Manifesto of the Post-Development Network (2002)

Manifesto of the Post-Development Network (2002)

The movement that is promoting post-development has evolved almost secretly up until now. And yet it has already produced a fairly substantial body of literature and it is represented in various places of research and action round the world.[1]

It was in the 1960s, during the First Development Decade, that this school of thought began to reflect critically on the suppositions underlying the economy and development policies. It brought together researchers and social actors in both North and South, who proposed new analyses and experiences in the economic, social and cultural fields. Over the years, relationships - usually informal - have developed between its various protagonists, whose experiences and reflections mutually enriched each other. This post-development movement thus subscribes to the International Network for Cultural Alternatives to Development (INCAD) and fully identifies with its Declaration of 4 May 1992 (see annexe). Our network intends to continue and expand the work that has already been started.

As a central point in its analysis the network radically challenges the notion of development which, in spite of the formal evolutions it has undergone, remains the decisive breaking-point within the movement criticizing capitalism and globalization. On the one hand there are those who press for "development", which is unlikely and "globalization" which is no less problematic. On the other hand there are those who, like ourselves, want to leave development and economicism behind us. This critique involves a far-reaching "deconstruction" of economic thought, questioning notions such as growth, poverty, needs, aid, etc.

The associations and individuals who are members of this network all share this approach. After the failure of actually existing socialism and the shameful slither of social-democracy into social-liberalism, we believe that our analyses are the only ones that can contribute to renewed thinking about the construction of a society that is a real alternative to the market society. Radically challenging the development concept involves cognitive subversion, which is a necessary precondition of political, social and cultural subversion.

We feel that the time is now favourable for us to come out of the semi-clandestinity to which we have been relegated up until now. The enormous success of the colloque "development, redoing the world", organized by the Ligne d'horizon2 and held at Unesco, 28 February-3 March 2002, reinforces our conviction and our aspirations.

The need to break the development mould and de-colonize people's minds

Confronted as we are with globalization, which is but the planetary triumph of the all-market, we must conceive and strive for a society in which economic values have ceased being central (or unique). The economy must be put back in its place as a simple instrument of human life and not a final objective. We must renounce this mad race towards continually increasing consumption. This is necessary, not only to avoid the definitive destruction of living conditions on earth but also, and especially, to wrest humanity from its psychic and moral misery. What is needed to change the world is a genuine de-colonization of our imagination and a de-economization of minds - before world change wreaks increasing woes on us all. We must start looking at things in an another way so that they actually become different, if we are going to be able to conceive really original and innovatory solutions. It is a question of putting other meanings and reasons at the centre of human life, rather than expanding production and consumption.

The password of the network is thus "and dissidence". Resistance and dissidence with the head, but also with the feet. Resistance and dissidence as an attitude of rejection and mental hygiene. Resistance and dissidence as an attitude open to all forms of alternative self-organization. That means refusing complicity and collaboration with that venture into brainwashing and planetary destruction: the development ideology.

Mirages and ruins of development

Current globalization shows us what development has been and what we have never wanted to recognize. It is the supreme stage of actually existing development and at the same time the negation of its mythical meaning. While development has been only the pursuit of colonization by other means, the new globalization, in its turn, is only the pursuit of development by other means. Thus it is important to distinguish development as a myth from development as a historical reality.

Actually existing development can be defined as an enterprise aiming at transforming into commercial products the relationships of people with each other and relationships with nature. It is a question of exploiting and making profits from natural and human resources. It is an aggressive act towards nature as well as towards people and it is like the colonization that preceded it, as well as the globalization that is following it. It is an enterprise that seeks domination and conquest, both economic and military. It is "existing development", which has prevailed for three centuries, that has engendered the present social and environmental problems: exclusion, overpopulation, poverty, pollution of all kinds, etc.

As for the mythic concept of development, it is caught in a dilemma. It can signify everything and nothing, for example cultural experiences in the history of humanity, from the China of the Han Dynasty to the Inca Empire. In this case it does not mean anything in particular, it is not useful for promoting any particular policy and it would be better to get rid of it. Or else has its own content. This necessarily consists of what it has in common with the Western adventure of the take-off of the economy, as it got under way since the industrial revolution in England in the years 1750-1800. If this is the case, whatever adjective one cares to tag on, the implicit or explicit content of development is economic growth and capital accumulation, with all the positive and negative effects that we know. Now the very core that all development shares in common with that experience is linked to very specific social relationships, which are those of capitalist production. The "class" antagonisms are largely hidden by the existence of "values" that are largely shared: progress, universalism, domination of nature, quantifying rationality. However, these values that underpin development and particularly progress, in no way correspond to profound universal aspirations. They are part of Western history, they do not have much echo in other societies.

Outside the myths that create it, the idea of development is completely devoid of sense and the practices associated with it are quite impossible because unthinkable and forbidden. It is these Western values that must be challenged today if a solution is to be found to the problems of the contemporary world and if we are to avoid the catastrophes to which the world economy is leading us. Post-development is both post-capitalist and post-modern.

The new clothes of development

To conjure away the negative effects of development, we have been treated to "era of particle development". A whole host of developments have emerged: self-reliant, endogenous, participatory, community, integrated, authentic, autonomous and popular, equitable, sustainable - not to mention local development, micro-development, endo-development and even ethno-development! Tacking on an adjective to the development concept does not really challenge capitalist accumulation: at most, it can dream of adding a social aspect, or an ecological component, to economic growth, as was done recently with the cultural dimension. This task of redefining development almost always involves culture, nature and social justice. But it is a question of healing something bad that affects development accidentally, and not congenitally. A monster has even been created for the occasion: mal-development. This can in fact only be a chimera because evil cannot affect development for the excellent reason that imaginary development is by definition the very incarnation of the Good. Good development is a pleonasm because development means good growth, because growth, too, is good and no forces of evil can prevail against it.

It is the very excess of proofs of its beneficial nature that show up the fraud of development.

Social development, human development, local development and sustainable development are thus but the latest to join the long procession of conceptual innovations that aim at introducing part of the dream into the hard realities of economic growth. If development still survives, it is above all due to its critics! By ushering in the era of qualified development (human, social, etc.), humanists are channelling the aspirations of the victims of development in the North and the South, and instrumentalizing them. Sustainable development has been the most successful in this art of rejuvenating old hats. It clearly demonstrates the euphemization process through adjectives trying to change words rather than things. Sustainable development, which was launched at the Rio conference in June 1992 is just such a conceptual cobbling together: it is a verbal monstrosity because of its misleading contradiction. At the same time, its universal success testifies to the domination of the development ideology. And from now on, the question of development not only concerns the countries of the South, but also those of the North.

While the pure rhetoric of development, together with the practice of the voluntarist "experts" are no longer convincing, all the eschatological beliefs in material prosperity for everyone that is respectful of the environment - which one could define as "developmentalism" - remain intact. Developmentalism reveals its inherent economic logic in all its rigour. There is no place in this paradigm for the respect for nature demanded by ecologists or for the respect for people demanded by humanists. Actually existing developmentthen be seen in all its reality and alternative development as a mirage.

Beyond development

To speak of post-development not only leaves the imagination free to think about what could happen in case of an implosion of the system, to indulge in political fiction or to examine some case studies. It means talking about the situation of those in the North and South who are now excluded or soon will be: of all those for whom development is an insult and an injustice. And they are indisputably the largest category of people in the world. Post-development is being roughed out around us and it promises diversity.

Post-development is indeed necessarily plural. It is a question of seeking ways of collective fulfillment, in which material well-being that is destructive of the environment and of the social tissue will not be given pride of place. The aim of the good life will be worked out in many ways, according to the context. In other words, new cultures will be created.

This objective can be called umran (fulfillment), as it was for Ibn Khaldun, swadeshi-sarvodaya (improvement of everyone's social conditions) as it was for Gandhi, or bamtaare (to be happy together), as with the Tukulors (in Senegal), or anything else. What is important is to mark the break with the destruction that is being perpetuated in the name of development, or now in the name of globalization. For the excluded, for the shipwrecked of development, it can only be a kind of synthesis between lost tradition and inaccessible modernity. Such original creations, the beginnings of which can be seen here and there, give rise to hope for post-development. It is necessary both to think and act globally and locally. It is only through a fruitful exchange between the two approaches that we can try to overcome the obstacle of the lack of prospects for the immediate future. Proposing growth reduction as one of the global objectives that are now urgent and identifiable and implementing concrete alternatives locally are complementary actions.

The need to reduce growth and enhance beauty

Reducing growth, or "ungrowth" must be organized, not only to preserve the environment but also to restore a minimum of social justice, without which the planet will certainly explode. Social survival and biological survival thus seem to be closely linked. The limits of our natural heritage not only pose the problem of inter-generational equity in sharing what is accessible, but also that of a fair distribution between those who are alive today.

"Ungrowth" does not mean a conservative immobility. Most wise people think that happiness is achieved by satisfying a judiciously limited number of needs. Old societies evolved and grew at a moderate rate, more or less adapted to natural constraints.

To organize a reduction in growth means, in other words, renouncing the economistic mindset - i.e. the belief that more means better. What is good and what makes people happy can be achieved at less cost. It is a question of rediscovering real wealth through convivial social relationships in a healthy world and this can be done serenely through frugality, sobriety and a certain austerity in material consumption.

Reducing growth as the order of the day above all aims at getting rid of the crazy idea of growth for growth's sake, which is driven by the unbridled search after profits by the holders of wealth. Obviously it does not mean taking things to the opposite extreme of reducing growth just for the sake of it. "Ungrowth" is certainly not negative growth. We know that simply slowing down growth plunges our societies into chaos through unemployment and means relinquishing the social, cultural and environmental programmes that ensure a minumum quality of life. One can imagine what a catastrophe would follow a reduction in the growth rate! Just as there is nothing worse than a worker society without work, there is nothing worse than a growth society without growth! Thus "ungrowth" cannot be envisaged unless we leave behind the growth economy and enter in a " reduction society". That means quite another organization in which leisure is valued instead of work, where social relationships count for more than the production and consumption of disposable products that are useless, if not dangerous. A great reduction in working time is necessary in order to ensure everyone has satisfying work.

We could, inspired by the "and life styles" charter put forward by the NGO Forum at Rio, bring it all together in a programme of the "Rs": Re-evaluate, Restructure, Redistribute, Reduce, Re-utilize and Recycle. These six interdependent objectives launch a virtuous cycle of growth reduction that is convivial and sustainable. Re-evaluate means looking at the values in which we believe and on which we organize our life as well as changing those that should be changed. Restructure means adapting the production system and social relationships in function with the change in values. Redistribute involves the sharing of wealth and access to our natural heritage. Reduce means diminishing the impact on the biosphere of our modes of production and consumption. This involves re-utilizing, rather than throwing away our appliances and possessions and reycling the incompressible waste material resulting from our activities. While a radical challenge to the values of modernity is imperative, that does not necessarily mean rejecting all science or refusing all techniques.

We do not deny belonging to the West whose progressive dream haunts us still. Nevertheless we aspire to an improvement in the quality of life and not to an unlimited growth of the Gross National Product. What we want are beautiful towns and countryside, uncontaminated water tables and access to drinking water, clean rivers and healthy oceans. We demand an improvement in the air we breathe and in the taste of the food we eat. There is much "progress" to be made in combatting noise, expanding green zones, preserving wild flora and fauna, and saving humanity's natural and cultural heritage, not to mention the progress to be made in democracy. Such a programme belongs to a certain ideology of progress and will require recourse to sophisticated techniques most of which have yet to be invented. It would be unfair to call us technophobes and anti-progressive on the pretext that we are demanding a "to an inventory" of progress and techniques. This is a minimum claim for the exercise of citizenship.

Post-development is the construction of an alternative society which does not necessarily take place in the same way in the North as in the South.

For the North, quite simply, a reduction in the excessive pressure of the Western impact on the biosphere is a common-sense requirement, as well as being a condition for social and ecological justice.

As for the countries of the South, which are being devastated by the negative consequences of growth in the North, it is less a question of growth reduction (or of growth, in fact) than of taking up the threads of their own history which have been broken by colonization, imperialism and by military, political, economic and cultural neo-imperialism. Reappropriating their own identities is a necessary precondition for them to apply appropriate solutions to their problems. It could be wise to reduce the production of certain crops destined for export (coffee, cacao, groundnuts, cotton, but also cut flowers, cultivated shrimps, out of season vegetables and citrus fruit) and perhaps also expand the cultivation of subsistence crops. They could also consider giving up productivist agriculture as in the North in order to reconstitute the soil and improve nutritional quality. They should no doubt also undertake agrarian reform and rehabilitate the artisanal production that has taken refuge in the informal sector, etc. It is for our friends in the South to decide what direction they want to take in constructing post-development.

In no way should the challenge to development be, or appear to be, a paternalistic and universalist enterprise that would turn it into a new form of colonization (ecological, humanitarian, etc.). The risk is that much greater in that the former colonized people have interiorized the values of the colonizers. The economic imaginary and especially the developmental mindset is certainly more widespread in the South than in the North. The victims of development tend to regard the only solution to their troubles as being what would in fact aggravate them still further. They think that the economy is the only way to resolve poverty when in fact it is the economy that gives rise to it in the first place. Development and the economy are the problem, not the solution. Those who claim the contrary are also participating in the problem.

Surviving locally

Alternative innovations should be carefully identified: self-managed cooperatives, neo-rural communities, LETS, self-organization by the excluded people in the South. These experiences that we support are interesting less for themselves than as forms of resistance and dissidence to the powerful drive towards an all-commodified world. We are not putting forward one sole model, but we try, theoretically and practically, to bring about an overall coherence to all these initiatives.

The danger of most of these alternatives is in staying in the niche that they have created for themselves at the outset, instead of working at the construction and reinforcement of a wider network. The alternative enterprise lives or survives in a milieu which is, and must be different from the globalized market. It is this dissident milieu that has to be defined, protected, maintained, reinforced and developed through resistance. Rather than fighting desperately to keep their niche within the world market, it must struggle to expand and deepen a genuine autonomous society on the periphery of the dominant economy.

The globalized market, with its brutal and often disloyal competition is not the sphere in which an alternative organization acts, or should act. It should seek after a genuine associative democracy that can lead to an autonomous society. A "of complicity" should link all the partners. As in the African "sector", it is by enriching the network of those who are linked up that creates its success. Expanding and deepening the social fabric is the secret of this success and should be the first concern of such initiatives. It is this coherence that constitutes a real alternative to the system.

In the North what comes to mind are those projects in which volunteers are trying to construct different worlds. Individuals are refusing, either totally or partially the world in which they live, trying to get something else under way, to live in a different manner, to work or produce differently within various enterprises, to reappropriate money, also for another purpose, according to another logic than that of unlimited accumulation and the massive exclusion of the losers.

In the South the world economy, with the aid of the Bretton Woods institutions, has expelled millions and millions of people from the land, destroyed their traditional way of life and taken away their means of livelihood, thrusting them and crowding them into the slums of the Third World. Hence the only way to survive is often by adopting an alternative. Those who have been "by development", those who have been abandoned to their own devices and condemned by the dominant logic to disappear have no other choice but to organize themselves according to another logic. They must invent and some at least are inventing, another system, another life.

This second form of another society is not completely separated from the first one, for two reasons. This is because the spontaneous self-organization of excluded people in the South is never completely spontaneous. There are also aspirations, projects, models, even utopias, which more or less underpin these do-it-yourself activities of informal survival.

At the same time, in the North, the "alternatives" in the North do not always have a choice. They are often the excluded the abandoned, the unemployed having finished their benefits, or potential candidates for unemployment, or simply those who have dropped out through disgust. Thus there are comings and goings between the two forms which can and should mutually enrich one another. This overall coherence thus corresponds in certain aspects to what François Partant called his "central": "to the unemployed, to ruined peasants and to everyone who wants it, the possibility of living from their work and producing outside the market economy and in conditions they themselves decide what they feel they need". [3]

If the construction of other possible worlds is to be strengthened, an awareness must be developed of the historic meaning of these initiatives. The developmentalist forces have already taken over isolated alternative enterprises and it is dangerous to underestimate the capacities of the system to hijack them. To oppose the manipulation and permanent brainwashing to which we are subjected, the building up of a vast network seems essential in order to carry out the battle for meaning.

The main objectives of the network can thus be summed up in four points:

1) conceiving and promoting resistance and dissidence to the society of growth and economic development 

2) working to reinforce the theorical and practical coherence of alternative initiatives 

3) launching genuinely autonomous and convivial societies 

4) struggling for the decolonization of the dominant economistic mindset.

Annexe

Extracts from the declaration of INCAD (International Network for Cultural Alternatives to Development) at "end of the era of development and the task of regeneration" Orford, Quebec, Canada, 4 May 1992

...The challenge today is neither crisis-management nor reform, neither restoration of damaged nature and cultures nor simple revivalism. We need a mutation which entails a deep awakening through cultural disarmament and an end to the era of development itself. Furthermore we need to commit ourselves to take concrete steps toward regeneration of nature and cultures. (...)

Therefore we call for an end to the era of development and invite the peoples of the world to begin the task of reconstructing, reharmonizing and regenerating, after the storm has passed. This may mean creating communities that will imaginatively combine the rubble of modernity with the remnants of traditions. We believe that the time has come for acknowledging the radical pluralism of our world. We need to engage in a total cultural regeneration process with the assumption that there can be no universal criteria by which this can be done. (...)

By way of examples, we can identify with the following goals as necessary first steps:

1. Progressively cancelling all debts incurred by countries of the South for development projects at the rate of 20 per cent per annum 

2. Reducing the per-capita GNP in Northern countries to the 1960 levels 

3. Stopping by adequate means the unlimited use of oil 

4. Reducing the amount of electricity used, at a rate that will allow all nuclear power plants to be shut down by the end of the decade 

5. Deconstructing the globalized model of education that is geared to sustaining Nation States and their development  regenerating systems of education of local communities in tune with their cultural and natural environment, thus sustaining the good livelihood of the communities 

6. Undertaking a massive campaign of re-education programs for the professional elites in the countries of the North and the South on the perversity of development. This will mainly consist in education about: the pauperizing myth of development and about the process of impoverishment of the majority of the world  about the sacrificing of nature's regenerative energy at the altar of the growth economy  and finally about the servitude of the professionals themselves to the GNP of the Nation States which makes them "useless" for the task of creative regeneration of local communities 

7. Transforming all aid and development agencies into decentralized local cooperatives for the acknowledgement and regeneration of knowledge, ways of life and know-how of the diverse cultures/peoples of the world  and for the pursuit of an intercultural dialogue on post-development, grass-roots movements among the peoples of the North and the South  and redirect all funds to this purpose.

KALPANA DAS, Canada/India  - GUSTAVO ESTEVA, Mexico  - SERGE LATOUCHE, France  - DOUGLAS LUMMIS, Japan/USA  - FREDERIQUE APFFEL- MARGLIN, USA  - MARIE MACDONALD, USA  - ASHIS NANDY, India  - EMMANUEL N'DIONE, Senegal  - RAIMON PANIKKAR, Spain/ Catalonia/India  - SIDNEY POBIHUSCHY, Canada  - MAJID RAHNEMA, France/Iran  - WOLFGANG SACHS, Germany  - EDITH SIZOO, Belgium - DAVID TUCHSCHNEIDER, Bolivia  - ROBERT VACHON, Canada  - SHIV VISVANATHAN, India  - HASSAN ZAOUAL, France/Morocco

[1] The special issue of L'Ecologiste (the French version of The Ecologist) dedicated to "development, redoing the world" (No. 6, Vol.2/4, winter 2001/2002) sums up the history of the movement.

[2] La Ligne d'horizon. Les Amis de François Partant. 7 villa Bourgeois, 92240 Malakoff, France

[3] (La Ligne d'horizon, La Découverte, Paris, 1988, p. 206).