conflicts arise.

A radical version of this is Marxist version of class

struggle. But, that does not remain a planned change.
The process to attain state power becomes a political
struggle which is radical, and subsequent ordered
actions are by the state agencies.
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 RISE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

1 Planning is an extension of Social Sciences

- Town Planning has antecedent (ancestry) in
Physical planning and greatly influenced by
architects/engineers
- Modern, democratic society, we use term urban
and regional planning and not town planning and
is seen as an extension of Social Sciences for the
success of the discipline
- Today, urban and regional planners work in
different capacity than just town planners and
hence, this overview of history of social science
discipline is essential. 21
2 Rise of social sciences is rooted very much
in the European experience, particularly of
three streams through 17th to 19th
centuries:
i) English enlightenment – Hobbes and Locke
ii) French enlightenment – Rousseau and Saint-
Simon
iii) Scottish enlightenment – Adam Smith
These efforts resulted in rise of modernist
paradigm (theory) of development and urban and
regional planning emerges as epitome of
modernist paradigm.

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ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENTS IN
EUROPE
i)René Descartes – Early 17th century. A French
mercenary (some one working only for money).
 Descartes gets a dream. The dream says, (a)
doubt everything that presents itself to mind, (b)
dissect the problem into many parts as possible,
(c) reconstruct the whole process through step-by-
step inductive process (reasoning developed from
observed examples or from empirical observations
and (d) enumerate and record everything.
 Descartes sets the stage for abstractions,
analysis, synthesis and control.
 Descartes’s vision was unitary (formed of singular
units added up together), universal and absolutist
(complete and final without any alternative).
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 He said, there is only one answer to any problem and
there is only one truth.
 This is very much modernist paradigm, which stated
that there is only one way development can take place
and there is only one definition of development.
 This is the beginning of scientific reasoning and
rationalism. Prior to that, knowledge was controlled by
theology. Science had not developed.
 By mid-20th century, this Cartesian vision was at the
unconscious level as the fundamental assumption of a
global culture of modern institutions and bureaucratic
decision making. Human societies are abstracted as
expanses of space awaiting planning, inputs, and
infrastructure, to be arranged and rearranged
according to circumstances and calculations.
 Cartesian vision was a very much mathematical and
geometric vision of human society.
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ii) Sir Francis Bacon – Early 17th century.
Contemporary of Descartes
 Emphasises use of human reason in inquisition of
things, that is use of deductive logic, unlike
inductive methods (empiricist method) of
Descartes.
 Development of logic as a discipline is attributed
to Bacon.
 Bacon argues that the method of understanding
anything is to analyse it by breaking it into pieces,
and by due process of exclusion and rejection lead
to inevitable conclusion. The purpose is not to win
argument with academician (like Indian
philosophers have been portrayed doing it), but
for commanding nature in action.
 He suggests that only with the division of labour
and specialisation “men will begin to know their
strength, when instead of great numbers doing all
the same things, one shall take charge of one
thing and another of another. 25
 He emphasises instrumental role of reason and
knowledge. (Once again, in theology controlled
system of knowledge – one where India is now
moving to – reason has no place and the knowledge
is given).
 For Bacon acquisition of knowledge is for purchasing
everything, including power. Bacon’s vision of
modern knowledge was one of power, of domination
of nature and domination over others (those lacking
knowledge). (This indeed was stated by many
colonialists, for example, Sir Cecil Rhodes who
conquered and created a country called Rhodesia –
now called Zaire – said that through his knowledge,
he wanted to civilize the barbarians.)
 Bacon argued that what makes some humans (men)
god over others is the invention, the technology.
Hence, Bacon is called prophet of technocracy.
 In Bacon’s vision, the knowledge and technology are
only in the hands of the few. His knowledge is
equated with utility (control over nature and people)
and power.
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ENGLISH ENLIGHTENMENT -
ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727)
 Defined parameters of western science. Later half of
17th century was a period of unprecedented scientific
discoveries, and setting up of British Royal Society and
French Academy of sciences. (This was also a period of
setting up of state-sponsored institutions to promote
economic development and Bank of England, first
national central bank founded in 1694.)
 Newton moves Aristotelian metaphysics to modern
physics, the move from religious and Aristotelian
reasoning about world to modern stress on attention to
natural world as route to knowledge.
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Move from
- theistic to materialistic explanation of nature of
human and other living creatures’ existence,
- medieval scholasticism to modern rationalism and
empiricism as nature of knowledge
- abstract theoretical reflection to the use of
experimental method of generating knowledge, and
- contemplative acquiescence (acceptance) to
generating knowledge to a notion that effective
action flows from the deployment of practical
reasoning.

The Newtonian science gets tied to the rise of

bourgeois (middle-class) mercantile (commercial)
capitalism. The new rising bourgeoisie needed
natural science against the church-led feudal status
quo. The French Enlightenment shrugged off
religion completely from public sphere. 28
FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT
 French Enlightenment produced a series of thinkers who
were committed to political change in France and they saw
themselves as in alliance with the rising bourgeoisie in
France.

Rousseau (1712-78) is one known face of French

Enlightenment.
- Rousseau affirmed general rationalism and determinism.
(Determinism is theory that actions are determined by
forces independent of will, that is actions are a result of
objective conditions and not subjective will).
- He argued that human freedom depended on clear
understanding of the laws of nature and society. And any
deviation form these laws would have negative impact on
the individual.
- He looks for an ideal moral/social order.
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- He believes that the social contract, that was originally
designed to protect members has become twisted into
inegalitarian forms. He argues for a social reform for the
citizenship in republican democratic politics. (Republic is
where the supreme power is held by people or their
representatives). Notion of equality brought.
- Rousseau is considered the theorist of the French
Revolution.

French Enlightenment was followed by French Revolution,

which incidentally was very bloody. There was time in
Europe when people who considered themselves as
democrats were viewed with someone who had blood on
their hands as a consequence of French Revolution. It
gave way to Napoleon and through who bourgeoisie came
to power and there was a gradual shift to industrial liberal
democracy through the nineteenth century.

Same thing happened in UK and liberal democracy began

with the beginning of the industrial societies. In USA, with
an open continent, economic growth and liberal
democracy went straight into practice. 30
 SAINT-SIMON – THE FIRST PLANNER (1760-
1825)

 Saint-Simon – a French count, named Claude Henri de

Saint-Simon.
- Mission to work for the improvement of humankind.
- Material, industrial production, and technology would be
the means to accomplish this improvement, and for him,
these three words became synonymous.
- This meant total reorganisation of society.
- Saint-Simon was truly the modernization project.
- Like Descartes and Bacon, who displayed desire to control
nature, Saint-Simon, believed in it and not only that he did
not find anything wrong with it. He declared
“desire to dominate which is innate in all men has ceased
to be pernicious, or atleast, we can foresee an epoch
when it will not be harmful any longer, but will become
useful”.
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- Saint-Simon and his followers envisaged a society
reorganised to channel human aggression into massive
development projects and incessant industrial growth.
They envisaged government as applied economics, and
politics to be replaced by technocratic, instrumental
reason, by science of production.
- Key to this transformation was to be the organisation of
all material activity in the society through a unitary and
directing bank, which would be depository of all riches,
total fund of production. This bank would oversee, credit
institutions that would be responsive to localised
production needs.
- He can be called the first development planner. He
travelled to USA to participate in American
Revolutionary War in 1783. Then he went to Mexico to
unsuccessfully convince the Spanish Viceroy to invest in
plan to construct a canal across Isthmus of Panama.
- He proposed European unification.

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- After his death, his followers initiated a journal, Le
Globe, which was read over whole of Europe.
- Saint-Simon had a vision of creating a ‘Supreme
Council of Newton’, in which 21 men of science
and artists would govern the world and assume
the moral authority, which was at that time was
with the Church. Saint-Simonians, too floated a
vision, through Le Globe, to have economic and
political union of Europe and Far East, linked
together by a system of railroads and canals and
to be financed by new industrial development
banks. (Does this sound familiar?)
- Many Saint-Simonians were engineers, graduates
of École Politechnique in Paris, as we as chemists,
geologists and financiers. In history of European
development, particularly with respect to railroads
and banking, their influence was immense.
- Saint-Simon unleashed a technocratic utopia,
(technocratic faith or what one now calls
modernisation ideals).
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- But, they also had realised that in fulfilling these
ideals, private property and inheritance laws
came in the way. Thus, Le Globe invented the new
philosophy ‘socialism’ in 1832. And the Le Globe
took a turn towards socialist principles, mainly
based on the ideology of abolition of private
property. (Remember that the French
enlightenment movement considered owning of
private property as a natural law, which was
getting challenged somewhat later in France,
through the ideology of Siant-Simonians.
- Tremendous influence of Saint-Simonians is found
in the leaders of the Third world, after the
independence of these countries from European
colonial rules. (Which we will see later.)
34
 ADAM SMITH (1723-90)

 Known for economic thought, called classical

economics
 He affirmed Newtonian method of proceeding
from first principles to reconstruct the complexity
of the observed world.

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Key ideas of Smith’s economic system are:
a) Division of labour, where specialization in
production coupled with technical innovation allows
vastly increased production and economic growth.
b) The notion of market, where products are
offered to consumer and which acts as an
institutional structure where the buyers and sellers
meet and agreements on price of land (through
rent), labour (through wages) and capital (through
profit) give signal to all parts of the economic
system of how the future is to be rationally ordered.
c) The postulate of economic rationality, the ideas
that the buyers and sellers are rational agents
(actors) who know their wants.

36
d) The notion of spontaneous order whereby the
pursuit of individual satisfactions generates via
the mechanism of the invisible hand optimal
societal benefit. The invisible hand is the social
structure.
e) The idea of economic progress over time as the
market freed of mercantilist restriction worked
to secure wealth of the nation.
Smith’s work pre-dates industrial revolution and
does not anticipate industrial society.

37
Impact of Smith’s work on social sciences is that:
a) The sphere of market can be investigated
naturalistically because it is the realm of
economic causes and effects
b) The technical knowledge of economic science
will enable actors to order their activities better.
c) His notion of rational economic man is still
used in economics as an ideal type whereby
economic activity can be analysed.

38
 Adam Smith’s theory articulates the interests of the
rising industrial capitalists. They were attracted to
the following arguments of Smith:
i) The free pursuit of private gain can act to raise the
levels of living of the entire community.
ii) How individuals in a community can be pursued to
take up activities that would benefit both the
individuals as well as the whole community.

With regards to wages of the workers, he says that

the wages should be natural wages. Natural wage
was a rate that just allowed the workers to survive
and reproduce. If wages fell below subsistence
levels than the workers would die and there would
be fewer workers whose wages would then have to
increase and by that wage rates would increase. If
more wages then improvement in living standards
and more workers (either by more of their children
surviving as he said or more becoming workers), 39
that would bring down the wage.
 Smith was also father of Public Finance, which
was then picked up by Pigou. Smith did say that
there was role of government. He said how the
government could raise its revenues. That was
done to generate high economic growth rate.
That was to be done through taxation. He laid
down four maxims/ rules for taxing the public:
(i) Taxes should be proportional, every one should
pay the same proportion of their income as
taxes (unlike today as many of the taxes are
progressive) (when Smith was writing, most
taxes were regressive and a proportional tax
would have reduced the tax burden on the low
income families)

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(ii) Tax payers should not be kept in dark about
their taxes, they should know in advance how
much they have to pay and that the tax laws
should not be changed radically from year to
year.
(iii) Taxes should be levied at a time and in a
manner that is most convenient for people to
pay. Eg. Current practice of levying capital
gains tax when it realised and not when it is
accrued is best example of this maxim.
(iv) Best tax was the one that was least expensive
to collect.

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Smith’s political economy
i) There is increasing interdependence of people
within a society as the production system
advances.
ii) Wealth was derived from creative human
labour working on available natural materials in
order to produce useful objects. (Labour theory of
value subsequently developed by Marx). The
value of goods traded in the market place derived
from the labour embodied in them.
iii) The key to increase in wealth of nations is the
rise in labour productivity associated with the
increasing division of labour. As the tasks of
production are broken into specialist parts on the
basis of advances in productive techniques and
machinery then both the overall output of the
economy increases and the interdependence of
the various elements of the economy increases. 42
iv) How were these individual actions ordered (organised) so
that there was no anarchy and the overall harmony was
maintained? That was through the market place, through
the rewards of land, labour and capital.
v) How are the prices of each of the factor of production,
land, labour and capital determined? Aruges Smith,
through what is the social circumstance of each of the
actor in concerned, the labour, the capitalist and the
landowner. Smith is dividing the population into different
classes and analysing their position in the overall
economy. (This class analysis, Marx takes forward to give
his analysis of society and social change.) Orthodox
economists look at individual behaviour and not classes.

Smith’s economics is called classical economics. From

there the term neo-classical comes, one who pick up the
market part of Adam Smith’s theory and not the political
economy part. (The classical economics grapple with the
grasping of structural dynamics underlying surface
market phenomenon).
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 Neo-classical economists or what is called the
New Right emerges from the Adam Smith’s theory
of free market. This is a misleading treatment of
Adam Smith. They make an overarching claim that
the free markets maximize human welfare. They
argue that:
i) Economically, free markets act efficiently to
distribute knowledge and resources around the
economic system and that leads to maximization
of material welfare (The current regime of IPRs do
not efficiently distribute knowledge)
ii) Socially, as action and responsibility for action
resides with the person (individual), then the
liberal, individualistic social system ensure that
the moral worth is maximised. 44
iii) Politically, as liberalism offers a balanced
solution to problems of deploying, distributing
and controlling power then liberal polities ensure
that political freedom is maximised.
iv) As the whole package is grounded in genuine
positive scientific knowledge then in such a
system there would be effective deployment of
positive knowledge.
Free market comprises of atomistic individuals
who know their own individually arising needs
and wants and who make contracts with other
individuals through the marketplace to satisfy
their needs and wants. The market is a neutral
mechanism for transmitting information about
needs and wants and goods that might satisfy
them.
45
 According to the New Right, this model is a
satisfaction-maximising asocial mechanism in
which:
a) There is legally guaranteed private ownership
of means of production,
b) There is pervasive perfect completion
amongst the suppliers who operate in complex
division of labour. Perfect market is where there is
abundance of suppliers and consumers, there is
perfect information of buyers and sellers and
commodities and there is no monopoly.
c) The suppliers are aiming to meet the
demands of sovereign (independent) consumers
d) Everything is ordered through the market. 46
 Track record of the New Right. The World Bank and the IMF are
part of this New Right.
i) In UK and USA, that has led to unemployment, reductions in
general welfare, declining manufacturing production and
mountains of debt. (Something that has begun to happen in
India).
ii) Other alternative models have succeeded, such as social market
system, which is based on consensus-centred corporatism, or
east Asian experiment of state-assisted development, the latter
being particularly being cites as a great success.
iii) In the third world, post-1980s, the neo-classicism has governed
the policies of the government, which was not so immediately
after the second World War, when the newly independent third
world country governments were aware of their political-
economic, social-institutional and cultural weaknesses.
iv) Increase in hunger (see Africa) through permanent damage done
to the fragile economies of the Third World. (Susan George’s
work)

These programmes of liberalisation, have usually

required parallel programmed of political repression. (In
India, it is accompanied by communalism, a method through
which political freedom get curtailed, of the minorities directly
and of the majority through shrinking of political space.)
47
 KARL MARX
- Dialectics of Historical Change

Dialects is investigation of truths in philosophy.

The dialectal method assumes that everything is
under constant change and only thing that is the
final truth or universal or permanent is the
constant change. (This sounds paradoxical). And
hence, there is nothing that is given. In contrast,
there is opposing view in philosophy that says
that there are certain truths that are permanent
(constant) and which do not change and one of
that is ‘God’. ‘Dialectics of Nature’ written by
Fredrick Engels, talks about this constant process
of change in the daily processes of nature. At the
end of a process of change, a thing transforms
itself into its opposite. (Day becomes night, hot
becomes cold, and so on)
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- Materialism (Historical Materialism)
Materialism as a science argues that there is
material basis for everything. That is, the people
make their lives in their routine productive
activity. This productive activity is taken to be the
central business of human social life and around it
more abstract concerns, such as law, religion, art,
etc. cluster.

49
“In the social production of their life, men (and
women) enter into definite relations that are
indispensable and independent of their will.
relations of production which correspond to a
definite state of the development of their material
productive forces. The sum total of these relations
of production constitutes the economic structures
of society, the real foundation, on which rise a
legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
The mode of production of material life conditions
the social, political and intellectual life processes
in general. It is not the consciousness of men that
determines their being, on the contrary, their
social being that determines their consciousness”
(In preface to A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy in 1859) by Karl Marx). 50
Religion is the superstructure, that he calls is opium
of the masses.

Know a person through his/her actions and not

words as the true identity is in the material being
(material actions) and not in consciousness.

Marx has a materialist conception of History, where

is makes human production to analysis of human
life. The history is interpreted through physical
evidences found and not from the epical works
written by saints, etc. He argues that human beings
make their own patterns of life. (A book called
Man’s Worldly Goods by David Liberhan that is the
materialist interpretation of history). This
materialist thesis of history is now widely and
routinely accepted as a basis of social science
except the religious fundamentalists of all hue, 51
Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc.)
- Marx gave a philosophical and economic critique
of the capitalist economic system, which was the
economic system of his time. The new industrial
economic system was based on capitalism. He
uses his materialist philosophy to argue out that
capitalism is not the final economic system and it
was not given. It is bound to change and move
towards socialism. (Remember, socialism as a
philosophy had come into being in France with the
work of Rousseau and then Saint-Simon
followers).

52
- Marx’s critique of capitalist economic system is that
in this system, the labour becomes a routine factor
of production and the worker’s labour is controlled
by the others. Because of the division of labour,
work specialization, routinization of work, and the
external control of labour, the worker gets alienated
from the product of his labour (that is alienated from
the product he makes). This leads to destruction of
human creativity. And hence, worker becomes an
element in the capitalist production system. And
hence, the labour goes to work for wages and not
because he/she identifies with this work. This
alienation of worker from the work is the essence of
capitalist system of production. Also human beings
are alienated from their ‘species being’ as capitalist
social relations degrade the collective human
creation of self and society. Thus, there is an overall
alienation that takes place in the system.

53
- But, this alienated labour in the capitalist system
is not voluntary, but in a sense is forced.
(This alienation process, in the current world is
addressed by law and order machinery. In the
earlier forms of society, it was the identity of
individuals with the production system and by that
with each other, that kept society in stability.
What we now call social controls.)
But, this alienation also frees the labour from
societal controls. The labour becomes a free
labour, not tied to land or any asset. Labour
becomes a proletariat (those earning from wages
by selling their labour). Proletariat having no other
asset but their own labour power to sell.
- According to Marx, the production system in
capitalism is social, that is through social
division of labour, (no one individual produces
any single commodity or product), but the value
produced through labour is appropriated
(taken by force) by individuals, that is by
capitalists, the owners of capital. 54
Marx’s economic analysis, that is analysis of
economic dynamic of capitalism. The main
features are:
i) Capitalism is historically novel because in it the
production is oriented not to the satisfaction of
social or human needs but to the requirements of
the market exchange of commodities.
ii) Each commodity has a use value (the function
of commodity) and exchange value (the value of
commodity in market).
iii) Value is created by expenditure of labour (like
Adam Smith).
iv) In a day, the labourer sells his labour (calls
labour power) at the market price produces a
surplus over his replacement needs.
v) A labour (worker) sells his power to labour
and hence it is the labour power that has value
and not the worker who has value. 55
vi) A labourer (worker) gets the price for his
labour power that is just enough to provide the
labourer’s conditions of existence (food, housing,
basic welfare, and so on).
vii) The labourer gets the wages that are much
lower than the value created by the labour power
of that labourer. That is, the labourer creates
value, over and above value required to subsist
that labour.
viii) The additional value created by the labour in
this process is called surplus value of labour and
that is the basis of profit in a market place, which
is earned by the capitalist, one who deploys
capital in the production system.
ix) The capitalist system therefore is inherently
exploitative. Ratio between labour necessary to
reproduce labour (called necessary labour) and
surplus labour, is called the rate of exploitation. 56
x) Capitalist system is competitive and thus
technically innovative. In the process, the system
reaches a stage where the technical innovations lead
to more and more deployment of capital and
becomes capital-intensive. The labour is replaced by
capital. On one hand, the addition of surplus value of
labour decreases by this and hence the profits fall. On
the other hand, the labour are squeezed and their
wages (value given to the labour) fall due to surplus
labour in the market. It leads to reduction in
purchasing power of commodities by the labour. This
leads to a situation of overproduction in the capitalist
system. This leads to fall in wages, closure of
factories, production decline and thus depression.
The great depression of the thirties is the result of the
over production in the capitalist system.
57
This overproduction leads to capitalist seeking newer and
newer market (which the colonialists did through capture
of the third world). By the First World War, the globe was
divided by the colonialists in their colonies. Germany was
the new entrant in the capitalist system by early 20th
century. And so was Japan. To be able to have a share of
the global cake of colonial countries, Germany wages the
Second World War, under the leadership of Hitler.

Today’s system is also a crises of global capitalism. There

is overproduction of various goods and services, including
food, but, there are no buyers. People do not have
adequate wages to buy even food, which leads to hunger
deaths in many parts of the world. Today’s technology has
reached a stage that it can produce everything in
abundance, but, the economic system is such that there
are no adequate buyers of these goods. (Hence, the
system of privatisation in services, e.g. of water supply,
sanitation, etc. in cities, would lead to situation where
there would be no buyers of these goods) 58
xi) The crises in capitalism on the other hand
causes misery for the proletariat, which fosters
class consciousness in them and which would
ultimately lead them to organising to over throw
capitalism.
xii) The basic contradiction in the capitalist
system is, as mentioned, the production is social
but, the profits and property ownership is private.
Through organisation, the labour would overthrow
such a system and remove this contradiction, and
create a system where there is no private
ownership of property.

59
Marxian view of state, party and revolution
Each dominant economic class of any system, has the state
through its law and machinery, working in the benefit of the
dominant economic class. And the ideology or the theory of
that dominant economic class becomes the ideology or the
theory of the state. This is why, in the pre-industrial periods,
the feudal classes and then the mercantile classes had
theories to support their dominance. Which, Adam Smith
overturned and whose theory the rising industrial class
made their own.
Thus, executive of the modern state is a committee for
managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
“State is a machine in the hands of the few wealthy to
oppress the majority in the process of appropriation (taking
by force) the benefits produced by the majority.” Lenin, the
father Russian Bolshevik Revolution gave this theory of state
and used the same in establishing proletarian state in
Russia. It is argued that the overthrowing of the bourgeois
state is the only way to establish a state of the proletariat.
And this overthrowing of bourgeois state would be
necessarily violent. (Overthrowing of feudal state in France
was through French Revolution, that established the power
of industrial capital over the feudal lords). The theory of
state gets the name Marxism-Leninism, implemented in a
new way in China by Mao-tse-tung. 60
Impact of Marxism
i) This Marxist approach to analyse a societal system is something
that is new and has captured the social scientists. That is,
looking at the system as a whole and analysing the society from
the perspective of class analysis. The system of exploitation as
inherent in the capitalist system is the beginning of the
economic analysis of a society.
ii) Role of state was what has gripped the planners. Only in
socialist countries, the cities are planned as the way planners
have planned.
iii) The middle path between socialist state and capitalist
state is the welfare state where the state acts as a welfare
distributing mechanism, thereby capitalist keeping the control
of state and thereby over the private property whereas
ensuring that the labour are not pushed to such a stage of
penury that they organise on class lines to over throw the state.
iv) Marx’s work encompasses a body of social scientific ideas
and related subsequent social movements. Social movements
often do not take place spontaneously. Leaders, that is,
subjective forces are required for any social movement to take
place. An organisation is required to carry out social movement.
The leaders and cadres in such organisation come with this new
understanding of the social reality, the reality of exploitation,
that leads to a social movement.
61
v)Marxism has been a very powerful ideology that has
attracted the oppressed, the Third World Countries (all
national liberation struggles in the third world were led by
leaders influenced by Marxist ideology of socialism and
communism), the labour movements, and even women’s
movement. Within each movement, women’s movement,
environmental movement, which has led to changes in
development paradigm globally, there is a very strong
presence of Marxists.
vi) Academics, throughout the world, especially in Europe
and the Third World, have been influenced by these ideas. A
stream of social scientists, called the structuralists emerge
from the Marxist school of thought.
vii) Theories of imperialism ‘as highest stage of capitalism’
were mounted by the Marxists. It is from this understanding,
theories of ‘finance capital’ and current global economic
system comes. From here emerges the core-periphery
theories in global development.
viii) Theories for analysing cities, the primate cities, the
global cities, settlement hierarchy, and city planning efforts,
are all Marxist legacy (much as we may not like to
acknowledge it). 62
 DAVID RICARDO (1772-1823)

- Theory of Comparative and Absolute

Advantage
- Theory of Differential Rent
1. Smith said, trade occurs when there is
absolute advantage.
2. Ricardo’s contribution is about
comparative advantage and he said that
trade will occur even if there is
comparative advantage and not absolute
advantage.
63
US 64
 Japanese workers are more efficient at
producing cars. US workers are less efficient
in producing car and producing rice. But, US
workers are relatively less inefficient in
producing rice.
 US and Japan will benefit from specializing in
what they are relatively better at producing
and then trading with each other.

65
Differential Rent Theory
i) Most productive land always brought first into
use. E.g. Land A of 1 hectare produces 100 tons of
wheat. When next best (B) is brought into use,
which produces 75 tons/hectare of wheat then the
value of Land A will be 25 tons worth of wheat.
When land C is brought into use, its productivity
being 60 tons/ha, the value of land A will be 40
tons and of B will be 15 tons. And it goes on. More
the land brought into use, higher will be the value
of A

In urban land, the most productive land is the

most accessible, with best facilities, etc. When
next best land is brought into use then, the price
of best land goes up.

With city expansion, price of best-located lands go

up. 66
Cecil Pugh
 ARTHUR CECIL PIGOU (1877-1959)

Welfare Economics & Concept of Public Goods

 For some goods, all production costs are borne by the

consumer via the price of the good
 For some goods, part of the costs of the goods is passed on
to the society in the form of social costs. E.g. pollution.
 If that is possible, then firm may produce too many goods
that would create pollution, which will increase the pollution.
Firms may use old technology so that pollution continues.
There is no way the firm can be made to change the
technology. These are called negative externalities
 There are goods whose production can exceed the benefits
that the consumer gets. E.g. Police, fire protection, national
defence, health care spending, education spending.
 If an individual buys a medicine for cold, to remedy his/her
cold, the individual benefits. But, this person’s taking of
medicine stops infecting others, then there are social 67
benefits of private benefits.
 Divergence between social costs and private costs are called
‘externalities’, ‘spill-over effects’ and ‘third-party
effects’.
 Divergence between private and social costs might justify
government intervention in the market place.
 When there are large positive externalities, people gain
whether they pay for it or not. This ability to obtain benefits
without paying for it is called ‘free rider problem’. If I do not
pay, it will get done in any case attitude.
 If no one pays but everyone gains then there is loss to every
one in the long run. To overcome this, government must tax
everyone so that such public goods are provided by the
government.
 In case of privately provided goods, if there are negative
externalities, that good is taxed. If there are positive
externalities then that good gets subsidy.
 Costs of externalities have to be internalised in the cost of
production of goods.
 Sometimes, non-economic measures, such as legal measures
are adopted for negative externalities
68
 JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883 – 1946)

Called the practical saviour of capitalism, proposer of

short-run solutions to economic problems.
Inflation
 Warned of practical problems of inflation. Said that
central government must intervene in the issues of
inflation by controlling money supply. Some economists
opposed it saying that inflation will take care of itself in
the long run. Keynes said: “In the long run we all will
die”.
 Keynes said that short-run interventions are necessary in
the economy and these interventions have to be by the
government. Some economists have criticised him for
thinking about short-run solutions. Keynes believed that
it is better to solve the problems now.
69
Unemployment
 If there was more demand, for goods, then, economies
would prosper, businesses would expand, and hire more
workers (create demand for more workers) and
unemployment would cease. If demand is low, the firms
would be forced to cut back on production and then on
hiring and there would be lay-offs and unemployment
and then depression.
 Great depression of 1920 to 1930s in US was handled by
Keynes
 Keynes asked for comprehensive socialisation of
investment decisions, which a government take through
the central bank through interest rate policies, high
interest rate will reduce investment and by that
production would decline and vice versa.

70
 Some thought that Keynes was asking for total
control of government over business investment
decisions. What Keynes was asking for is
government spending policies to stabilise aggregate
level of investment in the economy.
 Keynes’s contribution is important for the macro
economy.
 Way out of depression is to create more of housing,
more schools, more hospitals, more roads, etc.
When private investments in these was low,
government must invest. If government does not
have money then government must borrow (and run
budget deficit) and engage in public investments in
construction.
 When business investments were high, government
must cut-back spending and borrowing.

71
 GUNNAR MYRDAL (1898-1987)

 Considered the main architect of Swedish Welfare State

 Myrdal convinced the then Finance Minister of Public Works
and to run budget deficits in order to reduce unemployment
 Theory of Cumulative Causation as an alternate to Equilibrium
Analysis
 Introduced Ex-Ante and Ex post distinction in economic
analysis. Ex-Ante or expected is before hand; before the event
analysis that gives estimations and forecasting. Ex-post is
after the fact, analysis. Ex Ante gives estimates of expected
outcomes and Ex post gives measures of the actual outcome.
 Theory of Cumulative Causation – involves a positive or
negative feedback involving two or more variable. It can be
contrasted with uni-directional causal change, in which, A
causes change in B, but B has no further impact on A; the
change stops at B. The system reaches new equilibrium with
changed values of variables A and B. 72
 Cumulative Causation means that variables A and B impact
each other in a process of change. Variable A impacts B and
Variable B in turn impacts A and both reach a new level. The
system is under constant change and there is no equilibrium
at any point.
 When A and B both increase, they are in virtuous cycle of
positive feedback loop; when A and B both decline then we
have vicious cycle or negative feedback loop. He used this
idea to explain poverty and race relations.
 He showed that how entire American society suffered from
low socio economic situation of the Black Americans, now
called African Americans. He said, discrimination breeds
discrimination. This analysis showed that this situation can be
remedied in one of the many ways and improvement in any
one area would initiate the virtuous cycle of improvement.
But, where to start? He looked to American institutions to
break into this vicious cycle of discrimination against the
blacks. Measures he proposed:
73
1. Organisations such as churches, schools, trade
unions and the government to play an
important role in improving the socio-economic
conditions of the blacks.
2. Expansion of the role of the Federal
government in the areas of education, housing
and income security.
3. Laws making it easier for the blacks to vote.
4. Advocated migration from the South to the
industrial North, the latter having more jobs in
the new economic sector than the latter that
provided jobs on the farm land.
5. Use of fiscal policy to achieve full employment
(like Keynes)
74
 Myrdal used this theory to explain poverty in South Asia (Asian
Drama, 1968). A way out was suggested:
1. To spend more on education
2. To spend more on sanitation and, by providing clean water and
developing other public amenities.
3. Income support programmes to address the problem of
income inequality.
4. While most economists argued that there was trade-off
between equality and growth, Myrdal held that there was no
such trade-off and that greater equality would lead to more
rapid growth (A good example of that is China, in the hind-
sight – not stated by Mrydal). He said that inequality leads to
slower growth because of physical and psychological
consequences of poverty, as the poor are unable to utilise
their talents. A welfare state that redistributes income would
lead to higher demand and hence more rapid economic
growth.

Myrdal criticised the social scientists in general and

economists in particular for not being able to speak and write
in the language that the ordinary person can understand. He
also criticised the economists’ attempt to hide their value or
normative assumptions behind the façade of objectivity. He
was not opposed to economists making value judgements75but
was opposed to their refusal to accept that.
 MILTON FRIEDMAN (1912- 2006)

Two main themes of his work

(i) Money matters – Because only changes in money supply
can affect economic activity and inflation results from too
much money in the economy.
(ii) Freedom matters – Because economies run better when
the governments do not attempt to control prices,
exchange rates or entry into professions.
 Known for his work against Keynsianism. He argued
against the use of stabilisation policies to control either
inflation or unemployment. He said that the fiscal policy
would not work and a monetary policy would worsen the
business cycle and lead to greater inflation.
 Friedman has opposed all forms of government
intervention in an economy, as that is viewed as
curtailment of political freedom. He argued that capitalism
is the best economic system because it promotes political
freedom and market can help offset political power. 76
 He opposed all government programmes that came in
the way of individual decision-making. Such as:
(i) Wage and Price Controls
(ii) Social security (because it breaks down family bonds
and is actually a transfer from the less well-off to the
wealthy, the latter tend to live longer than the former.
(iii) Government support for higher education (because it
primarily benefit the well-off).
 In contrast he has supported:

(i) All volunteer army

(ii) Education vouchers to all parents to allow them to
select the school where they would send their children.

77
 THE NEW RIGHT – NEO-LIBERALISM IN
1980S
 This is called counter revolution by some, especially by
those coming from the left and centrist traditions
 This is eclipse of the welfare state.
 Roots in the crises of the metropolitan heartland of the
global capitalist system that emerged in 1970s. In 1973, US
took a decision to come out of the Bretton Woods system
and allow its dollar to float. This went hand in hand with
collapse of US authority globally by the emergence of Japan
in the east and European economy. Since then, Asia has
risen, reducing global importance of USA.
 After the election of Reagan in US and Thatcher in UK that
the New Right firmly took power. [In a way it can be seen as
protecting one’s own turf, if New Right is seen as a
regressive movement.] Progressive view of it is that this
provided new ideas of democracy, relieving people from the
clutches of the state.
 The New Right theorists claim that the modern free-market
capitalist system is maximally effective in producing and
equitably distributing the economic, social, political and
intellectual necessaries of civilised life.
78
 THE CLAIMS OF NEW RIGHT ARE:
 Economically – free markets act efficiently to distribute
knowledge and resources around the economic system,
then the material welfare will be maximized
 Socially – as action and responsibility for action reside with
the person of the individual, then liberal individualistic social
systems will ensure that moral worth is maximised.
 Politically – as liberalism offers a balance solution to the
problems of deploying, distributing and controlling power,
then liberal polities ensure that political freedom is
maximised.
 Epistemologically – as the whole package is grounded in
genuine positive scientific knowledge, then in such systems
the effective deployment of positive knowledge is
maximised.

79
 THE NEW RIGHT

 The substantive core of the thinking is that free market

comprises of atomistic individuals who know their own
autonomously arising needs and wants and who make
contracts with other individuals through the mechanism of
the marketplace to satisfy those needs and wants. The
market is a neutral mechanism for transmitting information
about needs and wants, and goods which might satisfy them
around the system. A minimum state machine provides a
basic legal and security system to underpin the individual
contractual pursuit of private goals.
 This position has informed the policies of the World Bank,
the IMF and the US government. When the World Bank and
the IMF forced these policies on the borrowing governments,
these were called Structural Adjustment Programmes. The
World Bank forced upon the borrowing countries to privatise
their structures and the IMF forced them to reduce fiscal
deficit (through minimising the role of state in the economy
and society). The latter resulted in cutting down of 80
government expenditures even on public goods.
 THE POLICY PACKAGE THAT CAME TO THE
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WAS:

 Any regulation of the market has to be avoided, save for

crises and the removal of malfunctions or inhibitions to
full functioning.
 Any intervention in the market is to be avoided, save to
remove causes of price distortions, so subsidies should
be abolished should be abolished, tax rates adjusted to
encourage enterprise, tariff barriers removed along with
non-tariff barriers or disguised restrictions.
 Any government role in the economy should be
avoided, as private enterprise can usually do a better
job, and when governments do become involved it
should be both market-conforming, short-term and
involve a minimum of regulations
 Any collective intervention in the market should be
avoided, so labour unions must be curbed.
 International trade should be free trade with goods and
currency freely traded.
81
ALTERNATIVE SUCCESSFUL MODELS
Needless to mention, the developing
countries did not benefit. Instead, two
alternatives models that were
successful were being discussed.
 Social market system of Germany in place of
consensus-centred corporatism.
 State-assisted development, or
‘Developmental State’ Model of Japan and
East Asia, that brought in much higher
economic growth rates than what market
would have. The ‘Developmental State’
model also comes out of ‘Bismarckian’ State
of Germany and ‘Meiji Restoration’ in Japan,
where the State took on role of welfare as
well as promotion of rapid economic growth. 82
 TRACK RECORD OF THE NEW RIGHT

The World Bank and the IMF are part of this New Right.

 In UK and USA, that has led to unemployment, reductions in

general welfare, declining manufacturing production and
mountains of debt. (Something that has begun to happen in
India).
 Other alternative models have succeeded, such as social
market system, which is based on consensus-centred
corporatism, or east Asian experiment of state-assisted
development, the latter being particularly being cites as a
great success.
 In the third world, post-1980s, the neo-classicism has governed
the policies of the government, which was not so immediately
after the second World War, when the newly independent third
world country governments were aware of their political-
economic, social-institutional and cultural weaknesses.
 Increase in hunger (see Africa) through permanent damage
done to the fragile economies of the Third World. (Susan
George’s work)
83
 MAX WEBER

 Weber's ideas are complex and about

many dimensions of development. He is
primarily concerned with analysis of
capitalism but at the same time
sceptical of modernist project. For
example, the modernist institutions
have become bureaucratic. And
"bureaucratic administration means
fundamentally domination through
knowledge" wrote Weber.

84
 He sees that patterns of social relationship would
be stable and that is because it is believed that
these relationships are in a legitimate order.
 That there are three types of legitimate orders
and these orders of authority are accepted. These
are: a) Traditional authority, b) legal authority and
c) charismatic authority
 According to Weber, the modem capitalism is
governed by legal authority. The social institution
that embodies such legal authority is the modem
bureaucracy.
 Contemporary capitalism cannot function without
the bureaucratic organisation. He thinks that the
bureaucratic authority tends to be conservative
and expansionary. In modem capitalist society,
ever greater areas of social life are subject to
legal-rational rules. 85
 This is the key to understanding modem capitalism. He
calls bureaucracy a gatekeeper of the capitalist
systems, who provide or deny opportunities to
individuals to access the benefits of the system.
 Politically, he speaks of the iron-cage of bureaucracy.
He is sceptical of bureaucracy.
 Weber also found that the formal organisations that
grew out of modernity's desire to power, are highly
bureaucratic structures. The thrust of these
organisations is towards greater calculability,
effectiveness and control. But, in this process, these
organisational issues become more important than the
substantive (important) values and ends that the
organisation can serve and are meant to serve. In fact,
the bureaucracy in these organisations subvert the
substantive values and ends it might serve in light of
the functional efficiency of the organisation for which
they are there.

86
 World Bank is a great example of such a
bureaucracy, argues Bruce Rich in his book titled
'Mortgaging the Earth'. For example, World Bank
might consider the issue of staff leaking the
documents more serious organisational matter than
the organisation itself taking up projects that have
horrendous, often foreseeable, environmental and
social consequences. In fact, the World Bank has
been quick to tack on to the prevailing development
philosophies, for example, poverty alleviation under
McNamara, to global environmental management in
the recent years. But, if there are failures on this
front or if the World Bank's intervention has led to
worsening of the situation (which it has in many
instances that have been well recorded), then no one
is accountable. But, these themes crop up in the
Banks' activities because these fit well into Bank's
formal logic and institutional needs.

87
 And the Third World countries, through their bureaucracies started
borrowing from the World Bank for huge projects to realize the
"ideals of modernization", no one had heeded to Max Weber's
gloomy warnings. Most Third World leaders dreamed of and even
dream of now, of replicating Tennessee Valley Authority, great
highways and public works of American cities and other public
works of world's most powerful and economically successful
nations, argue Bruce Rich.
 A way out of the grip of this bureaucracy is emergence of a
charismatic leader, according to Weber. From time to time, a
charismatic political leader is thrown up, who would be elected by
the masses, and who would correct the bureaucratic controls on
modem institutions. This is Weber's belief in individualism, that an
individual will correct the system from time to time. That finally
the values will rule over facts.
 For Weber, it is from the ranks of the bourgeoisie that the leader
would be thrown up and not from the working class as Marxists
argue.

88
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY

 Although modernity had its origins in the 17th

century, it triumphed worldwide in social and
economic transformations only two centuries later, in
the 20th century. Also, inherent in the implementation
of modernist paradigm were many contradictions.
 Though, freedom and democracy was a part of the
philosophy of modernity, but, that was subverted from
within. The modernist paradigm was the building of
empire of man over things and was from the
beginning rooted in the will to power and domination.
It entailed, empire of men over other men and men
over women, of Western societies over all others.
(Now we use the term North over South. )
 The liberation of individual and society from previous
constraints left the world and society empty for new,
more total forms of control. 89
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY -
CONTI
 Max Weber found that in the project of modernisation
and rationalisation, bureaucratisation has taken place.
And "bureaucratic administration means
fundamentally domination through knowledge" wrote
Weber.
 Weber also found that the formal organisations that
grew out of modernity's desire to power, are highly
bureaucratic structures. The thrust of these
organisations is towards greater calculability,
effectiveness and control. But, in this process, these
organisational issues become more important than the
substantive (important) values and ends that the
organisation can serve and are meant to serve. In
fact, the bureaucracy in these organisations subvert
the substantive values and ends it might serve in light
of the functional efficiency of the organisation for
which they are there.
90
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY –
CONTD.
 World Bank is a great example of such a bureaucracy,
argues Bruce Rich in his book titled 'Mortgaging the
Earth'. For example, World Bank might consider the
issue of staff leaking the documents more serious
organisationa1 matter than the organisation itself
taking up projects that have horrendous, often
foreseeable, environmental and social consequences.
In fact, the World Bank has been quick to tack on to
the prevailing development philosophies, for example,
poverty a11eviation under McNamara, to globa1
environmenta1 management in the recent years. But,
if there are failures on this front or if the World Bank's
intervention has led to worsening of the situation
(which it has in many instances that have been well
recorded), then no one is accountable. But, these
themes crop up in the Banks' activities because these
fit well into Bank's forma1logic and institutiona1
needs. 91
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY –
CONTD.
 And the Third World countries, through their bureaucracies started
borrowing from the World Bank for huge projects to realize the
"ideals of modernization", no one had heeded to Max Weber's
gloomy warnings. Most Third World leaders dreamed of and even
dream of now, of replicating Tennessee Valley Authority, great
highways and public works of American cities and other public works
of world's most powerful and economically successful nations, argue
Bruce Rich.
 Technically large project~ have invariably led to displacement, be it
in developed world or the developing world. For example about
60000 people were displaced for construction of 7 mile Cross Bronx
Highway in New York City in 1952. This was because of Robert Moses,
a public planner in the city, whose built his empire from 1930s
onwards to 1960s. This project is typica1ly a 20th century
technocracy at work.
 According to Lewis Mumford, in the early 20th century, influence of
Robert Moses on the cities of America was the greatest.
 Foundations of Moses Empire was lack of political and financial
accountability and control through withholding of information
(something sounding familiar to us?)
 Moses empire was built through numerous autonomous development
agencies that generated their own revenues.
 Robert Moses was a developer with his empire spanning over nearly
half the area of New York City at that time. 92
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY –
CONTD.
 This approach to development, Bruce Rich compares with the
way the World Bank functions. It creates numerous
independent autonomous project authorities in the
developing world, for example NTPC in India. These agencies
were not often open to normal legislative and judicial
scrutiny, operated according to their own charter and rules
(mostly coming from the World Bank) and staffed with
technocrats (bureaucrats) often sympathetic, "even
beholden" (pp. 227) to the bank.
 In globalisation phase, development is being pursued through
such special institutions.
 Modernisation proceeds on the path of technological
transformation of nature and society. Technology and
technocracy as organising principal of a human society
appear to take an autonomous dynamics of its own.

93
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY –
CONTD.

 Modernisation and its application on human societies and

ecosystems is - abstraction, analysis, reconstruction and
control. (Control through bureaucracy)
 It is control of man over nature, of capital over people
(represented through ideology of economic growth over
improvement in human quality of life), of men over women,
of developed world (North) over South, of urban over rural,
of core over periphery. This analysis comes out the
consciousness and analysis of those not benefiting from
modernity's projects, such as type of urban development,
type of infrastructure development, etc.
 Modernisation has worked through a potent combination of
rationalized bureaucracy, economic organisations (that
favour capitalism with its philosophy of neo-classical
economics) and technological organisations that are
politically unaccountable.
 Nature has revolted against the gains of modernisation. For
example, real looming threat of climate change, imbalanced
food security, rising health burdens because of wide spread
use of hazardous materials, etc. 94
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY –
CONTD.
 The local communities dependent on nature, that is the indigenous
societies dependent on the ecosystems have revolted.
 Environmental degradation is severe. Minimum of environmental
resources, such as water, is on the decline. Per capita water
availability is on the decline a time will come in Third World
countries when there will be nearly no drinking water. India is one of
them.
 Many small Third World Countries have devastated public finances,
as they are highly indebted to the World Bank, in the process of
pursuit of modem projects. Instead of economic progress, many
Third World countries are steep in debt. Instead of self-sustained
growth, these countries are upto ears in debt. Problems of
unemployment, housing, human rights, poverty and landlessness
are increasing.
 Global inequalities have increased. In 1960, the ratio between the
world's riche and poor countries was 20:1, which increased to 46:1
in 1980 and went up to 60:1 in 1989.200 hundred years ago, this
ratio was 1.5: I! This is the achievement of modernization process!
 Third world countries also have devastated environment. For
example, long famine in Ethiopia, which has resurfaced this year.
95
 CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY – CONTD.
 In any case, the modemisation did not take place in most Third World
Countries. It did not bring in scientific temper, even though many of
the Third World leaders, immediately after their independence
embarked on large modem technocratic projects. For example, Nehru
said; "Industries are the temples of modem India". And in India, "We
have taken a Tryst with Destiny".
 "Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time
comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full
measure, but very substantially. A moment comes, which comes but
rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new.
 "That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so
that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we
shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions
who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease
and inequality of opportunity. .. To bring freedom and opportunity to
the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and
end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous,
democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic
and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to
every man and woman. "
96
CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY – CONTD.
 The scientific temper did not emerge and on the contrary,
religious fundamentalism is on the rise globally, more so in
the Third World.
 Poverty has not been eradicated and it is on the rise in
many parts of the world. Hunger deaths are on the increase
inspite of food surpluses.
 Improvement in quality of life of people all across the Third
World has not taken place. For example, IMRs, MMRs, are
quite high. There is no full literacy achievements. After SAP,
there have been reversals in achievements in these
indicators in many African countries. The decade of 1980s is
therefore called a lost decade from the perspective of
development.
 Neo-classical economics, pursued in all developed countries,
(with shades of mix ofwelfarism), and communism are both
perceived as modernist projects of control over nature, etc.
 Feminists have revolted through calling 'modernist project',
modern development projects as 'white Caucasian men
located in the capitalist countries of the North' dominated
projects.
97
POSITIVE ACHIEVEMENTS
 Could we have done without modernism? No.
This modernism, its economic system as
capitalism and its political system as liberal
democracy (with its limitations), is the
beginning of much radical transformations.
 It was necessary to move away from agrarian
systems, which are very closed and irrational
systems, with mind sets based on religious
and super-natural beliefs. On more scientific
than theological basis of knowledge.

98
ALTERNATIVE THEORIES

99
 WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT

 Neo-classical economists would say that development is

economic growth. That is, per capita increase in income (Per
Capita Income -PCI)
 How is income measured?
 Wages * Workers
 Production = Sum total of all production

It is assumed that with increase in income,

 people will have more resources at their command and that
they would consume more that would lead to utility and
therefore satisfaction.
 Income will give people command over resources that will
lead to people spending on basic needs, including
education, health and housing.
 Income will increase the self-esteem and self-respect of the
people and which will also give satisfaction 100
ALTERNATIVE VIEW
 Economic growth or increase in per capita income
does not mean increase in welfare and improvement
in either quality of life or improvement in well being or
improvement in human capabilities.
 Improvement in capabilities women as much as of
men
 Development has to be viewed from only one
perspective and that is development of people and
not of things. That is development takes place only
when people's development or human development
takes place.

101
 OTHER ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTS/ MEASUREMENTS OF
DEVELOPMENT

 Social Statistics, Social Accounting and Social Reporting - These are

statistics on social aspects of development
 Level of Living, Living standards and State of welfare Index -These are
statistics that represent standard and level of living enjoyed by people,
represented by various consumption related indicators.
 Quality of Life - the quality of life people enjoyed in the context of
environmental pollution, deteriorating safety and security and declining
living standards. Quality of life concept also includes psychological
factors and individual perceptions. "How do you do?"
 PQLI (Physical Quality of Life Index) - This is a Quality of life Index
referring to LEB, IMR and basic literacy - primarily meant to measure
poverty of developing countries.
 Social Progress Index -Genuine Progress Index etc. - That is only positive
parameters of development are added to the income and negative
parameters are deducted. Therefore, expenditure incurred on military
and war would be deducted. Of violence, genocide, etc. would be
deducted. Of environmental degradation would be deducted. But, of
care, affection, etc. would be added.

It is important to know what gets added and what does not get added
to the income. The debate between Lester Thurow and Robert 102
Chambers.
 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

 Human Development is the process of expansion of choices

in life. i.e. HD enhances capabilities of people that enables
them to lead the life they value (and want)
 HD is not just quality of life - It is a development paradigm
(approach), a development mode. It is not a static concept,
but it is a dynamic concept that refers to a development
path that ensures human development.
 Human development is a goal as well as a paradigm.
Economic Growth does not automatically get translated into
human development. It needs an enabling environment.
 In development theory, this is a new area that is being
developed by scholars.

103
 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX
(HDI)
 This is a measurement of the choices available to
people through improvement in their capabilities.
(HDI) - A composite index of three basic human
capabilities:
i) Capability to lead a healthy life (LEB)
ii) Capability of enjoying knowledge (adult literacy
rate and average number of years of schooling,
and
iii) Access to good standard of living: per capita
income

104
 GDI/ GEM

 Gender Related Development Index (GDI):

- It is the HDI adjusted for gender equity. It measures the same basic
capabilities
in the context of gender inequity

 Gender Empowerment Index (GEM):

- It measures women’s empowerment in the context of the same of
the men. It is a composite index of

1. Women’s power over economic resources (share in per capita income)

2. Access to professional opportunities and participation in economic
decision
making. ( % of women in technical, professional, managerial job)
3. Access to political decision making (% of women in the national
parliament)

105
 OTHER INDICES OF UNDP

 Capability Poverty Measure (CPM):

- A measure of the lack of three basic capabilities, a measure of human poverty

1. % of underweight children (under 5 years)

2. % of births unattended by trained personnel
3. % of females illiterate

 Human Poverty Index (HPI):

- A composite index of basic deprivations.

1. % of people not expected to survive to age 40 years

2. Adult Illiteracy Rate
3. Deprivation of economic provisioning
- % of people without access to safe drinking water
- % of people without access to basic health services
- % of underweight children under five

106
Three Rules of Promoting Social/Human Development

1. Enabling development path

- employment intensive
- equitable
- environment friendly

2. Persistent direct efforts for decades

- Kerala and Gujarat (wide gap)
- Some Saurashtra districts

3. Synergies in policies/programmes
- literacy and health
(female literacy and IMR, MMR)
- environment and health/education 107
- capital and revenue expenditure
 This concept draws heavily from a very famous saying
of Gandhi: "There is enough in this world for every
persons' need but there is not enough in this world for
even one person's greed.
 Number of alternative development 'approaches, such
as small is beautiful (E.F. Schumacher), have this
Gandhian influence.

108
 GENDER DEVELOPMENT

 If advances in welfare (utility), education, health and general

quality of life, self-esteem and self-respect of women does not
take place, then, it is not development.
 Gender Analysis is a Bi-focal view of society. It is believed that:
a) The development benefits are not equally shared between
men women. Men have benefited more from the modernist
approach to development. Hence, in all development indicators,
women are behind men. This is not a biological outcome but a
social construct.
b) The development burdens also are not equally shared
between men and women. Women share more burdens of mal-
development than men. For example, in times of displacement
or environmental degradation, it is women who suffer more
than men.

109
 GENDER INEQUALITY

 What unites countries across many .cultural,

Religious, Ideological, Political and Economic
divides is their Common Cause Against
Equality of Women.
i) Right to travel
ii)Right to marry
iii) Right to divorce
iv) Right to property and inheritance
v)Right to acquire nationality
vi) Seek employment

110
 COMPARING HDI WITH GDI

HDI Values
GDI Values

111
INDICATOR VALUES IN GDI

112
 SOME STATISTICS
 Estimated 1.3 billion people live in poverty in the world and
70% of them are women.
 In South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the men live longer
than women (longevity measured by LEB). In rest of the
world, on an average, women live longer by five years than
men.
 There are more than 100 million women missing in the
world. These missing women are mainly in China (FMR 940)
and India (FMR 933). In rest of the world, including Sub-
Saharan Africa (1020), FMR is above 1000. This is indication
of killing of women or neglect of health of women so that
women die.
 Out of every three illiterate in the world, two are women.

113
SOME STATISTICS – CONTD.
 Women earn less than men.
a)In agriculture, women earn 3/4 that of men.
b)In Bangladesh women earn 42% that of men. In
USA 75%, in Vietnam 91.5% and in Sri Lanka 89.8%
 There is occupational segregation. Only 14% of the
total administrative and managerial jobs in the world
are held by women.
 vii) Only 5% of the multilateral banks' rural credit
reaches women allover the world. In India, only 11 %
of the borrowers of the major banks are women.

114
 Term Gender is a Social Construct. Terms
men and women indicate biological
differences between two sexes. But, the term
gender indicates social relationship between
the two.
 Gender relationship has been such that in the
social relationship between men and women,
women are systematically subordinated.
(Most people do not want to believe this).

115
Gender Relations

Politico-
economic
system

Socially
Constructed
Relationship
116
 GENDER RELATIONS
 Men and Women perform distinct roles in society with
respect to three spheres of interaction
i) Production sector
ii) Reproduction sector (Social reproduction sector)
iii) Community sector
 These distinct roles are performed because of the above
mentioned framework
 Gender inequality stems from gendered division of labour in
the above three mentioned fields.
 Mental labour is more valued than physical labour
 Most important labour is valued the least
 Productive labour is more valued than reproductive labour
(What is reproductive labour?)

117
 Why? Because development is economic growth and hence
economic activities that bring income are more valued than
activities that are of importance for ‘making of a human
being’.
 Are there economic activities that do not bring income?
Many in the developing countries. For example, subsistence
agriculture. Collection of water, fodder and fuel. And so on.
 Manv of the activities carried out by women are essentially
economic in nature but are not paid for and hence not
considered economic and by that the output of these
activities do not get into the national income statistics.
Women performing these activities are not considered
workers and hence are not paid for and hence also do not
receive that respect/status.

118
 Secondary status of women or unequal
gender relations are because of:
i) Socialisation process
ii)Religious sanction
iii) Unequal resource allocation in development
programmes
iv) Definition of what is value because of the
definition of development itself

119
 WHY WOMEN (FEMINISTS) ARE CRITICAL
OF MODERNISATION PROCESS?

 Scientific knowledge brought control of man over

nature. But, it indeed was man's control and not
control of all human beings.
 Women have not enjoyed as much loot of the nature
as men have as women's consumption of goods and
services have been much less than that of men. See
any of the indicators.
 Modernisation brought mechanisation in some areas
but in many activities that women taken up, have not
benefited out of mechanisation. Classic example is
agriculture. Also, women are engaged in labour-
intensive and low paid activities in the manufacturing
sector.

120
 Modernisation has brought in expansion of capitalism, which
has subjugated the countries of the South. This has led to
increase in inequality. Wherever overall inequalities have
increased gender inequalities have increased much more.
 Whenever there is deprivation, the burden of deprivation has
been passed on to the women. And modernisation has
increased deprivations in many parts of the world, mainly
through the transfer out of natural resources from the Third
World to the First World through various mechanisms. Capital
and natural resources are transferred out, directly during the
colonial period and indirectly in the current era through trade
rules and markets.
 Modernisation has not reduced women's double burden, of
productive sector and reproductive sector responsibility.

121
 Modernisation has segregated productive and reproductive
sectors of the economy and relegated the reproductive sector
to the secondary position as this sector does not produce
national income because of the very definition of income and
hence, women, who are predominantly found in the
reproductive sector are relegated to the secondary' position.
 It has brought bureaucratisation and women not much literate
are unable to get through the bureaucratic labyrinth for
benefiting form development programmes and policies.
 Modernisation has also pitted people against the people and in
this increased conflicts women suffer the most. Rape is used as
a powerful weapon during the ethnic conflicts to humiliate the
other.
 Modernisation has adversely affected environment and women
who are more directly connected to the environment are worse
sufferers.

122
 Gender inequality starts from the household sector or the domestic
sector and gets extended to other sectors.
 Modernisation brought separation of household reproduction sector
from economic production sector and that brought in sharp division
of labour between men's work and women's work.
 Women being made solely responsible for reproductive sector
(social reproductive sector) of the society, found it hard to perform
these dual tasks. Hence they got further and farther away from the
productive sectors, ones termed as productive sectors by the
capitalist economy.
 The gender inequality is not only confined to the household and
family, but is also reproduced across a range of institutions,
including international donor agencies. the state and the market.
Institutions ensure the production, reinforcement and reproduction
of social relations and thereby social difference and social
inequality.

123
 Institutions are framework of rules for achieving certain
social or economic-goals. Organisations refer to the specific
structural forms that the institutions take
 In the widely accepted definition of development, "a major
section of working women of the world disappear into a
'black hole' in economic theory." The planning interventions
therefore do not recognise and therefore value the non-
market activities of the women, which are otherwise of
economic and social relevance but are not important of
GDP/GNP estimates.
 In cities, there are no interventions to support these
activities of the women. On the contrary, planning tools,
such as landuse planning make clear distinction between
work place and residence place, emphasis on pricing of
basic services, and so on.

124
 There is hierarchy of production and which influences and
then legitimizes resource allocation in a hierarchy.
 Women are underrepresented in activities at the 'tip of the
iceberg', where development efforts and resources are
concentrated; they appear in large numbers in informal
sector and subsistence activities. They are pre-dominant ...
in the reproduction and activities (labour) nurturing of
human life, the neglected sectors in policy domain.
 This skewed representation demonstrates graphically the
convergence of power and ideas in the field of development.
 It ensures that women are positioned within the policy
debate as unproductive 'welfare' clients, and that their
claims on the national development budget. based as they
are on activities and resources which are excluded from
calculations of the GNP, are rarely heard in debates over
budgetary allocations.

125
 Development theories and practice should
start from the vantage point of the poor
women in the Third World, taking their
viewpoint as that from the below.
 Thus, gender planning comes in as a new
concept.

126
 WHAT IS GENDER PLANNING?
Planning is three things:
i) Policy making -which is a process of political decision
making about allocation of resources among various
activities.
ii) Programme interventions - that is, the resource allocations
are converted into programmes through which the resources
are distributed. Government has a role in the process as the
resources come from the government.
iii) Implementation - the organisation of the process of
implementation, the administration of the programme, who
participates in it and so on.

A Gender Perspective is required in each of these

three activities.

127
i) Resource allocations do not consider women's needs. For
example, resources are not easily allocated for services that
benefit women, child care services, battered women's homes,
etc. Why, because welfare is not economically productive,
neo-classical economist's perspective.
ii) Programmes do not consider women's needs. For example,
transportation policy. Transport routes and schedules might
totally overlook women’s needs with respect to timing,
security, location of bus-stands, street furniture, etc. Other
examples of missing women are in the housing programmes,
agricultural programmes, and so on.
iii) Process of implementation exclude women. Most
programmes are designed by planners and where people do
not participate and hence the processes, like we discussed
about the World Bank projects, are not transparent. If there is
some local participation than women do not participate and
hence their needs get overlooked.

128
FIVE TYPES OF POLICIES
As far as policies are concerned, there can be
five types of policies:
i) gender-blind policies
ii) gender-neutral policies
iii) gender-aware policies
iv) gender specific policies
v) gender redistributive policies

129
 FIVE APPROACHES TO GENDER PLANNING

Within gender planning also, there are five

approaches based on what one looks at role of
women. These five approaches are:
i) Welfare approach – Where women are looked at
as mothers and their welfare is considered as
society’s welfare.
ii) Anti-poverty approach – It argues for
increasing the productivity of poor as high poverty
leads to women engaging themselves in highly
low productive activities. High poverty among
women is a problem of under-development

130
iii) Efficiency approach - Argues that women's
participation brings efficiency. For example, at household
level, women's income benefit the household as they spend
the same for household welfare, for example on children's
education and not on alcoholism as men tend to spend.
iv) Equity approach - Women should be equal recipients
of benefits in a development process. In other words,
women should equally benefit from a development process
in a suitable manner.
v)Empowerment approach - Argues for empowering women
for greater self-reliance and self-esteem.

131
 EXAMPLE OF DIFFERENT
APPROACHES
Example of how different approaches lead to different
arguments, in say an environmental programme.
i) Welfare approach - Women are altruistic (charitable) and
work without material gains for the welfare of the family.
Natural resource management, which has been traditionally
been women's responsibility, in whose honour women have
rose from time to time (Chipko movement, Greenbelt
movement Kenya). Hence, women should be given this
responsibility.
ii) Anti-poverty approach - Removing poverty of the women
would remove poverty of the household and hence make
free access to natural resources such as the CPRs possible.
This will bring income to women.

132
iii) Efficiency approach - Women are honest and hence
will give 'Best for the Buck'. Women are the efficient
managers of the natural resources and hence give them this
responsibility for increasing efficiency of natural resource
management programmes. Land management in
subsistence fanning is women's responsibility and hence
enhance these capabilities for efficient land management.
iv) Equity approach - Women's equal participation
should be there in all programmes, such as energy
programmes (including nuclear energy programme).
v)Empowerment approach - Women's participation brings
them out of the households into the public sphere that
empowers them and they start demanding their well being
and respect. Women can then put their needs as priorities in
public policy. Women can get access to and control over
assets and resources.

133
 Patriarchy is a system that systematically denies women
access to assets and resources through religious and social
practices. Notion of economic growth enhance & this
process of denial.
 Women can be empowered only through changing the
gender relations. That their development in true sense
would take place when this rigid gender division of labour
and all inequalities emanating from that disappears.
 Gender planning is a new tradition, a new goal, that is to
ensure that women, through empowering themselves,
achieve equity and equality with men.

134
 GENDER SENSITIVE PLANNING IS THAT WHICH ENSURES:

i) adequate availability and accessibility of all basic services,

that would include housing, water supply and sanitation,
transport
ii) right to employment at adequate wages, including vending
and living in the informal sector without being displaced,
iii) clean environment,
iv) safety and security and availability of feminist services to
address the problem of violence against women,
v)availability of child care and other care facilities so that
women are empowered to participate equally in all the urban
activities,
vi) democratic polity in true sense and not just token
electoral democracy, and
vii) creation of institutions of women's empowerment at all
levels, from private to public spheres.

135
 It is now mandatory that all development
programmes and projects are analysed with
a bifocal lense and that what would be the
impact of any of these programmes and
projects on women is observed.

136
 GANDHIAN PHILOSOPHY

 Gandhi was already practising alternative development

model in South Africa, through his 'Tolstoy farm in South
Africa. Here, he has also participated in anti-apartheid
movement, issues of equal rights.
 He was called a 'practical dreamer’ by his first biographer,
Rev. Joseph Doke
 Gandhi saw that the general people were not participating in
the Freedom movement. Only the Congress party and its
workers were active in a noticeable way. He had also noticed
that even the bearings of the Congress Party workers were
not in the masses.

137
 He gave a call to his followers in Congress Party, the Congress
Party workers, to go to the rural areas and mobilise the people for
participating in the Freedom Movement. Being a practical man, he
suggested that the best entry point to mobilise people for freedom
struggle was to take up constructive activities in the villages.
 The youth inspired by the call of Gandhi indeed went to the rural
areas and begun constructive development activities. (This
practice is there even today. Many NGOs undertake income-
generation programmes or education programmes to begin
organising a community for political action.)
 Gandhi had realised at that ‘independence’ did not mean political
independence alone but also economic independence from the
imperial global economic system. For India, it meant reconstruction
of the entire society that was poverty-stricken. Independence for
India meant, independence from poverty. Thus, for India, both,
political and economic independence had to go together, argued
Gandhi.
 Population was concentrated in rural areas in India and so was the
poverty. He therefore asked his followers to go to the rural areas,
where people and poverty were concentrated and work for
development activities.

138
 GANDHIAN PHILOSOPHY
 Gandhi condemned the western civilization. He believed that it
dehumanised. He believed that the machines, which were for the
purpose of easing human burden and to increase production for
satisfying numerous human wants of the modem human beings
"mutilated the working man, cancelled out his body, conscripted
only his hands". Gandhi saw that the modem civilization would
mean multiplication of wants and moral impoverishment of man.
He laid out his vision of Indian society in his work Hind Swaraj,
written in 1908.
 He expressed the opinion that the western civilization was
irreligious and it had taken hold on people in Europe. For him
civilization pointed human beings to the path of duty and
observance of morality and not to the path of increased
consumption and lack of morality. Gandhi's condemnation of
western civilization and with that of the industrialisation promoted
by western countries was a reaction to imperialism of the west. For
him industrialisation and colonialism went hand in hand.

139
 He expressed the opinion that the western
civilization was irreligious and it had taken
hold on Europe. For him civilization pointed
human beings to the path of duty and
observance of morality and not to the path of
increased consumption and lack of morality.
Gandhi’s condemnation of western
civilization and with that of the
industrialization promoted by western
countries was a reaction to imperialism of the
west. For him, industrialization and
colonialism went hand in hand.

140
 ECONOMIC VISION – VILLAGE
MOVEMENT

 Gandhi did not believe that economics was a natural

science. He considered it as moral science, which had to do
with spiritual and moral being and not just the rational,
utilitarian human being.
 Gandhi’s economic programme for India was revival of the
village economy. He stated that the economic vision for a
thickly populated country such as India had to be different
than that for thinly populated countries such as the United
States. He saw that the only way to bring good living to the
people in rural India was to make rural areas central piece in
economic programme.
 Gandhi saw urbanization as a process that sponged on the
rural areas.

141
 He promoted the idea of 'Bread Labour', idea that he had borrowed
from Tolstoy. It means living by one's own hands. He believed that:
(i) the life of labour, that is that of the tiller and handicraftsman
was only life worth living; (ii) there has to be equal value for all
types of labour (lawyer, barber, etc.) and (iii) good of individual is
contained in the good of all.
 By this, he strongly disagreed and discouraged the idea of
hierarchy in the division of labour. His emphasis was to create
employment for all in the rural areas through home/hand
production, which is also decentralized production that would
employ unemployed rural labour. Small products would get
absorbed in the rural economy itself and thereby increase
employment as well as demand at the village level.
 Gandhi was in search of practical means of alleviating India's
wretchedness and misery. Charkha and Khadi programme became
the symbols of this practical programme. He introduced spinning
as a basic programme. He believed that every one had to spin, that
is every one had to be engaged in the activities of production of
basic necessities. Only then there would be real home rule or
independence, he said.

142
 He said that the problem for India was how to
employ the hands that remained idle for about six
months in a year and part of the working day.
Charkha became a symbol of subsidiary economic
activity at the village level.
 After independence, Gandhians influenced the
Government of India (GOI) to set up Khadi and
Village Industries Commission (KVIC), an
organisation for promoting employment among
rural weavers and artisans. The KVIC provided
grants for setting up mainly units/infrastructure
for home-based (also called cottage industry)
production.

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 PEACE AND NON-VIOLENCE

 Gandhi believed that any good end could not have a wrong
means; cruelty and blood bath involved in the violent means
cannot achieve fair social order and means are as important
as goals. Any struggle to be fought therefore had to be
through peaceful means in which persistence of truth
(Satyagraha) was seen as a main weapon.
 He viewed the caste-ridden Indian society as one
perpetrating violence on the lower social strata. A non-
violent social order was such that would be non-violent on
the lower social strata. He asked for a total social
transformation to achieve peaceful and non-violent society
and means for such a struggle were also promoted to be
peaceful.

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TRUTH
 Gandhi considered truth as the most
powerful but also a most difficult weapon in
the fight for justice. He believed that only the
fearless could use this weapon.

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 SARVODAYA
 Sarvodaya is Gandhian way to welfare economics. It means
welfare of all, which does not happen if the welfare of the
last strata does not take place. Sarvodaya is a
comprehensive vision of Indian society, a village level
movement and building of society from below. It is not a
utilitarian approach but a moral approach. It includes
individual as well as collective and encompasses all
dimensions of social existence and not only economic.
 He argued that it is more important to have allegiance to
the duties than the rights if Sarvodaya had to be achieved.
This means that sacrifice is important dimension of human
practice. Fearlessness, sacrifice and truth are the three
ways to achieve Sarvodaya.
 Lastly, such a world order was non-competitive and
humane, which was based on absolute acceptance of purity
of means of achieving noble ends and not on conflicts and
exploitation.
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ANTYODAYA
 Antyoday means the development of the
person who is last in the social and economic
hierarchy. Any development that did not
reach this last stratum of society was not
development according to Gandhi.

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 SELF-GOVERNANCE (SWARAJ)

 Gandhi's concept of democracy was self-governance. This was

democracy of the masses and not electoral democracy as we
visualise now.
 Ideally, self-government would mean no State in which every one's
opinion and interests mattered and not only of the majority and
that could be installed only through consensus and negotiations.
He said that the democracy practiced in the world was electoral
democracy, which is the rule of the majority that coerced minority
to accept the decisions of the majority. However, till such a
democracy was installed, in the interim period, one could do with a
democracy in which the government was elected by the majority.
 He gave Swaraj (self-rule) as his political programme and
Panchayati Raj as programme for governance. In place of the State
and its institutions he canvassed that the village level institutions,
such as the Panchayats would address the issues of governance.

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VOLUNTEERISM
 He believed that the true democracy could
only be built from the grassroots, through
voluntary efforts and moral authority.
Community development activities therefore
have been always visualised as voluntary
activities in India, especially for those who
come from Gandhian ideology. This practice
gave currency to the term 'voluntary
organisations' whose mandate was
development activities with community
support.

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 NEW EDUCATION (NAI TALIM)

 Gandhi believed that education is the basic tool for the

development of consciousness and reconstitution of society and
therefore an important tool of social change. Also, education
was for livelihood and for becoming a good person. He argued
that Education was not for bringing in a new Brahminical order.
He believed that the education in India had alienated the
educated people from their society and these people did not
give back to the society what society had given them.
 His New Education (Nai Talim) was woven around the work so
that the cost of education can be taken care by remunerative
work. Education consisted of imparting skills, along with
promoting capability to read, write and count. This he called
basic education. He said that basic education and bread labour
would bring equality between rural and urban areas and
between different classes of society.

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 TRUSTEESHIP
 Gandhi himself denied property for himself, but did not come out
fully against private property and capitalist accumulation. Nor did
it consider it wrong to increase wealth through productive
activities. But, instead of holding that wealth privately, he
suggested that it should be managed by the capitalists who should
consider themselves as the trustees of the property created by
labour. Increase in wealth by the capitalists was to be not for their
own sake but for the sake of the nation.
 Similarly, he believed that the landlords were the trustees of a the
land for the tilling peasants and therefore he did not emphasise
much on land reforms. This concept of trusteeship evolved from his
deep religious conviction that everything belonged to God and
human beings could hold property or talent only as the trustee of
God.
 This principle of trusteeship was imbibed in the Trade Union
movement. First such trade union was started by Gandhi in
Ahmedabad in 1918 and this was called Textile Labour Association
(TLA). This was in a way a non-violent method of conflict
resolution.
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 New blood joins this earth
And quickly he's subdued
Forgive me Through constant pained disgrace
Forgive me not The young boy learns their rules
Forgive me
Forgive me not With time the child draws in
Forgive me This whipping boy done wrong
Forgive me not Deprived of all his thoughts
Forgive me The young man strugggles on and on he's known
Forgive me A vow unto his own
Why can't I forgive me? That never from this day
His will they'll take away-eay

Set sail to sea

But pulled off course
Lay beside me, tell me what they've done
By the light of golden treasure
Speak the words I want to hear, to make my demons run
The door is locked now, but it's open if you're true
How could he know
If you can understand the me, than I can understand the you.
This new dawn's light
Would change his life forever?

How can I be lost,

If I've got nowhere to go?
Search for seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?

How can I be lost?

In remembrance I relive
So how can I blame you
When it's me I can't forgive?

152