International Journal of Political Economy, vol. 38, no. 3, Fall 2009, pp. 5–21.
© 2009 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 0891–1916/2009 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/IJP0891-1916380301
Ignacy Sachs
Revisiting Development in
the Twenty-First Century
Abstract: An overview of the way in which the idea of development has
evolved is followed by the analysis of actual development (and misdevelopment) from 1945 onward, focusing on the golden age of capitalism, the rise
and fall of real socialism and the neoliberal counter-reform. Sitting on the
ruins of failed paradigms, we are condemned to invent new ones for the
twenty-first century, based on the concept of three-win development—social,
environmental and economic. Some signposts for a research agenda are
outlined with an emphasis on mixed economies with a strong, yet regulated
market sector and a significant presence of the developmental state, whose
responsibility is bound to increase. The futures of development will also
depend on the turn taken by globalization and our capacity to reshape the
international system. Development studies ought to be revived by revisiting
the history of the development idea and analyzing in a comparative setting
the development/misdevelopment paths pursued by different countries.
Keywords: development, developmental state, golden age of capitalism,
misdevelopment, mixed economies, neoliberal counter-reform, rise and
fall of socialism.
Development studies came of age in the middle of World War II, in close
connection with the preparation of blueprints for the postwar reconstruction1 of Eastern and southern Europe. The Royal Institute of International
Affairs in London created a working group for this purpose with Paul
Rosenstein-Rodan as its convener. Another group worked at the Oxford
Statistical Institute with M. Kalecki and E.F. Schumacher. Many East
Ignacy Sachs is an honorary professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, Paris, France.
5
6 international journal of political economy
European refugees took an active part in this endeavour.2 Their work
became irrelevant, as far as its initial purpose was concerned, as a consequence of the Yalta treaty, by which that part of Europe came under
the control of the Soviet Union. However, it was soon recycled in the
context of the starting debate on the development of postcolonial and
underdeveloped countries under the aegis of the United Nations (UN),
especially as some of the participants of the Chatham House Group
integrated the first generation of UN officials and consultants.
As a matter of fact, Eastern and southern Europe were part of the
capitalist periphery, and the challenges they encountered in the 1930s
were very similar to those faced by the developing countries after the
war: land reforms that were too timid, excess of rural population, unfavorable terms of trade between agricultural and industrial goods, mass
urban unemployment as a consequence of the 1929 crisis, need for a
more active state support for the incipient industrialization, and difficult
relations with foreign capital.
A Digression on the Forerunners
This is not to say that the idea of development was born at that date.
Development can be traced back to the illuminist concept of progress.
Condorcet’s plea to overcome the social inequalities between states and
within states keeps all its relevance even today and Rousseau’s blueprint
for a constitution for Corsica prefigures Samir Amin’s writings on delinking (Arnin 1986; Rousseau 2000).
Important debates avant la lettre on development occurred in many
places throughout the nineteenth century. To mention a few examples, the
Russian Narodniki (populists) produced a vast body of literature of great
significance to the understanding of peasant societies and economies,
which strongly influenced the fundamental work of Chayanov (Chayanov
1986; Walicki 1969). The United Nations University sponsored research
on the Japanese roots of the Meiji Restoration (Nagai and Umita, 1985).
In India, development theory had several forerunners in the last quarter
of the nineteenth and the beginning of twentieth century, with such
outstanding authors as D. Naoroji, M.G. Ranade, G. Gokhale, R.C.
Dutt and especially Mohandas Gandhi (Chandra 1965; Gopalakrishnan
1959). In Brazil, Mexico, and Chile, the early debates on development,
often conducted in parliament, centered on free trade versus protectionism and industrialization (Bastos 1952; Herzog 1947; Sunkel and Paz
fall 2009 7
1970). However, the early history of the idea of development still awaits
an in-depth study.3
Development as Ideology
Development imposed itself as an ideology in the aftermath of World
War II for a variety of reasons. First, it provided a longer time horizon
and framework to plan the urgent tasks of reconstruction.
Second, it incorporated three important ideas present in everybody’s
mind:
•
•
•
the need to ensure full employment to exorcise the tragic consequences
of the Great Depression.
the recognition of a proactive economic role for the state—obvious
for the Marxists and very much in tune with the mainstream economic
theory in the West at that time—Keynesianism—complemented by
measures aimed at creating a welfare state in the social realm.4
planning as an indispensable tool to avoid wasting scarce resources.
When Friedrich von Hayek published his libel against planning in 1944 in
London, he was the dissident (Hayek 1944); everybody else was involved
in planning.
One may say that these three key concepts were largely consensual
insofar as they were shared by both sides of what was to soon become the
iron curtain. The fundamental divergences between the two competing
systems concerned the ways and means of their implementation.
For the young UN, development soon appeared to be a priority. The
fifteen-year span between 1945 and 1960 was marked by an unprecedented
acceleration of history: India gained its independence in 1947, the Chinese
communists installed their government in Beijing in 1949, the first conference of Afro-Asian solidarity met in Bandung in 1955, the foundation of
the nonalignment movement was laid, the Suez canal was nationalized in
1956, 1959 saw the coming to power in Cuba of Fidel Castro, and 1960
became known as the year of decolonization in many African countries.
At the same time, the rivalry between the capitalist world and the Soviet
bloc and their competition for the third world’s souls unfolded into a cold
war. Development proved one of the very few subjects on which the UN
could seek some cooperation between the two blocs.
It is no wonder that development studies became high priority in the
work of different UN bodies. An important stream of publications emerged
8 international journal of political economy
from the UN Secretariat in New York, the regional commissions, agencies,
programs, and institutes, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) of the United Nations, the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Health Organization
(WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations
Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), and, at a later
stage, the United Nations University and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). International banks such as the World Bank,
the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank
also invested heavily in research on development.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC), established in Santiago, rapidly became, side by side with
Indian research institutions, a focus of endogenous development thinking,
with major contributions by authors such as Raul Prebisch, Celso Furtado,
Anibal Pinto, and Oswaldo Sunkel, to mention only a few. Eurocentric
views were challenged.5
Development also became, for a few decades, a fashionable subject
in academic circles all over the world, while diplomats exercised their
skills in what Gunnar Myrdal6 called “diplomacy by terminology”:
backward countries became underdeveloped, then less developed, and
finally developing countries.
At the starting point, economic growth served as a proxy for development. Then, other dimensions were gradually added to the concept,
leading to a litany of adjectives: economic, social, cultural, territorial,
and, last but not least, political. The last addition occurred in the 1970s,
under the impact of the environmental revolution in mind (Nicholson
1970). At the UN conference on human development held in Stockholm
in 1972, the term “ecodevelopment” began to circulate, to be substituted
later by “sustainable development.”
At some point, to get rid of this litany of adjectives, I tried unsuccessfully to argue in favor of the term “whole development,” or “development”
tout court. As long as one defines it as a multidimensional concept, or
even as a metaconcept organizing different fields of knowledge and thus
calling for a multidisciplinary approach, the adjectives become redundant.
The least one can do is stick to essential attributes of development. I work
today with the concept of socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable,
and economically sustained development.7
So much for the evolution of the idea of development. We turn now to
fall 2009 9
the actual development (or misdevelopment) as it historically unfolded
in different parts of the world.
1945–1975: The Golden Age of Capitalism
During the three decades that followed the end of World War II, Western
countries enjoyed, as a whole, a period of rapid economic growth, social
progress, and technological change. For Steven Marglin, it was the golden
age of capitalism. Jean Fourastié called it “les trente glorieuses.”8
Under the pressure of the competition of the “real socialism,”9 which
appealed to many sections of Western public opinion as a possible alternative, the capitalist regimes proceeded to significant reforms, as compared
with the free market model, allowing greater state interventionism in
economic affairs, going ahead with the construction of welfare states,
and establishing a fair measure of planning.10 Scandinavian countries,
governed by social democratic parties, succeeded in creating advanced
models of welfare states characterized by a fair degree of egalitarianism
owing to an efficient fiscal system. People did not mind paying high taxes
as long as they were equitable, progressive,11 and well spent on services
benefiting the whole population.
However, Western countries were paying a very high price in environmental terms for this economic and social progress. Paradoxically,
the landing of a man on the moon in 1969 and the pictures of our fragile
and finite planet sent from there contributed to the growing awareness
of the environmental disruption caused by an unprecedented increase
in material consumption of all sorts. Three years later, the Stockholm
conference put the environmental issue on the UN agenda, marking a
turning point in the debate on the development idea.
From then on, the goal became to devise “three-win” solutions, which
harmonized social, environmental, and economic objectives. Ideally, the
word “development” should be reserved for these objectives, as distinct from
“socially benign yet environmentally disruptive” or “environmentally benign
yet socially disruptive” economic growth12—two intermediary situations
between development and misdevelopment, the latter term corresponding
to socially perverse and environmentally disruptive savage growth.
The Rise and Fall of Real Socialism
In parallel, the world witnessed the rise and fall of real socialism whose
territorial expansion was epitomized by the victory of the Chinese Revolu-
10 international journal of political economy
tion. Yet the relations between the two major socialist powers were marred
by a growing competition that led to political conflict, undermining the
coherence within the anticapitalist bloc.
In economic terms, the postwar period was marked by rapid growth
both in the Soviet Union and in East European people’s democracies.
Difficulties started later on, as the system proved unable to shift from
extensive, employment-led to intensive, innovation-led growth. This is
irrespective of the notorious difficulties in agriculture that followed the
disastrous collectivization in the Soviet Union carried out in the 1930s
and the complications arising from bureaucratic planning. In the absence
of a free press and democratic practices, planners were deprived of
feedback from society.13
Even more important, real socialism failed to produce an alternative
to the Western patterns of consumption and lifestyles, thus reducing
the competition between socialism and capitalism to rates of economic
growth and socialism’s claims that it would eventually overtake the West
in global wealth while providing a more equitable distribution of income.
Automobiles were allowed to become the symbol of social status, even
though the socialist countries lagged far behind the West in automobile
manufacturing.
The main setbacks proved, however, to be political. Despite the
destanilization launched in 1956 at the twentieth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the Soviet army crushed the
Hungarian uprising in the same year and recidivated in Czechoslovakia
in 1968, putting an abrupt end to the promising experiment of “socialism
with a human face.” Poland escaped the same fate in 1956 only because
it happened not to have borders with Western countries.
The Soviet intervention in Hungary had a negative impact on the
image of the real socialism in the West, partly offset by the proximity
of the twentieth congress of the CPSU and the announcement of the
destanilization, as well as by the auspicious changes that occurred at
the same time in Poland.
This was no longer the case in 1968. The shock produced by the invasion of Czechoslovakia shattered whatever credibility real socialism still
enjoyed in the West. In a sense, it marked the beginning of its agony,
which, despite the belated reforms attempted by Mikhail Gorbachev,
culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the implosion of
the Soviet Union not long afterward.
At any rate, after the Soviet intervention in Prague, real socialism
fall 2009 11
ceased to represent a significant menace as a political rival of reformed
capitalism in the West, which, by the same token, lost its raison d’être in
the eyes of proponents of a neoliberal counterreform who were nostalgic
of hard capitalism.
The Neoliberal Counterreform
Ironically, that counterreform started in the same country, which illustrated itself by path-breaking studies on full employment and the welfare
state—Great Britain—with the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher
in 1979 followed by the election of Ronald Reagan in the United States
in 1981. Both relentlessly advocated free market fundamentalism and
promoted asymmetric globalization, which was meant to benefit the
industrialized countries and their multinationals.
In a sense, the counterreform is still occupying the scene more than a
quarter of a century later, although its dismal results do not correspond to
the promises of prosperity for all. The gap in the distribution of income (and
even more of wealth) between nations and within nations reached abyssal
proportions, as witnessed by the UN report “Inequality Predicament.”14 As
documented by the International Labour Organization, unemployment and
underemployment continue to plague about 30 percent of the world working
force. The “jobless growth” aggravates the chronic deficit of opportunities
for decent work. As for globalization, which was supposed to work in favor
of all nations, it has some winners and many losers.
The long list of casualties of the counterreform starts with the reformed
capitalism of the golden age. Next comes the so-called Washington
consensus imposed on developing countries. Its failure is epitomized by
Argentina’s—one of the richest countries in the world in the 1930s—
descent into hell. On the contrary, the Asian countries, which did not
follow the policies advocated by the Washington consensus, were the
only ones to keep their heads above water, thanks to the positive action
of developmental states (Chang 2003; Sachs 2000a; Stiglitz 1999, 2002;
Stiglitz and Shahid 2001; Wade 1990).
The transition of postsocialist countries to capitalism, strongly influenced by market fundamentalism, led to unnecessary mass impoverishment and, worse, to the creation of a wealthy oligarchy, often recruited
in the former nomenklatura, which profited from the blatant underpricing
of privatized public enterprises.15
We may also include in this list European social democracies, which
12 international journal of political economy
panicked in the face of neoliberal hegemony and went much too far in
their acceptance of market economy. The formula employed by the erstwhile French prime minister Lionel Jospin—“yes to the market economy,
no to the market society”—is an oxymoron. Mere compensatory social
policies will not do in the absence of a more stringent regulation of the
economy—even more so as social democrats retreat from their previous
positions on a highly progressive taxation of income. In Britain, the New
Left, which came to power in 1997, has not managed to reverse the sad
heritage of the Thatcher era. Poverty doubled under Thatcher but did
not regress under the government of Tony Blair. Even more important,
social democrats in power in several European countries did not succeed
in preventing the liberal drift of the European Union.
Finally, the neoliberal counterreform proved a major obstacle to the
implementation of environmentally sound policies. These require proactive states and more regulation, but the thrust of the counterreform acts
in the opposite direction.
Where Do We Stand?
We are thus sitting on the ruins of several failed paradigms: the real
socialism, the reformed golden age capitalism, the neoliberal market
fundamentalism, the Washington consensus, and, last but not least, social
democracy.
Paradoxically, one may draw a positive conclusion from this dismal
situation: we are condemned to invent new paradigms for the twenty-first
century. This is not an invitation to unbridled voluntarism but rather a plea
in favor of responsible voluntarism, which brings us back to the historical
record of development/misdevelopment in different countries.
As mentioned above, by opposition to three-win development, misdevelopment may be defined as a socially perverse and environmentally disruptive economic growth. In between, we have two intermediary situations:
socially benign, yet environmentally disruptive growth and environmentally benign, yet socially perverse growth. The fifth category, characterized by negative growth, may be termed “dedevelopment,” regression, or
involution. I submit that these five categories offer a suitable framework
to analyze the historical trajectories of different countries against the
background of a globally distressing picture of rapid and sustained growth,
technical progress, and modernization, going hand in hand with the aggravation of the social predicament and environmental disruption.
fall 2009 13
Despite the conceptual advances in the debate on development and of the
treasures of developmental rhetoric displayed at international conferences
and national parliaments, at this beginning of the twenty-first century, we
have dangerously moved toward a situation of no return with respect to
deleterious climate change while condoning massive social exclusion.
In the face of this discouraging diagnosis, some scholars put the blame
on the idea of development, denouncing it as an ideological trap invented by
advanced industrial countries to lure the third world into an asymmetrical
globalization. They also attack economic growth as such, invoking environmental limits. To them, development is dead; we should move toward
“postdevelopment” and sustainable “degrowth” (whatever that means). In
France the leading proponent of this movement is Serge Latouche.16
I share in many respects the critical assessment of the actual record of
misdevelopment prevailing in many parts of the world and the denunciation
of economicism (economic reductionism). Yet, the argument is flawed.
The normative discussion leading to the establishment of categories
such as development and misdevelopment should not be mixed up with
the assessment of actual historic trajectories of different countries. As
a matter of fact, I fail to see how this assessment could be conducted
without normative concepts of development and misdevelopment serving as measuring rods. Likewise, they have an important role to play in
the planner’s toolbox.
Moreover, “degrowth” is not a solution as long as poverty and exclusion remain so pervasive. A redistribution of income and wealth is
practically impossible in the absence of growth. Even those who rightly
advocate as a paramount goal of development a “civilization of being”
recognize as a precondition the equitable “sharing of having,”17 a situation which is far from being achieved.
Signposts for a Research Agenda
The extrapolation of the business-as-usual scenario leads to disturbing conclusions. Deleterious climate change will not be avoided and the inequality
predicament will deepen. Generalization of the consumption patterns of
the affluent minority is clearly impossible, yet, the poor majority will not
give up improving its consumption standards to reach a minimum of wellbeing. This leads us to postulating a progressive hybridization of growth
with social and environmental concerns, encouraging developing countries
to leapfrog in ecodevelopment, to forego the environmental disruption pro-
14 international journal of political economy
voked in the past by the growth of industrialized countries—“the damage
of progress” denounced by French trade unionists. The concept of mixed
economy was theorized by M. Kalecki (1993: 45–60) and Shigeto Tsuru
(1997).18 Leapfrogging ought to become an important consideration in
defining endogenous development strategies in opposition to a still widespread practice of mimetic reproduction of past models. We should not
expect to find readymade solutions from historic enquiry. History seldom
offers examples to be replicated; rather, it invites us to improve on past
performances. This said, it provides the crutches for social imagination in
the process of inventing the future.
Political conditions for implanting noncapitalist alternatives are not
likely to appear in the near future. The solutions are to be sought, again
within the limits of reformed capitalism, which is not tantamount to going back to past solutions. These ought to be critically revisited as one
source of inspiration.
The demise of real socialism and the impasses of the neoliberal market theology indicate that the prevailing institutional setting will be that
of mixed economies with a strong, yet regulated market sector and a
significant presence of the developmental state.19 A recent manifesto of
French economists restates the case for the mixed economy in the following terms: “A decade ago, we naively believed that the introduction,
wherever possible, of market mechanisms would allow us to go toward
an optimum reconciling the short, medium and long term. However, we
are realizing that it is much more complicated. Indeed, we must mix
market mechanisms with new forms of regulation, yet to be invented”
(Orsenna 2007: 79).
We may still observe that mixed economy implies searching for a mix
between the logic of the market and the logic of social needs.20
Among the questions to be addressed, the reinvention of developmental
states looms high. What role is to be sought for developmental states in the
globalizing world?21 One thing is certain: notwithstanding the neoliberal
mantra, which proclaims the decline of the states and has even coined a
new term—“glocalization”22—the responsibility vested in developmental
states has increased. Its five main functions are the following:
•
articulation among development spaces from local through regional
and national, up to transnational, the nevralgic point being the interface
between fragile national economies and the global economy; where most
controls were dismantled under the pressure of the neoliberal counter
reform.
fall 2009 15
•
•
•
•
harmonization of the social, environmental, and economic dimensions to
pursue the ambitious goal of three-win solutions.
promoting partnerships among all the stakeholders of the development
process. Future development will be, to a great extent, negotiated
development, calling for a quadripartite negotiation among the state, the
enterprises, the workers, and organized civil society.23
instituting new forms of flexible, contextual, dialogical, continuous
planning, quite different from Soviet-type bureaucratic planning.24
sponsoring public research on selected key issues concerning knowledge
and labor-intensive, yet resource (land and water) saving strategies,
addressing the challenges of climate change mitigation, adjusting to a
new energy paradigm,25 and providing fair numbers of opportunities
for decent work and for reopening in this connection the debate on a
new cycle of rural development26; research cannot be left entirely to the
private sector on account of markets’ shortsightedness and insensitivity
to social and environmental concerns.
Diverse shapes of developmental states can be envisaged, differing
by the “degrees of boldness” of policies pursued.27
The future of development also depends on the turn taken by globalization and on our capacity to impose a new architecture on the faulty
international system. At present, billions of people are excluded from
globalization by globalization. We live in a world in which, for the first
time, the rich no longer need the poor as a workforce, and globalization
produces many discontents (Stiglitz 2002). The incipient south/south
relations do not weigh enough to counterbalance the grip of Western
multinationals on world trade, even though China and India recently made
a spectacular entry on to the African scene. Time will show whether they
will contribute to strengthening collective self-reliance among developing
countries or pursue their national interest. At any rate, the continental
size of these two countries puts them in a special category.28
Summing up, to once more quote E. Orsenna, “between what is ecologically necessary and socially indispensable, we must define another
development. Define and implement it, multilaterally . . . and urgently”
(Orsenna 2007: 134).
In parallel, academia should be invited to revive development studies
along two tracks:
On the one hand, the history of the development idea should be revisited, including all the forerunners and tracing its endogenous roots
in different cultural settings to deemphasize the Eurocentric bias still
prevailing in the mainstream presentations of the subject. At the same
16 international journal of political economy
time, emphasis is to be put on the systemic approach to this multidimensional concept instead of pseudointerdisciplinarity achieved by merely
juxtaposing different disciplines. A.K. Sen paved the way to reconceptualizing development as the universalization of all human rights in the
three categories: political and civil rights; economic, social, and cultural
rights; and collective rights, such as the right to childhood, to environment, and to the city (Sachs 1998a, 1998b, 2000b; Sem 1999).
On the other hand, the development/misdevelopment paths pursued
by different countries ought to be cast in a comparative setting. Travels
through time and space are the social scientist’s proxy to experimentation in laboratories. Comparison is a difficult art, at odds with statistical
cross-studies, regression analysis, and the tyranny of the average. As a
rule, the study of extreme and odd cases offers a much richer insight. A
question often asked is what are the scope and limits of the comparative
method? As suggested by Paul Veyne (1971), practically everything can
be compared with everything as long as due precautions are taken to avoid
hasty generalizations and anachronisms by clearly defining the terms and
the scope of the comparison. This kind of histoire raisonnée avoids the
two pitfalls of the endless inconclusive compilation of case studies and
the reduction of the manifold march of history to dogmatic schemes.
Notes
1. One may recall in this connection that the official name of the World Bank
is International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
2. To the best of my knowledge, the detailed history of this group is still to be
written. It counted with the collaboration of many economists who gained notoriety
after the war, such as the Hungarians N. Kaldor, T. Balogh, K. Polanyi, T. Scitovsky,
the already mentioned M. Kalecki and W. Malinowski among the Poles, Austrian,
and German refugees K. Mandelbaum and H. Singer. For an overview on the subject,
see Arndt (1989).
3. Other intriguing episodes are Muhammad Ali’s attempts at economic reform
in Egypt, Sun Yat-sen’s ideological roots, Ataturk’s revolution in Turkey, the last
chapter of the “prehistory” of the idea of development being the already mentioned
discussions held in Eastern Europe between the two world wars. Manoilescu’s (1929)
book on the theory of protectionism and international exchanges was translated in
several languages and had a big impact in Latin America. See Love (1996).
4. A polemic opposing left- and right-wing Keynesians soon emerged, as the
former advocated public investment in housing and social infrastructures whereas
the latter pushed military expenditure.
5. For a brief analysis of eurocentrism, see Sachs (1966), 1976). For a more
recent treatment of the subject, see, inter alia, Goody (2006).
6. Gunnar Myrdal (1968) made an important contribution to development stud-
fall 2009 17
ies through his early books, then as the secretary of the UN European Commission,
and finally through the three volumes of Asian Drama.
7. See Sachs (2004a, 2004b). This is not to say that other dimensions of development should be ignored. In particular, as rightly observed by Celso Furtado (1984),
insofar as development implies some invention, it is a tributary of culture. Cultural models of time used to offer a convenient entry point for studying lifestyles and, therefore,
patterns of demand (see Sachs 1980b: 80–95). Moreover, the very concept of natural
resource is culturally conditioned by our knowledge of nature and technologies.
8. Marglin and Schor (1990) and Fourastié (1979). Fourastié’s book starts with
the description of two contrasting villages in terms of development. The author
then explains that this is his native village at two points of time, before and after
the glorious 1930s.
9. That is, the then prevailing system in the Soviet Union, the East European
people’s democracies, China, Vietnam, and Cuba.
10. Planning was even advocated by the United States. When President John F.
Kennedy launched the Alliance for Progress to counter the influence of the Cuban
revolution in Latin America, he encouraged the Latin American governments to
present development plans and to go ahead with land reforms!
11. As incongruous as it may seem today, the idea of confiscatory income tax
rates for higher income brackets was quite popular among the New Dealers in the
United States and widely accepted by social democrats.
12. The former corresponds to what occurred in the golden age of capitalism; the
latter may happen if we continue to indulge into jobless growth while improving
our environmental performance.
13. The situation was not the same in all countries of the bloc. Poland differed significantly from the Soviet Union and most other countries insofar as most of its land
remained in the hands of individual peasants. Poland and Hungary pioneered much
more sophisticated planning methods than those prevailing in the Soviet Union.
14. United Nations (2005). According to Blond (2008), the wealthiest 1 percent
in the United States increased its share of national income by 78 percent between
1979 and 2004, whereas 80 percent of the population suffered a decrease in their
income share of 15 percent. This meant a wealth transfer from the large majority to
a tiny minority estimated by the author at $664 billion.
15. China followed a different path, combining ruthless capitalism with an authoritarian regime that did not give up its socialist rhetoric. The country achieved
phenomenal growth rates, unknown in history, but is paying a very high social and
environmental price for it. It is difficult to foresee how this chimera (in the literal
sense of the word) will perform in the future. Marie-Claire Bergère (2007: 369)
concludes her well-documented book by summing up the performance of the Chinese
regime as efficient, freed from ideological constraints, and without any consideration
for the suffering of a majority of its population, yet, succeeding well in combining the will of power with the imperatives of growth. According to the author, this
experience, extremely difficult to replicate, is nevertheless likely to continue in the
foreseeable future in China.
16. See Latouche (1995, 2004). An institute of economic and social studies for
sustainable degrowth is based in Saint-Etienne, France.
17. In Louis-Joseph Lebret’s words, “Une civilisation de l’être dans le partage
équitable de l’avoir.” See Lebret (1967).
18 international journal of political economy
18. Faivret (1978) in collaboration with J.L. Missika, D. Wolton, and the Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT). See also Le Cercle des
économistes and E. Orsenna (2008: 134).
19. The concept of mixed economy was theorized by Kalecki (1993: 45–60) and
Shigeto Tsuru (1997).
20. The influential report of the Dag Hammerskjöld Foundation (1975) listed the
logic of needs, as opposed to the logic of market, as one of the pillars of another
development. Reconciling them in practice is not easy. The question was raised in
Indian studies on watershed management; Shekhar Singh proposes to keep out-ofmarket drinking water for the riparian populations as well as water needed to sustain
the river’s ecosystem. See Prasad (2003).
21. Globalizing rather than globalized, the process is still wide open and may
lead to diverse configurations and different patterns of gains and losses distribution
among the industrialized and developing countries.
22. Meaning by this that the only relevant levers of economic activity are to be
sought at the global and local levels.
23. In the past decades, a new stakeholder entered on the scene: the organized
civil society. It should be given an important role as a partner in the negotiation of
development strategies but not treated as a substitute for the developmental state, as
some would like, on account of the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Union of International Associations lists no fewer
than 135,000 NGOs. See Union of International Associations (2006/2007).
24. I have dealt at length with the subject; see, in particular, Sachs (1980a, 1987,
2000a). See also Sagasti (1979).
25. We have entered (at last!) the age of expensive energy, which should make it
easier to design strategies based on energy sobriety and efficiency and the gradual
substitution of fossil by renewable energies.
26. Notwithstanding a recent UNFPA report (2007), which sees in rural urban
migrations the only road to progress, there are serious reasons to challenge this stance.
Development will not result from dumping the refugees from the countryside into
shantytowns. As Mike Davis rightly observed, this might be the way of building the
worst of all possible worlds. See Davis (2006).
27. For instance, the range of land reforms goes from outright expropriation without
any compensation to buying land from landholders, paying them the market price.
28. The size of countries differentiates their development strategies. Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) belong to the group of giant countries also known as
“monster states” (G. Kennan) or “whales” (R. Macedo). In fact, one ought to distinguish two subspecies of whales: Brazil and Russia still have an open agricultural
frontier, which is not the case in India and China.
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