Wolfgang Sachs on Four Reasons for the Demise of Development

* Article: Development The Rise and Decline of an Ideal. An Article for the Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change. By Wolfgang Sachs.

URL = https://d-nb.info/1049675908/34

Summary

From the Reading notes of Michel Bauwens, 2006:

Wolfgang Sachs gives 4 reasons for the demise of development.

- 1) it 'contained' the communist threat, which has disappeared

- 2) the promise of a catch-up, but the gap has actually increased

- 3) it was seen as an unending process, but ecological limits stand in its way

- 4) the power of the nation-state as essential mechanism, has eroded

So, what can be done ?

- 1) in the South, the rights of local communities on their subsistence commons, must be increased

- 2) a move to non-carbon based energies such as solar and biomass can lead a direct transition to post-fossil development, without necessarily passing through centralized industrialization models

Sachs concludes: the current growth model is oligarchic, it can only be good for a minority.