Developmentalism

Abstract

Marxist or Marxism-inspired criticism focuses on global capitalism for having exacerbated problems of social injustice and conflict in contemporary societies globally. The discussion here suggests the necessity of closer attention to an ideological and cultural predisposition that has facilitated the globalization of capitalism: developmentalism, or the fetishization of development, that has rendered development into a horse race between nations and corporations regardless of its consequences for human welfare. The discussion takes up ten problems that are revealing of the sharpening contradictions of global capitalism, followed by a critique of developmentalism informed by seminal works of Indian scholars who played a leading part in raising the issue beginning in the 1960s. It suggests by way of conclusion that given the looming ecological crisis sharpened by global capitalism, closer attention is called for to philosophical systems that stress harmony between humans and nature, prominent among them those associated with indigenous belief systems.