Ethics of Development in the Age of Globalization
The paper focuses on three interrelated problems that embody the essential contradictions of the mainstream development ideas in the globalization age. First, development is still mostly defined in materialistic terms, and, as such, it is largely under th
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Ethics of Development in the Age of Globalization Zsolt Boda
Abstract The paper focuses on three interrelated problems that embody the essential contradictions of the mainstream development ideas in the globalization age. First, development is still mostly defined in materialistic terms, and, as such, it is largely under the influence of mainstream economic considerations. Second, development has remained the problem of ‘poor countries’ – the ‘developed’ nations are apparently reluctant to face the development crisis they have caused, although ecological problems made it truly global. The environmental crisis concerns the rich countries as well, meaning a crisis of their development paradigm. Third, although the development project was born as an international one, it has failed to truly unfold as such despite the advent of the ‘age of globalization’. Paradoxically, globalization brought about ideas and practice of limited global solidarity and international cooperation, except the field of neoliberal economic policy. The paper uses the ideas of Denis Goulet who argued that development is, first, an undeniably normative and value-laden concept, and second, that it is a multi- dimensional phenomenon. That is, development is about creating a better world, and this should include improvements not only in terms of welfare, but also of social conditions, political empowerment, the cultural foundations of self-esteem and ecological aspects. Finally, development is a common endeavor of humanity necessitating global cooperation and effective forms of solidarity between nations and people. Denis Goulet, the founding father of the interdisciplinary field of development ethics argued that “In ever-new and ever-changing settings, development poses ancient philosophical questions: what is the good life (…), what are the foundation of life in society, and what stance should human groups adopt toward nature? ‘Development’ provides one particular answer to these questions. (…) What is needed is a critical questioning of the very nature of development and of its declared Z. Boda (*) Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 P. Rona, L. Zsolnai (eds.), Economics as a Moral Science, Virtues and Economics 1, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53291-2_16
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goals (…)” (Goulet 1995: ix). Questions about good life have indeed been an ageold concern for humanity, however, development in a modern sense is a much newer project and from the very beginning its “particular answer” has been appropriated by economists. Wolfgang Sachs refers to a 1949 speech by American President Harry S. Truman as a symbolic starting point of the modern development discourse in which Truman set a new political goal: helping to develop the ‘underdeveloped’ regions of the world (Sachs 1997). The project of development as an international endeavor was born; and its very nature as well as its goals wer
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