Fitting People Into Development

Since World War II a new, avowedly humanitarian movement toward dealing with poverty and instability in the Third World has taken shape: foreign economic development programs and parallel military assistance known collectively in Congressional shorthand as "foreign aid." Ostensibly, these programs are designed to raise the living standards of the seriously disadvantaged. But contradictions exist which make this ultimate purpose questionable-to say the least.

Guy Gran's voluminous, meticulously documented study makes a strong case that the "development" components of foreign aid programs have largely failed to meet the humanitarian objectives claimed for them, and argues convincingly that in many cases the failure reflects conscious policy decisions by the global power structures of developed and developing nations alike. The book will not please advocates of generous bank credit and constant GNP growth as the major tools of development.

Little of this will come as news to specialists from the left, who (along with a considerable number of their colleagues from the more conventional establishment community) have argued for years that present forms of foreign aid largely are self-serving, and can do more harm that good. President Carter, for instance, defended his foreign aid programs before Congress with the contention that 75 percent of the money appropriated would be spent in the U.S.

Development by People, however, takes a more radical-some would say idealistic rather than politically feasible-approach than most other experts. Gran quotes with approval economic historian Immanuel Wallerstein's dictum that in capitalist societies "...the politico-military machinery can frequently best serve to maximize profit by permitting starvation, both literally and figuratively." In others words, in times of recession, the lives of the poor are unprofitable to elites as consumers and in a time of burgeoning automation and world population they are not all needed as producers.

Gran sees current U.S. development programs as mechanisms supporting the world system of economic-political domination by elite groups, mostly transnational corporations. He maintains that socio-economic programs and political awareness on the part of the poor are deliberately kept low in the interests of the "padrones." The real choices soon to be presented by the current world system, he writes, are "extermination. ..or prolitarianization." The latter choice could involve the widespread "freezing" of social status, as in ancient Rome, by making trades hereditary.

Gran's proposed alternative is participation by the poor themselves in the design and execution of locally controlled group programs to improve their quality of life, a method which also presupposes much prior political education (or to use Gran's word, "conscientization") and at least a modicum of popular power.

In Gran's scenario, small is beautiful, and development projects would be conducted in a fashion as insulated as possible from elite interference. Initial leadership would come from specialists unconnected with any government, corporation, or other world-system organ. Most would involve the use of private volunteer specialists or representatives of charitable agencies, including the educated youth of First and Third World countries. Unfortunately, these suggestions lose some of their potential impact as a result of the author's uncompromising use of the academic and technical jargon characteristic of world development scholarship.

The book is no less valuable for this, and Gran also is well aware that the attempted practice of microdevelopment at the levels he proposes would meet with the immediate opposition of existing power structures in rich and poor countries alike. But he does not quail at the probability that any future development effort involving a genuine redistribution of wealth and power will be met with violence no less often than it is today. The following passage in this vein illustrates his attitude towards popular revolution:

"When laws are used as a means of oppression, they will have to be eliminated or changed. This cannot always be done peacefully, and those involved in international development must think through the practical and philosophical issue involved. Most of Western education is ill suited for this task. Capitalist ideology, based on the preservation of private property at all costs, displays a singularly ambivalent view of violence. Used to protect or extend property rights of the rich. it is defensible; used for similar goals by the poor, it is deemed indefensible, indeed revolutionary.. .The poor themselves must weigh the pain of the status quo against the potential of bloodshed and reprisal."

It is difficult to see how Third World governments-particularly those of the oppressive variety-might be bypassed successfully to permit the implementation of the author's "new direction" for foreign aid. Such schemes have been tried in the past, largely by church-affiliated organizations, but even small-scale efforts have met with hostility. They would most certainly be opposed as well by any U.S, administration which may be elected in the foreseeable future.

Even more controversial is the author's advocacy of minifundia as a substitute for latifundia within communities of the poor. The concept runs head on into the traditional hostility of establishment landowners to any redistribution program. The dismantlement of most recent attempts at land reform in El Salvador, and the ensuing civil war there, provides a particularly bloody example of the extent to which elite power structures are willing to carry their resistance to any change perceived as a threat to their interests.

Development by People includes a formidable and selective bibliography of items comprising more than 2,000 current titles, which, together with the text, will provide a wealth of information and insight for serious students of world development, particularly those interested in "alternative" forms of genuinely participatory foreign assistance which are well outside of current establishment models.

Gran concludes that his proposals call for the establishment of a new academic discipline, described as "humanistic economics," which would focus on improvement of the human condition rather than growth of the Gross National Product.

Such a discipline could help persuade the globe's current power brokers that a posture which holds it more profitable to murder the poor, starve them, or let them die of disease, rather than to improve the quality of their lives, can only result in the continuing debasement of the human race.

Vincent Wilber is a former Foreign Service Officer and legislative assistant for foreign affairs in the U. S. Senate.