"My skepticism, however, is not based on the failure of Malawi and countries like it to progress, but of the unrealistic and unsustainable Western model of development which the world is expected to copy. Of course, the West’s own transition to economic hegemony involved horrific practices including slavery, the rape of colonies for their natural and human resources, and the exploitation of the poorly paid working classes in the total absence of labour laws in the ninetieth and early twentieth centuries. The West arrived at their powerful industrialised position through the very practices they would be quick to condemn in the developing world today. However it is not the West’s historical development which concerns me as much as its current requirements to maintain that privileged position. The West’s hyper obsession with growth comes at the expense of the dehumanisation, marginalisation, and exploitation of the world’s poor, vast global inequalities, worsening poverty, global food crises, and unjust neo-colonial trade relationships which unfairly benefit the developed country. Such a fixation on growth has also led to the complete destruction of the natural environment; so much so that the planet now faces the global crisis of climate change on an unprecedented scale. This model of growth is not only unsustainable, but it is surely impossible for every country to achieve universally, as it relies on the unequal monopolisation of the world’s resources by the global elite." delusionsofdevelopment/?p=741 via Chelsey Rhodes
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:46:51 +0000
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