Much of the confused and mistaken thought and practice regarding development derives from the fact that almost all people take for granted a particular and highly objectionable conception of what development is, when there are other and very different conceptions that are almost never recognised.

The conventional conception of development sees the problem essentially in terms of increasing the amount of economic activity going on, i.e., the amount of production for sale. The key to this goal is to increase investment, so productive capacity can be increased. Therefore savings must be increased, loans sought, and foreign investment encouraged. Exports must be increased, in order to earn the money needed to import things that can't be produced yet, and to accumulate tax revenue needed to build the infrastructures such as power stations that foreign investors and local entrepreneurs need. Labour must be supplied to the new businesses and so people must be encouraged to leave their subsistence villages. In recent years there has been increasing emphasis on the importance of maximising the freedom for individuals and firms to trade without regulation and interference with market forces. This is claimed to maximise the efficiency of economic processes, whereas government regulation can prevent capital from flowing to where it can be most productive.

The conventional development economist admits that this process will greatly increase inequalities, and the few with capital and access to education will get most of the benefit, but the claim is that in time there will be trickle down benefits to all.

The concern in this paper is not with how badly this conventional approach to development has worked out, but it should be noted that it has been extremely unsatisfactory for most of the world's people. (Trainer, 1989, 1995, 1997.) It has certainly produced a great deal of development, but almost all of it has only been of benefit to the rich few in the world. Most of the poorest people in the Third World have not only gained very little, many have lost the productive capacity they used to have as their economies have been developed only into those forms that serve the rich. Many are now actually getting poorer. The UN's 1996 Human Development Report , (1996) emphasises that one third of the world's people, 1.6 billion, are actually getting poorer from year to year. There is an increasing amount of literature saying that conventional development has failed and cannot solve the problems. Globalisation is making this situation worse. (See for example Chossudovsky, 1996.)

The concern in this paper is to make clear that almost all discussion of development is only about the capitalist conception of development when many other conceptions are possible. Conventional development must be understood as involving a theory and practice which allows development to be determined by what suits those with capital to invest. It is most unfortunate that many people have no idea that there is or could be any alternative to this particular, warped and highly objectionable conception.

Let us look at the key elements in the conventional conception of development.

1. Development is taken to be primarily about increasing production and consumption. Conventional development theory simply takes economic growth as the supreme, indeed often the sole goal. Obviously increasing sales, business turnover and the GDP is the top priority for those with capital to invest.

2. The key to development is therefore seen as investment. Conventional development theorists insist that it is important to encourage and assist those with capacity to produce. But produce what? Produce what people, society and the environment need? The most basic point to be understood about capitalist development is that people with capital never develop and produce the things that are most urgently needed. They only produce things that will maximise their profits, and these are always industries and goods for relatively rich people, especially for the Third World rich and for export to the rich countries.

3. Because development is primarily about increasing economic activity as much as possible it is necessary to become heavily involved in the global economy, to host foreign investment, to trade a lot, to take loans. This is great for the corporations and the banks of the rich countries because it means they can do lots of profitable business. They can buy your exports, get access to your resources, sell you imports, set up mines and factories, organise loans, etc. If on the other hand the Third World had adopted a conception of development which put a high priority on national independence and autonomy and sought to minimise economic relations with outsiders, the corporations and banks of the rich world would be able to do far less business.

4. The supreme goal in conventional development is growth; i.e., increasing the volume of production and consumption over time, without any limit in sight, without any point at which we might say, "We have now had enough development", or "We are now developed." This is again most important for those with capital, because they want to go on investing their ever-increasing quantities of capital and that means they want to see the total volume of producing and selling that is taking place increase without end.

5. Conventional development theory seeks to maximise the "freedom of enterprise" and the scope for market forces. This means allowing those with capital and those with most money to spend, to produce, buy and sell and develop whatever suits them. Governments are increasingly discouraged from regulating or influencing development because this would be to "interfere with market forces". This is precisely the arrangement wanted by those with capital to invest. They do not want their capacity to go after the maximum return on investment to be restricted in any way.

This explains the most glaring contradictions in any country, rich or poor, i.e., the fact that great and unmet need exists alongside development of frivolous, luxuries and wasteful industries and products, and production that is only for the rich. This happens because those with capital are allowed the freedom to produce what is most profitable for them. This is most obvious where millions go hungry in countries exporting large quantities of luxury crops to rich countries. However, to develop what is appropriate in view of the needs of people and their environments would be to make sure the productive capacity went into the right purposes, not into those ventures that would maximise profits -- but this is precisely what does not happen when the conventional, capitalist development path, with its emphasis on freedom for corporations, is taken.

To put this in another way, conventional development is indiscriminate; it allows those with capital to produce whatever they like, wherever they like, and to sell it to whoever they like. Society is not supposed to be able to say, "But that is unnecessary", or "But only the rich could buy that" or "There are things that should be produced first." Central in an appropriate development strategy would be making sure that scarce development resources went firstly into the most urgent developments and products, but this would not be what those with capital would want to have to do.

If you allow market forces to determine resource distribution, the rich will get almost all of them and those in most need will get few if any. This is why one-third of the world's grain production goes to feed animals in rich countries while at least 800 million are hungry. If you allow market forces to determine what is developed the result will be mostly the development of inappropriate industries. This is why most of the development taking place in the Third World is not of industries that will produce the things most urgently needed. Clearly the market is an appallingly inefficient and unjust mechanism for determining the allocation of resources and for determining what is developed.

All these elements in the conventional approach to development are precisely the procedures and principles that capitalists want, and clearly all contradict what would happen in any morally defensible or appropriate development strategy. Globalisation constitutes a vast and rapid increase in the extent to which corporations and banks are getting access to and taking control of Third World productive capacity, resources and markets. Conventional development is increasingly being recognised as plunder, as little more than a process whereby Third World economies become geared to producing for the benefit of rich countries and their corporations. (Goldsmith, 1997, Chossudowsky, 1997, Rist, 1997, Trainer 1995a.)

An infinite number of non-capitalist development models could be imagined. For example the goal of development could be to increase a society's religiosity, so building temples might be the main construction focus, and the work week might be reduced so that people had more time for worship.

Thus it is up to a society to select a conception of development. It is quite wrong to assume that there is only one process which constitutes development, and which the rich countries have undergone, and the only question is how to get it going in poor countries. Following is a very different conception of development to the conventional or capitalist conception, one which can be labelled "appropriate" development.

1. No attention whatsoever is given to the GDP. The goal of development will emphatically not be to increase it. Firstly, because global resources are extremely scarce and dwindling the top priority for a sustainable world order is to reduce resource use and therefore the amount of producing and consuming going on, as much as possible. Secondly, as has been explained above, to increase the GDP has little or nothing to do with improving the quality of life of most people, or improving social cohesion or improving the environment. In fact all these things are deteriorating in rich countries now. (See for instance Easterlin, 1972, on the fact that a rising GDP is not accompanied by a rising levels of happiness, and Eckersley 1997, on falling quality of life measures in rich countries.)

2. The goal is emphatically not to reach the "high living standard", the affluent-consumer society of the rich countries. That is totally impossible for all people. A few have it only because they are taking far more than a fair share of world resources, and this condemns billions of people to serious deprivation. The goal of development must be to provide humble, frugal but quite sufficient material living standards to all. This means putting relatively little emphasis on production and consumption as a social goal, but focusing on other things, such as cultural development, ceremonies, leisure, community building, improving the environment, education etc. By opting for The Simpler Way and against the high consumption way we will avoid many terrible traps, like having to work far too hard, having to become heavily dependent on the global economy and the corporations and banks, having to compete frantically against all others to win export markets, having to get into impossible levels of debt and having to face up to Structural Adjustment Packages and thus losing control over your own economy.

It must be stressed that the appropriate development strategy is not a different means to the conventional development goal of a rich world economy and rich world "living standards". Central in the concept of appropriate development is the rejection of affluent living standards as impossible for all (Trainer, 1995), ecologically unsustainable and as a mistake because they do not deliver a high quality of life or a cohesive society.

3. What then is the goal? What is appropriate development all about? It is simply to enable people to apply their resources, their labour and skills and the land and other productive resources around them to building those relatively simple things that will do most to meet their most important needs, provide a high quality of life to all, develop a cohesive and stable society, and ensure a sustainable environment. This is easily done...if this goal is clearly and genuinely adopted.

It is not at all difficult for ordinary people to work cooperatively to build the gardens, dwellings, schools, health clinics, dams, stores and small firms and the social arrangements which can quickly and easily cater to the basic needs of all...if this is what people wish to do and if governments and development agencies focus on these goals. The responsibility of governments and aid agencies is to facilitate this process, to provide resources and expertise where necessary, and to enable those infrastructures and industries most likely to contribute.

Many Third World villages are already close to this goal; many need little change in order to provide well for all their people, via "living standards" that are extremely low in rich world terms and without many high-tech and expensive products and infrastructures. Possibly the most impressive example is given by traditional village life in Ladakh, where it is difficult to see what further development is needed, given that people have a very high quality of life, very strong community and spiritual life, and live happily, in ecologically sustainable ways. (Norberg-Hodge, 1991.) You could argue that Ladakh is a better-developed society than any rich country, despite a GDP per person of approximately $0!

4. The focal concern must be developing small scale highly self-sufficient economies, especially at the level of villages and their surrounding regions. Mostly small firms will provide things needed in the local region, using local resources. Large scale economies involving much transporting of inputs and products are not ecologically sustainable.

5. Development must be under participatory and cooperative control by society. What is to be developed will mostly be decided and organised by people in their small local regions, through cooperative and participatory processes. Central governments will not make most of the decisions, but will aim at assisting local communities, e.g., with advisory services, and they will organise those few large central industries that are needed to provide the small regions with basic items, for instance steel. Thus the focus of development will be, as Gandhi said, the village and the regions in which most ordinary people live, not the city, industry, tourism, or the arenas where capital-intensive and technically sophisticated development now focuses.

6. Trade very little. Establish the industries that will provide you with most of the basic things you need, then trade only surpluses or things you can easily sell, in order to be able to import the few important things you can't produce. Avoid the serious mistake of exporting lots of cheap commodities in the hope of earning enough money to be able to pay for the importation of things you need. The world's trading systems are designed by and to benefit the rich countries; you will be seriously disadvantaged if you become heavily dependent on them.

7. Only allow in those foreign investors willing to produce what you need, where you want it, and on your terms. This means very few will want to come in! Consider net benefits carefully. Usually it is far better if people work in local enterprises producing things local people need, than if they work for wages in a corporation and then buy imported goods.

8. Adopt mostly simple, appropriate technologies. Traditional ways are often quite adequate, although minor improvements can often be made. Don't become dependent on external experts or spare parts or sources of capital. Make sure you can maintain your own technologies.

9. Borrow very little, if anything. When you have opted for relatively simple lifesltyles, and rejected the notion that development is about attracting foreign investment and winning the competition for exports and therefore about large infrastructure projects, you realise that little capital or imported technology or machinery is needed for appropriate development.

10. Don't put much emphasis on "efficiency". Conventional economists will tell you that to follow the appropriate path will be to make inefficient use of your resources. For example they will argue that it is more efficient to put resources into exporting the things in which you have a "comparative advantage" and importing things you could make but not as efficiently as foreign corporations can. However this leads to dependence on the export of the one or few items that many other poor countries are also trying to export.

The top priority must be to provide for yourself the basic necessities, regardless of whether you can do this as efficiently as someone else can. There will always be some foreign corporation that could produce anything you can produce more efficiently than you can, but it is usually much more important to be able to provide for yourself at a slower and more costly pace than to buy from the cheapest supplier. At least you are then secure. If you buy the cheapest, then you are locked into having to export a lot to pay for lots of imports, and thus into very insecure dependence on global commodity markets.

By "efficient" conventional economists only mean most profitable. Thus the most "efficient" investments are those that yield most return. This means it is more "efficient" to put land into exporting luxury crops than into feeding hungry people!

11. Preserve and restore cultural traditions. This will be facilitated by the fact that relatively little time and attention and resources will need to be given to producing and consuming.

12. Put much emphasis on the development or preservation of community, social solidarity, cohesion and cooperation. Emphasise public goods, communal resources and property, public service, giving, sharing, cooperation, working for the common good, working bees and committees and town meetings. Discourage individualism, competition and acquisitiveness. (This does not mean society must be totally collective; it could still have private property and private enterprise.)

13. Preserve and restore the environment. This will not be difficult when the affluent consumer way has been rejected, and trade with the global economy has been minimised.

14. Above all, be content to plod at a relaxed pace! Avoid the trap of having to compete frantically against everyone else, and having to beat everyone else or die. In conventional development you must run with the fastest or be trampled. Instead get into the situation where you can just move along at your own comfortable pace, secure in the knowledge that you can always meet your own needs in your own ways. Work out the most easy pace for yourself, providing most of the things you need for a high quality of life, in control of your own fate, independent of the global economy and the rich world corporations and banks. Let the others race after higher GDP, the latest technology, luxury consumption, the scarce export markets, and the most sophisticated fashions and sports cars. Those things are irrelevant to appropriate development and a high quality of life.

The appropriate path will probably provide quite adequate material living standards and a good quality of life to all in five years at most. The evidence indicates that the conventional path will never do this for the poor majority of the world's people.

Chossudowsky, M. (1997), The Globalisation of Poverty, London, Zed.

Easterlin, R. A., (1972), "Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence.", in D. A. David and M. W. Reder, (Eds.), Nations and Households in Economic Growth, Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Eckersley, R., (1997), Perspectives on Progress; Is Life Getting Better?, Canberra, CSIRO.

Goldsmith, E., (1997), "Development as colonialism", in J. Mander and E. Goldsmith, The Case Against the Global Economy, San Francisco, Sierra.

Norberg-Hodge, H., (1991), Ancient Futures; Learning From Ladakh, San Francisco, Sierra.

Rist, G., (1997), The History of Development, London, Zed Books.

Trainer, T. (F. E.), (1989), Developed to Death, London, Greenprint.

Trainer, T. (F. E.), (1995), The Conserver Society; Alternatives for Sustainability, London, Zed Books.

Trainer, F. E. (T.), (1997), "Why development is impossible", Scandanavian Journal of Development and Area Studies, Sept-Dec.

Trainer, F. E. (T.), (1999), "The limits to growth case in the 1990s", The Environmentalist, 19, 329 -339.