Crisis of Development

The simultaneous presence of tremendous prosperity and widespread poverty is today’s core conundrum. This is known as a crisis of development.  Development is the approach of planned social change that people find desirable. In other words, “development” marks the beginning of a new stage or a shift in circumstances. The word “development” implies that something good or desirable is being sought. There is a crisis in development. The result of growth is a type of un-development that takes the shape of population displacement, loss of jobs and livelihood, anxiety and stress, and migration. As a means of promoting the wellbeing of the population, marginalised groups are subject to displacement and racial discrimination.

Crisis of Development

Post-1980 modern neoliberal development, based on the belief that free-market freedom can solve such issues as economic growth and unemployment, effective distribution of resources, and economic crises, has led to a new wave of commodification. It was two-pronged in this new wave of commodification. Public sector privatisation and the commercialisation of public sector logic were two distinct approaches to the privatisation of public sector firms. Throughout the 2000s, a new phase of “accumulation by dispossession,” as described by David Harvey, was taking place, characterised by a gradual implementation of post-Washington consensus policies. That’s why post-World War II development discourse and practices failed to provide much of what was promised to late capitalist countries.

Financial inclusion and its enhancement have been a focus of recent advancements in the market-centered approach to development. It is suggested that these practices will lead to greater economic growth. As personal debt surged worldwide in the 2000s, it is easy to predict that financial inclusion initiatives suggested at the time will lead to increased family debt. As a result, the market-based solution proposed in response to the crisis of development is a framework that may be described as “more of the same.”

Emerging from neoliberal constraints, new developmental suggestions called for “returning to origin to execute specific industrial policies” to re-energise stagnant economies. However, the problem with this strategy is that it places the state as the main force of this type of development framework at a time when the relative autonomy of the state is becoming increasingly limited. The reason is that the state they are referring to is not the same as the current state. When it comes to neoliberal policies, the state is no more simply an active senator but is increasingly controlled like a business itself.

Despite their differing theoretical frameworks and social-political alliances, both neoliberal and state-centered proposals take the capitalist development process for granted and thus have not been able to provide satisfactory responses to the inequalities and crisis tendencies inherent in this process. This process serves as a metaphor for the current state of development as a whole. With this in mind, there is clearly a massive discrepancy between what was promised to late capitalist countries in the post-1945 era and what occurred.

Instances of a crisis of development are as follows:

• Due to uncontrolled urban development, there have been several floods and their consequences have exacerbated
• The effects of global warming
• Pollution
• Disparities between regions

Major Crisis of Development in India

Economic activity has been concentrated in a few densely populated megacities, which has resulted in India’s unparalleled economic growth during the previous two decades. It has been difficult to expand the engines of growth to the less congested secondary cities. To attract manufacturing companies, only districts that have strengthened their physical and human infrastructure have attracted them. This phenomenon has had an impact on the labour market, income distribution, and personal growth.

Sustainable Development

To achieve sustainable development, human societies must meet their own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their requirements. The Brundtland Report, published in 1987, was the first to provide an “official” definition of sustainable development. Ecological concerns are becoming increasingly intertwined. Local-global connections in ecological views and movements are becoming more prominent. International dialogues and conferences on international protocols and environmental regimes are taking place simultaneously as various groups and communities around the world express their concerns about the environment. We must recognise and engage with today’s evolving local-global conflicting and converging forces to grasp the ecological politics of our time in any depth. Many local-global factors are debated in the “sustainable development” conceptual and policy arena. Ecological concepts must be explained more concretely.

Conclusion

Ecology, environment, and development are all intertwined in this unit. It examines how social theory deals with the issue of ecology and the environment and which results in a crisis of development.  When it comes to the ‘environmental issue,’ we know that most solutions will remain superficial and palliative unless humanity as a whole acknowledges that we are a part of nature, and that nature has its boundaries. This knowledge (or lack thereof) has significant ramifications for the kind of society and government that will need to be built in the future. Many other areas, such as ideology, development, technical options, and consumer autonomy are also profoundly affected. It also tries to delve into the massive environmental crisis that the current development practices have caused. It was clear that finding solutions to this dilemma would offer enormous difficulties in developing sensible, ecological viewpoints. Finally, in this section, we examined a different way to manage resources.