Beyond Mainstream Development: The Moral Economy Alternative

Abstract

Calls for moral economy abound as evidence accumulates of growing social, ecological and racialized failings of mainstream development conceived as a Westerncentric/Eurocentric construct largely driven by the notion of ‘economic growth’ as basis of development. There is now a considerable and diverse literature on contradictions of the mainstream development, including questions of inequality, climate change vulnerability, white racism, modern slavery, child labor, terrorism, new nationalism, decline of multilateralism at post-Brexit Europe and more recently COVID-19 pandemic-which has exacerbated existing poverty and inequality in the Global South. Yet these growing concerns are neglected in mainstream development discourse. Importantly, the broader landscape within which climate change, modern slavery, white racism, ecological and human security is situated is increasingly changing bringing new challenges to the understanding and rational of mainstream development. In view of this context, this article makes a new contribution to the debate on the failures of the mainstream development in post-pandemic world order. Building on post development debate, it argues that there are several disconnects, tensions and contradictions between the economic growth model and more ethical and equitable treatment of development. It proffers a moral economy and what makes it an alternative model and draws new distinctions between development as economic growth, which inhibits an understanding of moral economy that can address more directly the underlying contradictions of mainstream development in an historically asymmetrical global system.

KEYWORDS:

• moral economy
• inequality
• climate change
• poverty
• underdevelopment
• global South

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

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Luke Amadi

Luke Amadi holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Port Harcourt. He is a distinguished international scholar. Dr Amadi's work has been a primer for PhD, Masters and Undergraduate students of leading universities across Europe, North America and Asia. He has presented papers in international conferences across the continent. Dr Amadi has publications in scholarly journals and has won several academic awards. In 2022 as part of the International Open Access week, Dr Amadi was awarded the prestigious Elsevier Open Science Award 2022 to celebrate his contribution to open science with his publication; Globalization and the Changing Liberal International Order: A Review of the Literature. The article was linked to the UN SDGs and between 2020 and 2021 it received a total of 89,136 downloads, thereby helping to tackle some of the world's challenges (SDGs 10 & 13). His research interest intersects Social and Ecological Justice, Security, International Political Economy, Sustainable Development Studies, African Politics. He is a member of various professional bodies including Development Studies Association of Ireland (DSAI). He is presently Guest Editor at Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK.