By Anil Netto
One of the great beliefs in our age is that development will bring about prosperity.

The belief is that the higher our GDP growth rate, the sooner we will reach the utopia of a “developed nation”.

Little attention is paid to how the wealth created is being distributed. We hardly look at the environmental cost — the forests lost, the rivers and seas polluted, the hills cut and sliced, and the smog. Nor are we concerned whether such income disparities are destroying our social and psychological fabric — the higher crime rates, drug addiction, breakup of families, the alienation of the workers.

We also don’t appear to be too concerned about the injustice that sometimes emerges from thoughtless and unbridled “development”: think of the natives in Sarawak and Sabah and the Orang Asli who are rapidly losing their forests to plantations and other projects and the urban settlers who are evicted from their homes.

All in the name of development. Often a soulless development, devoid of much justice and compassion for the human being and with barely any concern for the environment.

Often, development is driven by the desires of big corporations, whose sole motivation is revenue and profit maximisation, which will lead to maximisation of wealth for shareholders.

Thus, the bigger the projects, the greater the returns for shareholders.

If the emphasis is on large projects, it is little wonder then that the gap between the those with capital and those without it has increased.

Then, there are neo-liberal economic policies — which include privatisation and lower taxes for corporations and the rich — that benefit large firms.

Development should be aimed at enhancing human dignity. This would be real human development and based on democratic principles: “Development of the people, by the people, for the people.”

In such a model, development cannot be left to free market forces alone. The state has to intervene. Pope Leo XIII recognised this — despite the prevailing doctrine of laissezfaire liberalism in the 19th century — when he published Revum novarum in 1891 in which he endorsed state intervention and regulation of the market.

Active state intervention is needed for essential services such as health care, education, water and electricity supply. These cannot be left to market forces to determine supply, demand and pricing — for that could put high quality services beyond the reach of the poor and only accessible by the rich.

Additional public funds must be made available for these essential services so that no one in need is left behind or has to suffer unnecessarily.

And where would these additional funds come from? Through a progressive tax system in which the rich would cross subsidise the poor and those in need.

This is the sort of solidarity that Jesus exhorted the crowds to display when he asked the little boy to share his loaves and fish with the multitude. This was the sort of solidarity shown by the early Christian community who shared what they had in the interests of the community. This was the kind of solidarity that was evident in the earliest sharing of common meals and the breaking of bread among early Christian communities.

It was all part of Jesus’ vision of the banquet of life where the poor and the outcast on the streets would be invited to the banquet where their hunger and thirst would be satisfied.

It’s a different sort of development for the common good.

Fundamental to the kind of development that enhances the quality of life is justice, wrote Aung San Suu Kyi for the 11th Pope Paul VI Memorial Lecture, delivered by her husband Michael Aris on her behalf in 1997: If there is true loving kindness that regards all beings with equal benevolence, and there is compassion balanced by wisdom, justice will surely not be lacking. And it will be the best kind of justice, that which is tempered by gentle mercy.

There are peoples in the East as in the West who think the worth of a society is measured by its material wealth and by impressive figures of growth, ignoring the injustices and the pain that might lie behind them, she observed. “Then there are those who believe that development must be measured in terms of human happiness, of peace within the community and of harmony with the environment. And so we come back to loving kindness and Compassion.”

Wisdom, justice, compassion, love and solidarity with our fellow human beings and concern for creation including the environment — these are the building blocks towards genuine development — human development based on democratic principles.

Without them, development would only be aimed at enriching the coffers of private corporations and other vested interests. Without these building blocks, instead of real human development, development could be detrimental not only for the people but the environment as well.

Let us work towards a more authentic model of development — human development — based on justice for all and the common good.