Development as creating a social welfare state...

Development is giving people the social, political, and cultural tools/ability to advance economically. I very much agree with Sen’s approach to development in that one cannot solely focus on the business and economic side of international development. To a large extent, I feel that has been the trend well through the 80s, and recently we have a focus on governance and institutions. But the idea that social rights and a strong welfare state contribute to the development of a country is often neglected and therefore needs more attention in the development literature. Development largely depends on one’s social and political ability to improve one’s economic situation, though admittedly this is a more complicated cycle. But one thing that makes me wonder is the role a strong social welfare state is to play in development, and I often feel that’s what development is largely about: getting a society to the point where people’s basic social and cultural rights are provided for, sustainably through a strong tax base. How you get to this point I am not entirely sure, but I do think the ‘development world’ needs to start thinking more seriously about Sen’s argument and, consequently, investing in and creating programs that empower people socially and politically. I want to say that the rest will follow.

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[asher.p]

I appreciate the highlighting of this idea, and would like to explore the idea of global institutions to promote welfare, for two ideas/opportunities it raises:
1) Global Public Commons (as mentioned above and in class)
2) Global Equality and Equilibrium

A global state can sound ominous, but it functions well as a mindset to guide development thinking. As we discussed in class, the idea of Global Public Commons could be a key to preserving pieces of the invaluable natural inheritance on the planet. The UN has a designation for World Heritage Sites, and could possibly expand that honoring of history to an active preservation of sites whose astronomical mysteries hold unknowable potential for the future.

The global state also allows us to imagine a world welfare state, which could address the global inequalities in income and quality of life. The institutions could realign commercial and political pressures which unfairly tilt the terms of trade away from developing populations. Equality brings equilibrium: conflict is correlated more closely with societal inequality than it is with poverty. If global welfare institutions could affect global inequalities in this way, the avoided conflicts would mean better economic and social prosperity in developing nations.

Global society can benefit from many of the same ideas that could help to balance life in developing countries.