Theory of Development

1
Theory of Development

• Garry Jacobs Robert Macfarlane
• Seminar on Development Theory
• Chennai 1997

2
Intellectual Challenge

• Thinking on development is the greatest
  intellectual challenge of the coming years.
• Boutros Boutros-Ghali

3
Observations

• Pace of development is accelerating
• Malthusian projections have not materialized

4
Development Explosion

• 12 fold population growth in 200 years
• Urban pop. grew from 3 to 40

5
500 yrs Progress in 50 yrs UNDP

• Poverty eradication -- famine, life expectancy,
  infant mortality, literacy, disease
• Since 1950, average global pci has tripled
• From 1965-85, real per capita consumption rose
  70 in developing countries

6
National Per Capita Output is Doubling Faster
than Ever

• UK 58 yrs from 1780
• US 47 yrs from 1839
• Japan 24 yrs from 1880s
• After WWII
• Indonesia -- 17 yrs
• S. Korea -- 11 years
• China -- 10 years

7
Real PCI (ppp) Growth 1960-90

• 12 times in Korea
• 7 times in Japan
• 6 in Egypt Portugal
• 5 in Indonesia and Thailand.

8
Regional Differences in PCI Growth (1965-90)

• East Asia 5.5
• South Asia lt2
• Subsahara lt.25

9
Transition Economics Disastrous Results (1990-93)

• GDP declined 10 in Poland
• GDP declined 45 in Russia
• GDP declined 75 in Armenia

10
Capital alone does not generate development

• Since 1990, Germany invested 1.1 trillion in
  East,
• Unemployment in East Germany has risen above 25

11
Uneven Employment Growth

• US employment rate at historic peak
• European unemployment still rising

12
New Economics

• Best gets cheaper and cheaper
• Function per continuously increasing
• New goods services being created more rapidly
  than ever
• Value related to plentitude, not scarcity
• Law of increasing returns
• Networks grow in value exponentially
• Getting more out of less material

13
Status of Development Theory

• Variety of factors identified
• Primary focus is economics
• Specific events periods explained
• No theory universally applicable

14
Some Conclusions

• Past achievements have been unconscious
• We have experience of development, not knowledge
  effective everywhere.
• The greatest achievements have not produced a
  generally applicable formula.
• Conscious knowledge is a great power for
  accomplishment
• Need for comprehensive theory

15
Theory Reveals Potentials

• Social theory can accelerate growth as medicinal
  theory improves health.
• Fundamental laws are known
• Role of organs understood
• Interaction integration of systems
• Stages of development
• Preventative and curative treatments
• Precise statistical measures for diagnosis

16
Purpose

• To develop a comprehensive theory of social
  development that can be applied to increase the
  speed and efficacy of development efforts.

17
Scope of Project

• Phase 1 Theoretical foundations principles
• Phase 2 Historical applications
• Phase 3 Current future applications

18
Purpose of this meeting

• Phase 1 -- BIG PICTURE
• Test rationality and consistency
• Clarify our thinking
• Challenge the ideas
• Direct us to relevant ideas resources

19
Agenda

• Introduction
• Opportunities Barriers
• Central Thesis
• Emergence of New Activities
• Powers of Organization
• Infrastructure Resources
• Three Stages of Development
• Internet
• Conclusions Next Steps

20
Issues

• What questions should the theory answer?

21
Theory Must Help Us Understand

• What powers have made the already great advances
  possible?
• What more can be accomplished through the use of
  these powers?

22
Current Situation

• There is potential to increase the speed of the
  social process.
• Theory must be able to confirm or deny
  possibility of acceleration.
• Theory should reveal the precise relationship
  between the factors required to achieve greater
  results.

23
Peace

• Theory must evaluate impact of internal and
  external social stability on progress.
• War is a destroyer of development.
• Drains talents and resources.
• End of Cold War.
• Greater International Stability
• Great reduction in expenses-400 billion
• Increase of pace of world development
• Rapid re-allocation of resources
• Rapid re-alignment of economies

24
Democracy

• Provides stable conducive basis for more rapid
  social progress.
• Raises human aspiration
• Encourages individual initiative for advancement
• Release greater energy
• Theory must explain the dynamics of the process
  by which the political and social factors impact
  on economic performance.

25
Social Velocity

• Development is a function of the velocity of
  social transaction.
• Theory must account for speed in the past and how
  it has shaped history and how the increasing
  speed will shape the future.

26
Technological Applications

• Gap between innovation, diffusion and
  application.
• Wide variation within and between countries.
• Significant determinant of social policy.
• Theory needs to explain variations and shows how
  they act as determinants of developments.

27
Global Growth Engines

• Shift from single or a few local centers to
  multiple centers.
• Increase overall momentum of world energy.
• Theory can not be limited to national policies.
• Must look at development of global society.

28
Essential factors are available for faster
growth

• Education
• Technology
• Information
• Investment
• Management know-how

29
Theory must explain

• The process by which new potentials are created
  their role in development.
• How potentials combine and intersect to determine
  its speed and direction?
• Why achievements fall significantly below the
  maximum potential?
• What are the unseen barriers to the process?

30
Barriers to Development

• Limited Perception
• Outdated Attitudes
• Anachronistic Behaviors

31
Perceptual Walls Limit Further Development

• Most common problem is that society is unable to
  envision its own future.
• Tendency to see potentials as unattainable
  obstacles.
• We still have a significant number of perceptual
  barriers today.

32
Outdated attitudes not physical barriers are the
most persistent obstacles to human development.

• Distrust of new inventions
• Distrust of new ideas
• Today we insist on our privilege to maintain
  outdated attitudes

33
Anachronistic behaviors also retard development

• High birth rates
• Indian Gold
• UNDP 40 Billion

34
The theory must reflect the role of man in both
determining and overcoming self-imposed limits on
social progress.
35
Development is

• a process, not a program or result
• the upward directional movement of society from
  lesser to greater levels of energy, efficiency,
  quality, productivity, complexity, comprehension,
  enjoyment and accomplishment.

36
Central Thesis

• Development occurs by the creation of higher
  levels of organization in the society capable of
  accomplishing greater acts with more efficient
  use of social energies.
• Peoples energy, knowledge, aspiration, skill
  attitudes drive development.
• Society develops by organizing knowledge, human
  energies material resources.

37
Universal Principles

• Principles of development are applicable to all
  fields of social life.
• Principles of development are the same for
  individuals, organizations, nations and global
  community.

38
Three Social Processes

• Survival
• Growth
• Development

39
Types of Development

• Subconscious learning through trial and error
  experience.
• Conscious initiative from knowledge to action.
• Natural vs. Planned development

40
Green Revolution -- Context

• Subsistence agriculture
• Dependence on imports
• Threat of severe famine
• Commitment to self-sufficiency

41
Green Revolution -- Strategy 1

• Induction of advanced production technology
• Seed import and replication
• National demonstration plots
• Attractive price assured market for farmers
• FCI to distribute surplus production to food
  deficit areas

42
Green Revolution -- Strategy 2

• Increased import and domestic production of
  fertilizers
• Expanded warehousing facilities
• Reorganization of agricultural research
  education under ICAR
• Higher pay and status for scientists

43
Green Revolution -- Results

• FAO projection foodgrain 10 growth by 1970
• Actual growth 50 by 1970
• Self-sufficiency in five years
• 100 in 10 years

44
Green Revolution Conclusions

• Rare instance of conscious development.
• Peoples accomplishment, not just govt
• Technology--valuable input, but not the key
• Tapped farmers preparedness aspiration
• Created new organizations to supply missing links
  in society
• Elevated entire social organization of
  agriculture in the country

45
Some Questions

• Why have so many other planned development
  initiatives failed?
• Under what circumstances can the role of
  government be taken over by society?

46
Emergence of New Activitiesin Society

• What is the process that stimulates the emergence
  of new organizations?
• What are the stages through which its proceeds?
• What are the agents that determine its direction?

47
Steps in the Process

• Social Preparedness
• Initiative of the Pioneers
• Social Imitation
• Multiplier Effect
• Social Organization
• Institutionalization
• Cultural assimilation through family

48
Three Conditions Determine Level of Social
Preparedness

• Energy
• Awareness
• Aspiration

49
Energy

• Existence of surplus energy to support movement
  from one level to another.
• Available when society not fully absorbed in
  meeting the challenges at current level.
• Surplus is a measure of mastery and
  accomplishment at the previous level.
• The generation of new ideas, scientific
  experimentation and technical innovation are
  signs of surplus energy.
• Energy is the fuel for growth of individual,
  organization and societies.

50
Awareness

• Energy creates the circumstance but requires
  awareness of potentials to produce results.
• Awareness can grow naturally or be thrust on a
  community.
• Speed of development increases as awareness
  spreads.

51
Aspiration

• Society must have felt need to achieve at a
  higher level.
• Aspiration grows as awareness of external
  opportunities internal capabilities increases.
• Common problem is lack of aspiration.

52
Theory must explain

• When motivation for development is released or
  curtailed?
• How different classes and communities respond
  differently?
• How perception about the type and character of
  goal affects motivation?
• Rapid spread of aspiration for development.
• Alternations between rising urge and rising
  satisfaction.

53
Initiative of the Pioneers

• Individual pioneer is the instrument of
  accumulated social energy.
• Pioneer sees acts on opportunities that others
  do not see.
• Pioneer exhibits new understanding, attitudes,
  skills behavior.
• Pioneer initiates the collective process.
• Society expresses its intention and aspiration
  through the pioneer.

54
Initiatives of the Pioneer - 2

• Without the pioneer, society lacks the vision to
  see the next stage of social progress.
• The pioneer is not a rare exception.
• Pioneer shares aspiration, knowledge and values
  of society with one new attribute.
• Pioneer reveals a new opportunity based on
  societys previous accomplishments.

55
Social Imitation

• Responses to the pioneer.
• Premature development of the pioneer often leads
  to revolution.
• Timely development built on social preparedness
  leads to smooth evolution.
• Successful action of pioneer in tune with social
  aspiration encourages other dynamic individuals
  to imitate.

56
Multiplier Effect

• Widespread adoption of the idea unleashes a
  development movement.

57
Social Organization

• Each significant developmental advance leads to
  the emergence of a host of new organizations
  designed to support it
• Puts pressure on existing organizations to
  elevate their functioning to meet higher demands
  of the new phase.
• Each new organization increases range, scope,
  quality, convenience, productivity and efficiency
  of the social energies.

58
Institutionalization

• An organization matures into an institution when
  the social acceptance becomes total.
• Institutions are supported by customs, beliefs
  and social tradition.

59
Cultural Assimilation Through the Family

• When an activity has matured to the point that
  the family plays a very active role in its
  transmission, the activity becomes a part of the
  culture of the society.

60
Types of Organization

• Physical
• Social
• Mental

61
Physical Organizations

• Roads
• Railways
• Town
• Telecom links

62
Social Organizations

• Family
• Military
• Agrarian community
• Market
• Money
• Industy

63
Mental Organizations

• Newspapers books
• Technology
• Education
• Science
• Encyclopaedia

64
Power of Organization

• Roman army
• East India Company
• Henrys Crystal Palace

65
Characteristics of Organization

• Utilizes human energy capacities more
  efficiently.
• Make every resource more productive.
• Abridges space.
• Abridges time.
• Make possible what is otherwise impossible.
• Admit infinite development.

66
Organizations are skills of society

• Skills of pioneer are institutionalized as
  organization.

67
What gives organizations power?

• Authority
• Complexity
• Systems
• Integration with the society
• Values

68
Power of Authority

• Personal and impersonal
• Leadership
• Laws
• Policies and rules
• Systems
• Standards
• Centralized and decentralized

69
Complexity

• Division of labor
• Specialization of function
• Coordination of multiple fields of activities
• Integration of multiple levels of activity

70
Systems

• Create predictable responses
• Increase efficiency
• Increase speed
• Improve quality
• Limit the need for expertise

71
Integration with society

• Organizations acquire life from social
  integration.
• Natural outgrowth of societys energy, awareness,
  aspiration, skills values.
• External models often fail.
• Can be adapted to cultural variations.

72
Values

• Internalized social aspirations
• Focused authority
• Powerful organizing principle
• Psychological skills of society
• Ultimate determinants of development
• Evolve with society

73
Infrastructures are the foundations of the
societys previous achievements on which new
organizations are built.
74
Types of Infrastructure

• Physical--roads, ports, rivers,railways, electric
  power.
• Social-- laws, systems, administrative,
  commercial, productive and financial
  organizations.
• Mental--level of education, awareness in society,
  availability of information.
• Psychological--collective social energy,
  aspirations, attitudes and values.

75
Nature of Infrastructure

• Each successive level of development requires the
  establishment of an essential infrastructure to
  support it.
• Each activity requires multiple types of
  infrastructure to be successful.
• The result of a new activity depends on the
  strength and quality of the underlying
  infrastructures.

76
Implications

• Before undertaking any development initiative,
  essential infrastructures need to be identified
  and put in place.
• Supplying missing links can energize development.

77
Resources are

• Inputs for carrying out any activity.

78
What makes a resource?

• Mind discovering a use for anything.

79
Characteristics of Resources

• Actual vs. potential
• Essential and non-essential
• Four types

80
Physical Resources

• Land
• Water
• Fuels

81
Social Resources

• Organizations
• Systems
• Money

82
Mental Resources

• Information
• Technology
• Knowledge
• Creativity

83
Psychological Resources

• Energy
• Skills capacities
• Attitudes

84
Nature of Resources

• There is no such thing as a natural resource.
• The mind is the creator of all resources.
• As society develops, the application of mind
  increases the productivity of materials and
  processes.
• The more open and flexible mind is in its
  outlook, the greater its power.

85
Limitless Potential of Resources

• Vast potential to increase the productivity of
  physical resources.
• Vast potential to decrease consumption by
  improved efficiency.
• Application of non-physical resources enhances
  value of physical ones.
• Higher resources are not limited.
• As society develops non material resources play
  increasingly important role.

86
The Human Resource

• All development reduces itself to the development
  of human beings.

87
Restatement of Theory

• Development is the process of increasing the
  scope and complexity of the fabric of social
  organization and its intricate interrelationships
  by
• quantitative expansion
• qualitative enhancement
• spatial extension of organized fabric
• integration of existing and new elements

88
Stages of Development

• Three overlapping stages on a continuum
• Progress is non-linear.
• Progression from each stage to the next
  stimulates exponential increase in productivity.

89
Three Stages of Development

• Physical
• Vital
• Mental

90
Characteristics of Physical Stage

• Focus on survival, protection preservation
• Feudal agrarian society
• Land is wealth
• Physical strength is power
• Ideas based on tradition superstition
• Rights and power physically inherited
• Human resource is physical labor

91
Characteristics of Vital Stage

• Focus on expansion, enterprise and conquest
• Religious reformation
• Mercantilism replaces feudalism
• Money is wealth
• Economic strength is power
• Merchant class supplants aristocracy
• Ideas based on practical utility
• Human resource is social energy

92
Characteristics of Mental Stage

• Focus on power of knowledge
• Enlightenment birth of science
• Political idealism -- human rights
• Technology applied in industry
• Information knowledge is source of wealth
  influence
• Universal education
• Information Age
• Human resource is mental capacity

93
Three Overlapping Stages
94
Organization in the 3 Stages

• Language, agriculture urbanization
• Money commercial institutions
• Industry, technology, education

95
Power of Money -- 1

• Exponential impact on development
• A convention or symbol for value
• Increases speed, size, efficiency of transactions
  like language
• Convertible into any other resource
• Store results over time
• Transport results over distance

96
Power of Money -- 2

• Its power multiplies with wider usage
• Increasing velocity increases its productivity
• Creates standard for measurement
• Capacity to evolve new forms
• Increases freedom of choice
• Impersonalizes democratizes transactions

97
Money as an Organization

• Created by surpluses
• Depends on authority of political and economic
  institutions
• Based on social complex infrastructure
• Promotes complex transactions
• Relates integrates all social activities
• Based on values of trust confidence

98
Organizations in Each Phase

• Physical- Language
• Social- Money
• Mental
• Schools
• Universities
• Libraries
• Internet

99
Conditions for Emergence

• Political freedom
• Global affirmation of human rights
• Abundant social energy
• Irrepressible mental inquisitiveness
• Accumulation codification of knowledge
• Universal education
• Global revolution of rising expectations
• Explosion of inventiveness
• Increasing organizational creativity

100
The Emerging Social Will

• High levels of political freedom
• High levels of social expression
• High levels of individual empowerment
• Wide spread prosperity
• Extensive higher education
• Anticipation and excitement over scientific
  discoveries
• Insatiable thirst for information
• Rapid assimilation of new technologies

101
Infrastructures Supporting the Creation of the
Internet

• Physical infrastructure - Convergence of two
  technologies
• Computer
• Telecommunication
• Incremental improvements in many technologies
• Standard languages interface

102
Internet Infrastructures - 2

• Social infrastructure-
• Change from isolated specialized use of computer
  to creation of vast networks.
• Creation of a new model of social organization
  without centralized authority or hierarchy.

103
Internet Infrastructures - 3

• Mental infrastructure-
• Scientific knowledge and technical capacities.
• Spread of general education.
• Computer literacy and skills.
• New mental energy and capacity to accept and
  adapt a new medium.

104
Internet Infrastructures - 4

• Psychological infrastructure
• Social leveling
• Thirst for information
• Lack of fear of technology.
• Public enthusiasm and readiness to adopt

105
Preconditions

• Huge accumulation of surplus capital
• Mental energy
• Leisure time

106
Powers of the Internet

• Universal access to information
• New medium for commercial transactions
• Levels playing field between companies
• Medium for financial transactions
• Medium for distance education
• Low cost communications
• Creation of special interest groups
• Low cost way to publish views and ideas
• Access to knowledge and expertise
• Direct access to the democratic process

107
Value for Developing Countries

• Commercial technical information.
• Access to markets and customers.
• Access to new products and processes.
• Access to outside expertise.
• Access to scientific knowledge.
• Alternative delivery system for broadcasting,
  telephone etc.
• Support global citizenship community.

108
Impact of Internet

• Increases speed of information exchange.
• Makes many transactions instantaneous.
• Increases speed quality of decisions.
• Increases access to goods and services.
• Makes customized and personalized services
  affordable and accessible.

109
Potentials as Internet Develops

• Releases greater mental energy.
• Encourages mental creativity.
• Make results available to wider community.
• Drives the growth of a new self directed society
  without external compulsion.
• Creates new skills to increase productivity of
  society.

110
Potentials - 2

• Creates maximum of connections between
  different fields of activity.
• Drives the spread of strong values.
• Empowers the individual with unlimited access to
  knowledge.
• Reduces the limitations placed on humanity by
  space and time.
• Elevates people from physical to mental.
• Symbolizes collective accomplishment, shared
  inheritance and human unity.

111
Applications

• Not a substitute for economic theories
• Creates perspective for specific theories
• Identifies need for other specific theories
• Starts with perception of social aspirations
  preparedness

112
Summary of Principles -- 1

• Development is a process, not a program.
• Natural process of development is unconscious
• Conscious development can be ten-fold faster than
  unconscious.
• Principles are same for individuals,
  organizations and societies.

113
Summary of Principles -- 2

• Development is the creation of higher levels of
  organization.
• The motive force is human need and aspiration.
• Driving force for development is the collective
  will for higher accomplishment.
• Development occurs on basis of surplus energy,
  awareness of opportunity and aspiration.

114
Summary of Principles -- 3

• Development takes place when society imitates the
  activities of pioneers and organizes to support
  those activities.
• Organization matures as institutions culture
  (values).
• Organization admits of infinite development.

115
Summary of Principles -- 4

• Development is founded on four levels of
  infrastructure.
• Four types of resources support development.
• Social organization is a single, interconnected
  fabric of organized activities and relationships.

116
Summary of Principles -- 5

• Society develops through three overlapping stages
  -- physical, vital and mental.
• Progress from each stage to the next stimulates
  exponential increase in productivity.

117
Overview of Human Progress

• Global population has multiplied 60,000 times
  since invention of cultivation.
• Qualitative development has been proportionate.
• Rate of advancement is accelerating.
• Each advance brings a new set of limits to
  overcome.

118
What are the limits?

• The ultimate resource is Mind, the creator of all
  resources.
• No limit to minds capacity to create, so
  resources are endless.
• All development is development of human beings.