Economic development and social welfare in the third world: The end of romance

Abstract

Since World War 2, economic and social development strategies - including the social service approach to development - have largely failed in the third world. Hundreds of millions of people remain very poor; their number may even be increasing. Perhaps billions of people live under predatory political regimes. The small economic advances carry large prices: population increase and growing inequality. While a large amount of the failure may be due to a continued first world imperialism, third world cultures have not been hospitable to change. Romantic notions of third world cultures are themselves barriers to change. If the third world is going to achieve a material sufficiency for its people then it may have to retrace many of the same experiences of industrialized societies, most notably the development of a civil culture in support of economic development. This suggests an emphasis upon a direct social strategy in pursuit of economic development in the third world.