First
World
|
Second World
|
Third
World
|
Private
capitalism
Political +
Economic
|
Command
Socialism
Economic +
Social
|
Human needs
Social + Economic
|
The first world of advanced capitalist societies reflects patterns of representative or formal democracy and private ownership of the means of production, usually in concert with state policy, including planning and action favouring capitalism.
The second world of socialist societies has traditionally existed under command economies emphasizing central planning, and the provision of basic social needs, but with limited democratic space and little experimentation with representative and participatory forms of democracy. The world of less developed and underdeveloped countries has, in the case of revolutionary situations, directed the attention of the state to resolving basic human needs and implementing centralized planning, while experimenting with representative and participatory forms of democracy in the face of domination of outside capital and the pressures of the financial and corporate world.
In fact, the notion of development has been conceived in various ways by various scholars. Hence, at least six schools of thought are evident in the literature on development over the past half-century which been discussed below:
ü The first school, based on a traditional view that growth produces development, relies on liberal democracy and capitalism. It presumes that, once the foundation of capitalist growth is established, policy makers will be able to allocate resources to meet social needs and mitigate differences in income and other inequalities among individuals in society.
ü The second school, opposed to the view that capitalism promotes the welfare of society, embraces the perspectives of dependency and underdevelopment, advocating resistance to external influences and the building of autonomous societies, premised either on capitalism or socialism.
ü The third school of thought turns to the world system and to international political economy in its depiction of central, semi-peripheral and peripheral countries evolving through centuries of capitalist influence and dominance and cycles of economic prosperity and decline.
ü The fourth school emphasizes the mode of production as a means for assessing the relations people have to their work and the possibilities of transitions from pre-capitalist social formations to capitalism and socialism.
ü The fifth school identifies trends toward the internationalization of capital and labour, the rise of multinational corporations, and the impact of late capitalism in the less developed parts of the world since the Second World War.
ü The sixth school incorporates old and new understanding of imperialism in its view of the world.
Indeed, the search for an understanding of development entails a multiplicity of ideas and practices, a kind of dialectical interplay between theory and practice, and an interdisciplinary endeavor. Thus, the political dimension of development involves both representative and participatory democracy, preferably with down-up grassroots and collective actions rather than decisions based on top-down processes of indirect decision making. It is linked to economic and social consequences, largely dependent on the mode of production and associated with the provision of basic human needs. Finally, it is a consequence of capital accumulation and distribution of its rewards in egalitarian ways. It links institutions to egalitarian participation, individual and collective choice, interchange of roles, and mitigation of class divisions in society. Development involves advances in the productive forces of society and in the drive for egalitarian participation and distribution of resources to meet basic needs and collectively raise the quality of material life of all people. It affects individuals by eliminating vestiges of selfishness and egoism, fostering collaboration, promoting solidarity among people, raising political consciousness and social responsibility, and struggling against injustice and exploitation of person by person.