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The need to break the development mould and de-colonize people's minds

Confronted as we are with globalization, which is but the planetary triumph of the all-market, we must conceive and strive for a society in which economic values have ceased being central (or unique). The economy must be put back in its place as a simple instrument of human life and not a final objective. We must renounce this mad race towards continually increasing consumption. This is necessary, not only to avoid the definitive destruction of living conditions on earth but also, and especially, to wrest humanity from its psychic and moral misery. What is needed to change the world is a genuine de-colonization of our imagination and a de-economization of minds - before world change wreaks increasing woes on us all. We must start looking at things in a way so that they actually become different, if we are going to be able to conceive really original and innovatory solutions. It is a question of putting other meanings and reasons at the centre of human life, rather than expanding production and consumption.

The password of the network is thus "and dissidence". Resistance and dissidence with the head, but also with the feet. Resistance and dissidence as an attitude of rejection and mental hygiene. Resistance and dissidence as an attitude open to all forms of alternative self-organization. That means refusing complicity and collaboration with that venture into brainwashing and planetary destruction: the development ideology.

Mirages and ruins of development

Current globalization shows us what development has been and what we have never wanted to recognize. It is the supreme stage of actually existing development and at the same time the negation of its mythical meaning. While development has been only the pursuit of colonization by other means, the new globalization, in its turn, is only the pursuit of development by other means. Thus it is important to distinguish development as a myth from development as a historical reality.

Actually existing development can be defined as an enterprise aiming at transforming into commercial products the relationships of people with each other and relationships with nature. It is a question of exploiting and making profits from natural and human resources. It is an aggressive act towards nature as well as towards people and it is like the colonization that preceded it, as well as the globalization that is following it. It is an enterprise that seeks domination and conquest, both economic and military. It is "existing development", which has prevailed for three centuries, that has engendered the present social and environmental problems: exclusion, overpopulation, poverty, pollution of all kinds, etc.

As for the mythic concept of development, it is caught in a dilemma. It can signify everything and nothing, for example cultural experiences in the history of humanity, from the China of the Han Dynasty to the Inca Empire. In this case it does not mean anything in particular, it is not useful for promoting any particular policy and it would be better to get rid of it. Or else has its own content. This necessarily consists of what it has in common with the Western adventure of the take-off of the economy, as it got under way since the industrial revolution in England in the years 1750-1800. If this is the case, whatever adjective one cares to tag on, the implicit or explicit content of development is economic growth and capital accumulation, with all the positive and negative effects that we know. Now the very core that all development shares in common with that experience is linked to very specific social relationships, which are those of capitalist production. The "class" antagonisms are largely hidden by the existence of "values" that are largely shared: progress, universalism, domination of nature, quantifying rationality. However, these values that underpin development and particularly progress, in no way correspond to profound universal aspirations. They are part of Western history, they do not have much echo in other societies. Outside the myths that create it, the idea of development is completely devoid of sense and the practices associated with it are quite impossible because unthinkable and forbidden. It is these Western values that must be challenged today if a solution is to be found to the problems of the contemporary world and if we are to avoid the catastrophes to which the world economy is leading us. Post-development is both post-capitalist and post-modern.

The new clothes of development

To conjure away the negative effects of development, we have been treated to "era of particle development". A whole host of developments have emerged: self-reliant, endogenous, participatory, community, integrated, authentic, autonomous and popular, equitable, sustainable - not to mention local development, micro-development, endo-development and even ethno-development! Tacking on an adjective to the development concept does not really challenge capitalist accumulation: at most, it can dream of adding a social aspect, or an ecological component, to economic growth, as was done recently with the cultural dimension. This task of redefining development almost always involves culture, nature and social justice. But it is a question of healing something bad that affects development accidentally, and not congenitally. A monster has even been created for the occasion: mal-development. This can in fact only be a chimera because evil cannot affect development for the excellent reason that imaginary development is by definition the very incarnation of the Good. Good development is a pleonasm because development means good growth, because growth, too, is good and no forces of evil can prevail against it.

It is the very excess of proofs of its beneficial nature that show up the fraud of development.

Social development, human development, local development and sustainable development are thus but the latest to join the long procession of conceptual innovations that aim at introducing part of the dream into the hard realities of economic growth. If development still survives, it is above all due to its critics! By ushering in the era of qualified development (human, social, etc.), humanists are channelling the aspirations of the victims of development in the North and the South, and instrumentalizing them. Sustainable development has been the most successful in this art of rejuvenating old hats. It clearly demonstrates the euphemization process through adjectives trying to change words rather than things. Sustainable development, which was launched at the Rio conference in June 1992 is just such a conceptual cobbling together: it is a verbal monstrosity because of its misleading contradiction. At the same time, its universal success testifies to the domination of the development ideology. And from now on, the question of development not only concerns the countries of the South, but also those of the North.

While the pure rhetoric of development, together with the practice of the voluntarist "experts" are no longer convincing, all the eschatological beliefs in material prosperity for everyone that is respectful of the environment - which one could define as "developmentalism" - remain intact. Developmentalism reveals its inherent economic logic in all its rigour. There is no place in this paradigm for the respect for nature demanded by ecologists or for the respect for people demanded by humanists. Actually existing development then be seen in all its reality and alternative development as a mirage.

Beyond development

To speak of post-development not only leaves the imagination free to think about what could happen in case of an implosion of the system, to indulge in political fiction or to examine some case studies. It means talking about the situation of those in the North and South who are now excluded or soon will be: of all those for whom development is an insult and an injustice. And they are indisputably the largest category of people in the world. Post-development is being roughed out around us and it promises diversity.

Post-development is indeed necessarily plural. It is a question of seeking ways of collective fulfillment, in which material well-being that is destructive of the environment and of the social tissue will not be given pride of place. The aim of the good life will be worked out in many ways, according to the context. In other words, new cultures will be created.

This objective can be called umran (fulfillment), as it was for Ibn Khaldun, swadeshi-sarvodaya (improvement of everyone's social conditions) as it was for Gandhi, or bamtaare (to be happy together), as with the Tukulors (in Senegal), or anything else. What is important is to mark the break with the destruction that is being perpetuated in the name of development, or now in the name of globalization. For the excluded, for the shipwrecked of development, it can only be a kind of synthesis between lost tradition and inaccessible modernity. Such original creations, the beginnings of which can be seen here and there, give rise to hope for post-development. It is necessary both to think and act globally and locally. It is only through a fruitful exchange between the two approaches that we can try to overcome the obstacle of the lack of prospects for the immediate future. Proposing growth reduction as one of the global objectives that are now urgent and identifiable and implementing concrete alternatives locally are complementary actions.