BASE JURÍDICAS

The dominance of the economic paradigm has been aided and abetted by global politics: indeed, it might be said that the default setting of international development goals has been determined by geopolitical economics.

But such objectives are cloaked in a shroud of altruism, of “a selfless concern for the welfare of others, giving without regard to reward or the benefits of recognition” (Titmuss, 1970), as evident in Table 2.2, summarising official pronouncements on US intentions for development. The moral rhetoric might look like altruism, but is clouded by more covert aspirations, thus highlighting the potential distance between what we say and what we do in the name of development values.

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Table 2.2 : Good Intentions, or False Promises?

President Truman, 1949

(Rist, 2002:71-72)

“Making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas; … We hope to create the conditions that will lead eventually to personal freedom and happiness for all mankind.”

President Kennedy, 1961 Presidential Address

(Escobar, 1992:136)

“Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty. To those people…of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery…we offer a special pledge – to convert our good words into good deeds – in a new alliance for progress – to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty.”

President Johnson, 1966

(Goulet, 1973:67)

“The pages of history can be searched in vain for another power whose pursuit of that self-interest was so infused with grandeur of spirit and morality of purpose!”

McNamara, 1968 (Finnemore, 1997:210)

“In the exercise of power, aid is the moral obligation of developed nations.”

President G W Bush, 2002 (Sachs, 2005:336)

“A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day, is neither just nor stable. Including all of the world’s poor in an expanding circle of development – and opportunity – is a moral imperative and one of the top priorities of US international policy.”

The underlying messages in these statements belie worthy moral intentions, seeming more like a wolf in the clothing of Western charity. All statements in Table 2.2 embrace the superiority of the United States (US) as an example of developmental achievement, and their interest, if not intention, in imposing that dominance on the developing world. Truman at least alludes to elements of development outcomes as ‘personal freedom and happiness’ (a Eurocentric classical economic view)17

17 _{Though Esteva is moved to outrage by the ‘fiat’ that classifies two-thirds of the world as}

‘underdeveloped’ (1992:7).

, and Kennedy’s words refer to an objective of poverty reduction. Of course such grandstanding is stock-in-trade for politicians, but the meaning of ‘development’ takes on a pseudo-moral force under the guise of altruism. As Jeffrey Sachs avers, “US development policy…can be measured more in sound bites than in assistance that is truly scaled to the size of the challenge” (2005:335). Perhaps President Nixon was being more honest when he declared in 1968: “the main purpose of American aid is not to help other nations but to help ourselves”

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(quoted in Chandler, 2001:687). A similar political agenda is found in Kilby’s analysis (2007) of Australian Aid programmes (AusAid).

A closer consideration of ‘altruism’ indicates some of the hidden agenda of the political economy of development, drawing on Titmuss’ international analysis of blood donation (1970), and Vaux’s concept of the ‘selfish altruist’ (2001). Titmuss points out that altruism is “determined by the values and cultural orientations permeating the donor system and society in general” (op cit:73). In a similar vein Vaux describes how a ‘selfish gene’ can intrude on humanitarian interventions: there is scope for aid workers “to choose whom to help and whom to ignore, to enjoy a sense of power and to overlook the capacity of those we help” (2001:2). Thus, for both Vaux and Titmuss, altruism is a humanitarian value, with fishhooks. Altruism could be said to be the foundation of Northern funding of development in the South, and the life-blood of NGDO sources for private donor funding, but the international aid business denies the real results that could be expected from altruistic values (Malhotra, 2000; Moore, 2006).

This section has illustrated how the humanist perspective has been forced under the dominant tectonic plate of economism. The earthquakes and volcanic activities of civil rights movements, of nationalist and inter-nicene conflict, of the ‘war against terrorism’ have caused little disruption to the fundamental operations of the economic development paradigm.

2.8

Summary

A brief survey of the dual approaches of the economic and humanist paradigms of development has been offered in this chapter, recounting their common origin, the value bases of each paradigm and their dialectical opposition. Discussion has highlighted how values are ever-present in the theory and practice of development, and in paradoxical outcomes, thus indicating the importance of articulating values and their sources. The next chapter takes a closer investigation of the nature of development values.

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Chapter 3 – The Architecture of Values -27-