{"id":91967,"date":"2013-06-17T02:34:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T21:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=91967"},"modified":"2013-06-30T01:24:13","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T19:54:13","slug":"development-as-development-of-the-heart-why-are-we-so-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/development-as-development-of-the-heart-why-are-we-so-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Development As Development Of The Heart: Why Are We So Poor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Vagisha I. Gunasekara<\/a><\/span> –\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Vagisha Gunasekara<\/p><\/div>\n

What is the biggest ethical challenge facing us today?\u00a0 The reality that we have let economics guide our lives, and in doing so, we have devalued people and the associated virtues of respect, cooperation, empathy, and compassion.\u00a0 The primacy that we have allotted to economics underlies and complicates daily challenges we face; do the following – \u201cstressed and tired\u201d, \u201cjuggling work and home\u201d, \u201csurrounded by selfish individuals\u201d, \u201cled by uncaring politicians\u201d, \u201cin strained relationships\u201d, \u201cconstantly pressed for time\u201d, \u201cnever enough money, even for the basics\u201d sound familiar?\u00a0 In other words, we have been carried away by the pragmatics of the \u201cbottom line\u201d dominate our decision-making, turning money, which is essentially a means, into an end in itself, while turning people, ethically understood as \u201cends in themselves\u201d (according to Immanuel Kant) into mere means.\u00a0 The idea that money is a resource that should be used to serve our ethical ends\u2014ensuring that our society functions in a way that addresses the needs of everyone\u2014is increasingly losing its allure; instead due to our collective preoccupation with money, we have discarded our responsibility to individual and societal development and lost touch with our values, morals, and relationships with our community and the environment.\u00a0 This shift to market that aims at transforming society as a whole into a \u2018market society\u2019, has not only influenced the behaviour of individuals, government institutions, NGOs, and private organizations active in the domains of development, but also dampened intellectual diversity of ideas about human progress.<\/p>\n

Do We Have Our Priorities Right?<\/p>\n

Money-making is the raison d\u2019\u00eatre of the modern human civilization.\u00a0 At the individual level, many of us, encouraged by parents and society, embrace wealth accumulation as our prime achievement.\u00a0 Though most of us cannot afford to revolt against such goals created by the market culture, we must not underestimate the lasting impact such values have on our lives and the society at large.\u00a0 For example, these goals induce pressure on our educational institutions to reshuffle their priorities in favour of the pragmatic goal of preparing young people for the workforce, as if technical knowledge and the skills of obedience and productivity are more important than history, identity, meaning, purpose, values, creativity, and vision.\u00a0 In the business world, many investors do not see investing as a moral act, but a financial one. Instead of approaching investment as an opportunity to use their extra money to support those businesses they believe are serving society the best, these investors are motivated simply to use their extra money to make even more money for themselves:\u00a0 they choose to invest in what they think will be most profitable, regardless of whether the values the companies they invest in line up with their own.<\/p>\n

The market culture has reduced people to being consumers.\u00a0 Our addiction to consumerism is not only promoted, but also required by the capitalist economic process which is driven by interminable desire for profits and consumption.\u00a0 According to the World Watch Institute (2013), there are now more than 1.7 billion members of the \u201cconsumer class\u201d\u2014nearly 50% of them in the developing world.\u00a0 A lifestyle and culture that became common in Europe, North America, Japan, and a few other pockets of the world in the 20th<\/sup> Century is going global in the 21st<\/sup>.\u00a0 Worldwide, the amount spent on goods and services at the household level\u2014topped US$20 trillion in 2000, a four-fold increase over 1960 (in 1995 US$); and between 1950 and 1990 more goods and services were consumed than by all generations in human history!\u00a0 But the irony is that a high level of consumption does not necessarily guarantee happiness (Happy Planet Index 2006; Diener & Kahneman 2013 \u2013 Gallup Organization).\u00a0 According to the study, individuals can live long and happy lives without using more than their \u201cfair share\u201d of resources.\u00a0 Data shows that many poorer countries achieve levels of life satisfaction just as high as their wealthier counterparts, implying that above a minimum level, there is no apparent correlation between per capita income and life satisfaction.\u00a0 In fact, a recent study \u201cLife in a Time of Food Price Volatility\u201d (Oxfam\/IDS 2012) shows that for most individuals in developed as well as developing countries, \u201chome life is less harmonious, with the unpaid work of care left undone or shouldered by harassed working mothers, tired grandparents or children\u201d, begging the question as to whether we are chasing a mirage with our current model of development.<\/p>\n

We often spout fashionable terms like \u201csustainable development\u201d, but do our daily activities and behaviour reflect the type of \u201cdevelopment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs\u201d (Bruntland Report 1987)?\u00a0 Instead, we constantly engage in arguments about whether it is realistic<\/em> to convince states to live within their ecological means, with open, localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions, or whether it is fair<\/em> to convince individuals that limits on material wealth and comfort are required to secure the environment for future generations.<\/p>\n

What is the impediment, then?\u00a0 We have a structural problem:\u00a0 the over emphasis on economics has resulted in a de-emphasis on profoundly important things such as, relationships with other humans as well as with nature.\u00a0 This pandemic in turn has lead to an unsustainable world where everyone wants more and more – giving into our desires at every turn, rather than exercising control and limits. Such irresponsible behaviour is applauded in the current world which values consumption over restraint.\u00a0 This hierarchy of values, has seeped into our institutional structures (education, labour, politics, economy), through which disruptive social norms are endorsed and crystallized (Giri 2012; Loy 1997).\u00a0 Most of us take great pride in conforming to this socially-constructed hierarchy of values, defining ourselves, our worth, and success in terms of money and power, go through our entire lifetime without realizing the lasting negative impact that we are leaving behind.<\/p>\n

What is the Way Forward?<\/p>\n

Traditional economic theory posits that physical resources are finite while our cravings are infinite.\u00a0 As such, failure to reacquaint ourselves with the idea of self-limitation is a recipe for disaster.\u00a0 But again, this is not an inherent or necessary problem:\u00a0 it is socially constructed largely by how we have prioritized money above values and relationships.\u00a0 Individuals can and do transcend this constructed dichotomy, and collectively we can choose to dismantle it by changing how money and power function in society.\u00a0 We can start by thinking and talking more honestly about money, exposing and critically examining the mythology of economics representing the common good.\u00a0 There is a paradox in this mythology: on the one hand, we moralize money, associating wealth with virtue; on the other hand, we regard money as morally neutral. In this paradox, perhaps we strive to create a non-moral value system by which to run our lives, but that itself is only a clever disguise for the re-emergence of \u201cmight makes right.\u201d\u00a0 What gets lost is human dignity.<\/p>\n

Development is about the well-being of people, and so it is values, relationships, and ethics that should be the end while money is merely one kind of means.\u00a0 It is not unrealistic to hold each other accountable to this standard and insist that our financial policies and social institutions uphold this ideal as well. It is imperative.\u00a0 There is no inherent reason why living true to our ideals or doing what is best for society, the global community, or the planet should be economically impossible.\u00a0 On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that our fundamental task is exactly to pool our resources, financial and otherwise, to solve these problems.\u00a0 Reintroducing the idea of restraint, personal limits, and spiritual growth into this highly commoditized and monetized world is an uphill battle.\u00a0 But we have to start somewhere.<\/p>\n

*The Centre for Poverty Analysis(CEPA) is an independent, Sri Lankan think-tank promoting a better understanding of poverty related development issues.\u00a0<\/em>Vagisha Gunasekara is a Senior Research Professional at the Centre for Poverty Analysis, Sri Lanka. \u00a0Vagisha received her PhD in political science from Purdue University, USA. \u00a0Her research straddles issues at the intersection of post-war reconstruction, gender, feminism and international relations.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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