Emeritus Prof Christopher May
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

Let's start the week with this inclusive (and implicitly humanist) message from Philip Schellekens (UNDP).

Of course, there are all sorts of questions this begs, from what actually is development to the Q. of whether development should still be pursued in the same way in the face of the climate crisis... but its central message that more links us than divides us remains vital if the human race is to (continue to?) prosper.

#development #climate #politics

h/t LinkedIn

All countries are developing countries. The “developed versus developing” divide is a myth that flatters some and stigmatizes others. It suggests that a handful of nations have “arrived” while the rest are catching up. But development is not a destination, it is a moving frontier. If poverty is measured not only against today’s standards but against the progress we know is possible tomorrow, then no country is rich. Every society is still failing its people in different ways whether through hunger and disease, or loneliness, burnout, and inequality.
All countries are developing countries. The “developed versus developing” divide is a myth that flatters some and stigmatizes others. It suggests that a handful of nations have “arrived” while the rest are catching up. But development is not a destination, it is a moving frontier. If poverty is measured not only against today’s standards but against the progress we know is possible tomorrow, then no country is rich. Every society is still failing its people in different ways whether through hunger and disease, or loneliness, burnout, and inequality.
All countries are developing countries. The “developed versus developing” divide is a myth that flatters some and stigmatizes others. It suggests that a handful of nations have “arrived” while the rest are catching up. But development is not a destination, it is a moving frontier. If poverty is measured not only against today’s standards but against the progress we know is possible tomorrow, then no country is rich. Every society is still failing its people in different ways whether through hunger and disease, or loneliness, burnout, and inequality.
GeofCox
@GeofCox@climatejustice.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago
@ChrisMayLA6

The contention in Sullivan & Hickel's 'Capitalism & Extreme Poverty' - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169 - that 'the rise of capitalism... is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality', and that 'significant improvements in human welfare began only... with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements' - seems to me confirmed by similar evidence of current decline in the 'developed' world.

Bernie Sanders pointed out in the inquest on Trump's election that real wages in the US are lower than 50 years ago, and Kenan Malik recently made the same point about welfare benefits in the UK. The rise in life expectancy that was such a feature of the 20th century has now reversed in the most neoliberal countries like the US and UK.

The 'developing' world is, in fact, just partially recovering from an extreme form of capitalism (slavery and colonialism); the 'developed' world did so over the ''Trente Glorieuses' - the 30 years or so after the war when it built welfare states with 90% marginal tax rates - then has gone backwards, back into the more extreme form of capitalism we know doesn't work.