1. ‘The only kind of development that matters is economic growth – everything else will follow.’ Critically discuss.

`The only kind of development that matters is economic growth - everything else will follow

1 . Introduction

The achievement of rapid and steady economic growth is one of the foremost objectives of nations and economies . There is widespread belief that economic growth is the precursor for all other improvement and is the foremost necessity for ensuring the well being of peoples . During the last three hundred years , most of Asia , Africa and the Americas have been ravaged and devastated by rampant European colonisation , which stemmed from trade , imperialism and forceful occupation

. The effects of European colonisation , led to the enslavement of millions of Africans the establishment of indentured labour , the decimation of Native Americans and Australian aboriginals , the subjugation and occupation of many nations like India , Burma , the countries of South East Asia , Africa and South America . European colonisation also led to the creation and furtherance of vast swathes of poverty , terrible human misery and frightful backwardness in most of these areas

The period commencing from the end of the Second World War saw many of these countries casting away the shackles of slavery and emerging as independent nations . India was , in 1947 , one of the first countries to achieve independence from British rule and was followed by many other Asian and African countries like Indonesia and Burma . The freedom of most of these countries also brought home to the world their terrible plight and lack of human development , caused mainly by centuries of rapacious European rule . Many of these infant nations started charting their individual paths towards economic growth and the welfare of their people . Most of them had common problems , those of abject poverty agricultural economies , absence of industrial production and base gender inequality , rampant superstition , vast income differences between the rich and poor , illiteracy and lack of educational facilities , lack of drinking water and sanitation , and a myriad such problems . The commencement of the fifties saw most nations of the third world embarking on a path of rapid economic growth . The USA and international financial institutions helped many of these countries to accelerate their growth process by giving aid and loans for development of roads dams and other infrastructural projects

Development by economic and material growth has been the predominant model for the third world since the Second World War . Initially , this was led by large loans from wealthy countries for infrastructural projects to promote industrialisation . In the 1980s , structural adjustment was demanded through institutions such as the International Monetary Fund , with the aim of removing barriers to economic growth (Martin , 2006

Proponents of the benefits of economic growth are vehement in their conviction of economic growth being the cure for all the ills that constrain the lives of the poor and underprivileged of third world countries . These economists base their reasoning mainly on the effects of economic growth on the development of western countries and currently , upon the economies of China and India

The potential benefits from economic growth are huge , and are seen clearly in how...