Introduction
Jim Connor: Welcome. It is wonderful to be together with you all-the "Class of 2001" of Woodstock International Visiting Fellows!
What we want to talk about is development, human development. As moderator, my job is to try to put some structure in our conversation, so I am going to ask four questions successively: (I) What is human development? (II) What are its key features? (III) What blocks human development? (IV) What helps it? Questions I and II seek understanding, while III and IV look to action. Afterwards we can get more practical and fill out the picture. So let's get started.
I. What, in your view, would a fully developed world look like?
John Rapley: You've raised a good question, because it forces us to explore our assumptions. In the field of development studies, we're still very much governed by what I would call a "teleological view." That is to say, we think of development as an endpoint, toward which we progress through higher and higher planes of development.
But over the last few years I have been coming to see development not as an endpoint, but as an optimal allocation of the planet's resources at any particular time, given existing technologies. What's important is that the "optimal" state is measured not just by standards of economic well-being, such as per-capita income, but by whether it gives all people a relatively equitable and fair access to the resources that technology allows us to produce. For example, a world in which a small group of people live to be 80 and a very large group of people live to be 45 is not a developed world in my understanding of things. You also have an underdeveloped world when pharmaceutical research in the rich countries is geared toward developing treatments for baldness-and several companies are now saying that they're no longer going to produce anti-malarial drugs because the people in that market are too poor to pay for them.
Connor: What do you think Adrian? What does your "fully-developed world" look like?
Adrian Lyons: I agree that development is more than meeting material needs. The Rwandans I worked briefly with in the Benako refugee camp were cutoff not just from their country, but from their culture. Obviously they needed things, like clean drinking water and shelter. But, as I read the Gospels, Jesus finds something special in material things, so that water and food, good company and hospitality, fields with both wheat and weeds, all come to take on more meaning than the purely economic or material. And genuine development has to include those meanings and values to be found in the material things of our lives.
Rapley: That's right. In describing development in terms of fair and equitable allocation of the resources of existing technology, it's very important to understand that humans are both material and spiritual creatures. The spiritual and material aren't separate spheres-they are interrelated. Thus the grossly inequitable distribution of the material resources on our planet today leads to a grossly inequitable distribution of the spiritual resources. Spiritual resources may be more abundant in the midst of material poverty, and vice versa.
Perianayagam Devanesan: I would agree. In India, it is shocking to see how those on the lowest rung of social stratification are terribly deprived, materially. A certain spirituality can thrive even in the midst of very acute inequalities of material goods. But it is often not a balanced or integrated spirituality. For genuine development to take place, there must be a balance between the spiritual and material. And in India, this is especially difficult to achieve because of the caste system. Economic, educational, and health-care opportunities all hinge on what caste you belong to. There are individual exceptions, of course, but by and large, people are structurally fixed in place. To use the language of Amartya Sen in his Development as Freedom, development requires both "freedom from" and "freedom for." In India, we need a lot more of "freedom from" structural obstacles to development, so that people can attain the "freedom for" participating in the decisions that really affect their lives.
Lyons: Another key feature of genuine development is a sense of security. More and more people are in situations of civil war, leaving them radically insecure. I think of Colombians, of Sri Lankans, and many of the people in West Africa. And even in developed countries people seem to be experiencing a great deal of insecurity of different kinds-for example, domestic violence, especially against women and children. We haven't yet found ways to reduce the incidence of this violence. Let me also add to Devanesan's point that for genuine development people have to be able to participate in the decisions that affect their lives. In that regard, I like the word "conversation." It was one of St. Ignatius' favorite words, and modern theologians talk about faith as a conver-sation-staying in conversation with God. So it is extremely important for people's development that they have access to conversation with people who call the shots about their lives.
Connor: Devanesan referred to Sen's book, Development as Freedom. Sen makes the point that exchange is fundamental to human life. We exchange words, goods, and gifts in "conversation." And so, he says, the market, which is simply another form of exchange, is no big deal. Markets go way back to the time that people started bartering and trading. I have sheep and you have corn, so we barter with each other and trade. Free market capitalism needs no defense, Sen says. It is fundamental.
Rapley: It's interesting that you use "conversation" as the definition of faith, and that Sen uses "conversation" metaphorically to illustrate the market. When it comes to the allocation of material resources, I think the market is the best mechanism humans have developed. It is a kind of a conversation. But someone can always dominate the conversation. The early socialists realized this, and said, "The free market conversation is always dominated by the powerful people, therefore we will ban it!" But that's not the answer to full human development. The answer is to find a way for everybody concerned to participate in the conversation. We have developed rules and conventions that govern ordinary conversation. There are certain ways we don't speak, and certain words we don't use in certain kinds of conversation. The same should be true of the market. Just because it is very good at performing some functions, we shouldn't allow it to govern all aspects of human development.
Connor: It's been helpful to hear your "visions" of a "fully developed world." Let me ask a second question:
II. What are the specific features or ingredients that are required for full human development? Are they things like education, health, employment, civic security and peace, or a loving family life? What do you think?
Rapley: All the ones you've mentioned are necessary, and love is absolutely key. But how each fits concretely into full human development will vary tremendously according to the actual context. And we often err by using extremely simple, mechanistic ways of evaluating things. For example, the standard way of measuring educational quality is to look at the number of years spent in school, or the number of students graduated from school. But that overlooks a lot of education that's essential for well-being, like the education that takes place within families and communities where folk wisdom is passed on. Because of the way we measure, it's been difficult to locate the key features necessary for full development.
Devanesan: We also need to set features like education, health, and employment in their historical context, particularly where there is a cultural history of oppression and struggle. Only then, I think, will we be able to understand, plan for, and journey toward an integrated human development.
Connor: Adrian, have we forgotten anything that's required for human growth and development?
Lyons: I would stress imagination in education, by which I mean the ability to cross over into another person's world and see how the situation looks from the other side of the conver-sation. Also, one of the intangibles, but something very important, is for people who have enough to know that they have enough, and then to know what to do with it. If you can be serene, at some point, knowing that you have enough, then you no longer have to continue acquiring or being competitive. You could say, "Well, I've reached the material, and maybe cultural, sufficiency I need." The lack of that sense of sufficiency puts both the rich and the poor at risk.
Rapley: But that sort of serenity is very difficult to bring about. As Devanesan said, for genuine development to take place, there must be a balance between the spiritual and material. What little data we have suggests that in the last 50 years in Western societies, there has not been a discernable increase in happiness as reported in surveys. And yet, the material output has increased at one of the fastest rates in human history. If there is that unsatisfied longing in humans, a restless dissatisfaction, then I would say there's some kind of an imbalance. Where a material need is satisfied with a spiritual input, or where a spiritual need is satisfied with a material input, you have an imbalance. In my country, in Jamaica, someone living in the ghetto is really hungry, but they can't get access to food, so what they do is go to church and pray. We might want to celebrate that, but I think that's an imbalance. And in the same way, if a person in a rich country, or a rich person in Jamaica for that matter, experiences a sense of emptiness in their life, which I think is a spiritual longing, but they satisfy it by going shopping for a whole day, that's an imbalance. They're satisfying a spiritual need with a material input. And I think, as we look at that behavior, we see a sub-optimal level of development.
Devanesan: Whether the development pertains to water, sanitation, or education, we must always ask, "At what cost?," and especially, "At whose cost?" Whatever level of need you are able to fulfill for yourself or for your family or your community, it is always at the cost of somebody else who is not fulfilling that need. And when it happens to be a very large section of people, that creates a real imbalance which is often overlooked.
Connor: That gets to the third question I had in mind:
III. What blocks development for your people? What are the obstacles or road-blocks, either in past history or right now?
Lyons: I'd like to hear Devanesan comment on something I've heard; namely, that the British developed India with institutions, railways, ports, and so on, in order to bring Indian goods like cloth and spices to Britain. That's a very one-sided notion of development. And I wonder if Indians are not still heirs to that?
Devanesan: Exactly, very much so. The so-called development introduced by the British benefitted them most; and in the bargain, the elite in India also benefitted by way of good schools and good jobs, and were able to reap other social and cultural benefits all for themselves. And the role of that elite, "middle" class has increased today, in India, so that even though the old colonization is not there anymore, there is still a kind of "internal colonization." Basically, the same process is in place, by which the elite, the cream of society, continue to colonize and exclude others in intellectual, social, and material ways. And so whatever is broadly talked about as the outcome of "development" is not really experienced by most of the people-the masses.
Connor: Is this related to the caste system that you mentioned earlier?
Devanesan: Yes. It is part of our social history that higher levels of education, highly paid jobs, and an elitist social economic and political influence generally go hand in hand with higher levels of social stratification, excluding the lower strata (masses) from participating in and benefitting from development. What is worse or ironic is that the elite middle class and the masses often pay the same prices for food and necessities.
Connor: Do you have a class stratification like that in Jamaica, John?
Rapley: Oh, yes, a serious problem. In many respects the colonizers of Jamaica did particularly badly, because they bequeathed a class structure which has become very solidified. It's difficult to manage economic growth or to make resources available to the people when we're so seriously class-stratified-the result of having been a plantation society with a slave population working on huge farms.
Connor: And the slaves, were they African, brought in, or were they local Jamaicans?
Rapley: The slaves were African. The local population was exterminated, initially by violence. Then, disease killed off the rest. There are no remaining indigenous people. When we speak of the indigenous, we're really speaking of the descendants of colonizers or slaves. Colonial plantations produced great problems-and not just material. Family life was not allowed to develop on the plantations, so the family has been completely ravaged in Jamaica. As a result, there's a real shortage of education within the family-not only about what one needs to know to survive, but also how to address problems like lack of self-esteem and our long history of racism.
Connor: And this sort of education is missing for the majority of the population?
Rapley: Yes. Most families have no father present; and many have no significant male presence at all-whether an uncle or grandfather or big brother. And so the boys who grow up in these families see no role for themselves in the world, because they're seen as completely superfluous in the family. And the girls grow up with no sense of ability to relate to males at all. They're not noticed by men until they enter puberty, and then they're just wholly sexual. That's an example of the way in which a spiritual poverty perpetuates a material poverty. And a material poverty perpetuates a spiritual poverty.
Connor: When I was down there years ago, I was told that many children were being raised by their grandmothers.
Rapley: Yes. For a long time, the grandmother filled a role as the family's foundation. But the situation worsened because of emigration. Generations of parents disappeared and left their children. Many children can't be said to have been raised by anyone in any continuous way because they're passed from relative to relative. And often these relatives make no secret of the fact that the children are just a burden. I talk about my own "godchildren"-and I have many of them-who have grown up with a sense that they're unwanted by everybody. That affects their own self-esteem, which affects their performance in school, which affects their sexual behavior, which further affects their ability to advance socially.
Lyons: This will take generations to remedy.
Rapley: I think it could be done faster than that. But the post-colonial elite in Jamaica see development as simply finding the right policies to bring about a faster rate of economic growth. They aren't facing up to the need to tackle this spiritual poverty which is destroying the family-and that neglect by the elite is an instance of their own spiritual poverty as they are driven to become an immensely wealthy society. There's always an imbalance in Jamaica; we either have too much or too little. We need to find that right balance.
Connor: Does this echo any experiences of your own, Adrian?
Lyons: I have a hunch that some of the things John says about Jamaica are more extreme versions of what I encoun-tered when I was working in highrise flats and apartments and areas where the male presence was quite variable. I'm thinking back a few years, now, when I was coaching young footballers. What was notable was that you would hear conversations about who would be their dad that night. That kind of family break-up is common to societies under stress, I think. It's been the case with Australia as it tries to get into the global economy. Large amounts of the manufacturing work have gone offshore because labor is much cheaper in Southeast Asia. So we don't make shoes and textiles in Australia anymore, and jobs for the unskilled are few.
Connor: So you now have a large group of poor, unemployed people?
Lyons: Overall, unemployment is said to be about seven percent; but if you're working only a few hours a day, you are counted as "employed." Particularly in areas like Newcastle in New South Wales, unemployment is very high. And as John suggested it tends to go on to the next generation as well. Two of my Jesuit colleagues involved in the schools are feeling more pressure than ever to keep young men in school. Admissions standards have been relaxed, in the name of offering more "opportunity and access." But really youngsters who should be in the work force are being kept at school, because there aren't enough jobs. And in places where they can't be kept at school, an increase in crime occurs, and gangs and the like. And that's certainly showing up in outer Sydney.
Connor: So would you say you're going through an economic and social decline?
Lyons: More than 2 million Australians are living below the poverty line. That's 11.2 percent. We're in an era when the rich are doing very well, and the middle class is being divided into those who move up and those who move down. We're going through a decline in the middle class at present, and a polarization of wealth.
Connor: How is it that the rich and upper-middle class are doing very well? What did they do to achieve such a lifestyle?
Lyons: They're in jobs where they're working 50 hours or more a week. Many are in the professions, many in the area of technology.
Connor: Producing electronics and software?
Lyons: Yes. But especially the
computer-based commerce made possible by such technology. The trading
of property and livestock has become a much smaller part of Australia's
economy. Now currency trading is the area where huge amounts of
money are changing hands. And this has distorted
Australia's economy in some unfortunate ways. Currency traders of
nineteen or twenty-years-old who work for the banks are given a million
dollars a day to speculate on the world markets. Speculation and
playing the markets-that's where the big money lies. Of course, the
tourist industry is doing well; but that's a rather fragile market.
And now that the Olympics are finished, unemployment is on the rise again.
Connor: So, for the most part, the money is no longer in goods and services, but in money itself. Devanesan, what about in India? Is the high tech area becoming more important there, too?
Devanesan: Yes, although high tech development is concentrated in a few more prosperous states-those with good education and health-care services. But we are beginning to notice some unsettling trends developing in just those economically successful regions. Many people with high tech skills seek employment abroad; and as a result there is foreign money pouring in. But at the same time, more children are being brought up by single parents or grandparents. Overall, there is much more stress on the family structure. And this is among the people who are well-employed. It is another example of cultural emptiness, I think, leading to suicide-often involving the entire family.
Connor: Oh my. What's the reason for that?
Devanesan: It's being studied and it has come to light that certain towns and neighborhoods are particularly prone to a suicidal tendency. And these are not the towns that are short of money. The material wealth is there. But for some reason, or for that very same reason, in these places the suicide rate is increasing.
Connor: Is there perhaps some religious explanation for it? Are these areas populated by modern secularists or agnostics?
Devanesan: It isn't limited to one religion or another. Muslims, Hindus, and Christians alike have been a part of this trend. But it somehow seems to be related to the overseas employment made possible by our high tech advances.
Connor: So people go abroad, and they experience the shock of living in another culture-or perhaps feel trapped when they return to their old home life someday?
Devanesan: Surely. And there are also difficulties for those who stay behind. A mother or wife is left behind to take care of the house and the family; and she experiences a great deal of social and psychological distress. The money is there; but she's no longer able to experience the type of family life that she was used to. In other parts of the country, a suicide may occur when someone's farm and crops have failed, or when massive debts have been built up. But in these cases, people still have their property and their money; but it isn't enough. As the family structure suffers under such stress, I think people are experiencing the uprooting of their cultural anchorage, with nothing else to turn to.
Connor: I was told by a Jesuit some years ago that the male is traditionally a strong figure within the Indian family. Women do not sit at the table with the men. Maybe, as the economic liberation of women catches on in India, it may be undermining something which has been a very strong tradition. Could this be causing part of the stress and turmoil within families?
Devanesan: It is fascinating that in India, poverty per se does not disrupt the stability of the traditional family. Among the poor, families are quite strong, and are able to experience a cultural satisfaction more than their affluent neighbors.
Connor: So it's another example of what John described-of how the wealthy might have a material abundance, but suffer from a spiritual poverty. If a culture doesn't have the traditions in place to deal with the accumulation of personal wealth and resources, then becoming affluent can actually break down your sense of purpose and identity. It can break your will to live.
Devanesan: And we have to look for some kind of alternative social mechanisms to fall back on in times of such economic advancement and change. Traditionally, we have held our society and families together by incorporating reli-gious and cultural elements which give meaning to the whole system. But the same religious and cultural elements are today beginning to experience a stress, because the high tech development is actually a cultural package. A foreign or alien culture is being brought in along with the high tech economy.
IV. What helps human development?
Connor: I think that when we speak about the economy as driving these patterns of change-both of improvement and disruption-we tend to give the economy a life of its own, as though somehow we were not responsible for it. But we know that isn't really the case. So, having raised some of the concerns for and challenges to development, the question that occurs to me is: What do we do about it?
Rapley: We need to see the economy as a sort of human conversation. Too often, though, one person reserves the exclusive right to determine who speaks and for how long and whose word is final. The problem is not with conversation as such, but with the terms in which the conversation has been set. Naturally, if it's in the best interest of corporations and developed nations to say, "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do about this," then labor repression and low wages will continue. But, in fact, there is something we can do about this. Policy decisions are giving rise to these conditions, and we can change those policies.
Lyons: This is something I'd like to pickup on. When a politician or party is promoting some policy, they'll often tell us that it's in our own best interest. That's a phrase that sticks in my ears whenever I hear it, because what they are invariably referring to is our material best interest. And second, they overlook our ability to be altruistic-by choice. On the spiritual side of the balance, those of us who are so powerful in the economic "conversation" have so much to gain by being spiritual. When we look at the Gospel, we realize that the most rewarding life is not one that's devoted to advancing my own material interest, but one in which, like John, we adopt our "godchildren." Much of life's reward is in giving one's time and presence and real attention to promoting the welfare of others. That's where the mutuality and bonds build up that can bring and hold a society together. I've been very impressed by one of the Scandinavian governments which, when proposing special economic support for African nations, went to its people and said, "What we're doing for Africa is not in our interest-maybe not even in the long run. But it's in theirs."
Connor: I know a lot of people in business who are very compassionate, but they still face the demanding dynamics of the competitive market. Either you make the bottom line or you're out of business. Is there flexibility in the system, do you think, for charity as well as competition?
Lyons: It is complex. But it's certainly clear to me that running a business involves much more than simply making the best financial decisions. I have a friend who is involved in promoting trade between Australia and Europe. He once visited a European factory that made high-quality leather goods, along with a delegation of similar promoters from China. His goal was to convince the company to open a factory in Australia, which would utilize the newest technologies available while hiring the smallest number of employees. The Chinese delegation, by contrast, wanted the company to open a factory back in China, utilizing lesser technologies and the greatest number of employees possible. This made it clear to me that there are more than economic and technological questions.
I also admire the success of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which makes only micro-loans to micro-enterprises. The amazing lesson we learn from that bank is those poor people are more reliable credit risks than the usual businesses. So, there is more than one way to chart a path to financial success. Economic and technological considerations do not dictate that a company behave in a particular way.
Connor: I think it's great to encourage microenterprise; but what about the ordinary business person who has the respon-sibility of taking care of her own employees, maintaining her own productive facilities, getting capitalization, opening up markets, and trying to produce and sell a quality product? It's hard work. Failure in business is more common than success. How can business people change the system when they have to worry about meeting such practical obligations?
Rapley: I get the impression you think
solutions will come from within the market itself. That's one of the constituent
elements of neo-liberal thinking: if you just allow the
market to penetrate, it will itself bring all these values. I don't
think that's so. It's not that business people are necessarily
wicked. It's that they have to make a living. But if government,
as in Scandinavia, raises tax rates, then everybody is on a level playing
field. All the other competitors are faced with the same "playing
field," and so you adapt your firm's behavior to work within that context.
Devanesan: Mention of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh reminds me also of my experience working with financial self-help groups operating at the village level. I went to visit one of these groups along with a local bank manager, and he asked the woman who was in charge of keeping the group's accounts, "How much do you ask each person to contribute each month in order to belong to the group?" She said, "Fifty rupees." Then the bank manager asked her, "Why don't you increase the dues to 100 or 200 rupees a month, so you'll have more money to work with? Then we'll be able to support larger projects for you." And her reply was, "Yes, we could increase the dues; but then it would mean excluding those poorer women, who can't afford to contribute that much and would therefore be denied the benefit of the system." I think her notion of taking a long-term inclusive community view is most crucial to the dynamics of financial self-help groups like this. This woman proves that social and cultural (spiritual) values need not be compromised in the face of economic prospects.
I think of the call of John the Baptist (we read in the Advent Season): "The mountains and hills shall be brought low and valleys brought high." I think bringing down the mountains ("we've had enough") is a necessary prerequisite for bringing up the valleys. There should be some mechanism to bring down the mountains and the hills so as to bring up the valleys. It is necessary for us to arrive at an approach that has the whole community's interests at heart. Like the woman who runs the self-help group.
Connor: "Conversation" may be the central notion to bear in mind. There's a recent issue of the Business Week magazine with a special section on globalization. There's clearly a growing awareness among business people of the need to engage many more people into conversations that lead to business and policy decisions. If we can assist those conversations to grow and spread, we'll all be the better for it.
And, THANKS so much for this conversation!