Social Development
Definition
Ian Morris:
"Social development is the bundle of technological, subsistence, organizational, and cultural accomplishments through which people feed, clothe, house, and reprod uce themselves, explain the world around them, resolve disputes within their communities, extend their power at the expense of other communities, and defend themselves against others’ attempts to extend power (Morris 2010: 144)"
(http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~lyamane/ianmorris.pdf)
Discussion
Ian Morris:
"Since the 1990s, debates wi thin the West over the causes and likelihood of continuance of its global domination have intensified, probably driven largely by the People’s Republic of China’s economic takeoff (e.g., Acemoglu and Robinson, forthcoming; Clark 2007; Diamond 1997; Frank 1 998; Goldstone 2009; Landes 1998; Maddison 2003, 2005, 2007a, 2007b; North et al. 2009; Pomeranz 2000; Turchin 2003, 2009; Turchin and Nefedov 2009; Wong 1997). In varying ways, all the theories that have been offered have been arguments about social development in more or less the sense that I define it here, but this has often been left implicit. My goal in formalizing a definition of social development is to put the debate on a more explicit footing. I want to stress that social development is not a yard stick for measuring the moral worth of different communities. For instance, twenty-first century Japan is a land of air conditioning, computerized factories, and bustling cities. It has cars and planes, libraries and museums, high=tech healthcare and a lit erate population. The contemporary Japanese have mastered their physical and intellectual environment far more thoroughly than their ancestors a thousand years ago, who had none of these things. It therefore makes sense to say that modern Japan is more dev eloped than medieval Japan. Yet this implies nothing about whether the people of modern Japan are smarter, worthier, or luckier (let alone happier) than the Japanese of the Middle Ages. Nor do social development scores imply anything about the moral, environmental, or other costs of social development. Social development is a neutral analytical category. Measuring social development is one thing; praising or blaming it is another altogether.