{"id":1071,"date":"2017-04-11T12:43:19","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T11:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2017-04-18T09:38:15","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T08:38:15","slug":"the-importance-of-backwardness-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/the-importance-of-backwardness-12\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Backwardness \u2013 1\/2"},"content":{"rendered":"

We learn all these words in college, in high school, university, during geography class… We use those words to compare countries from the point of view of “development”. We usually draw maps with colors pointing to good and bad students: green for the developed countries, yellow-orange for moderately developed countries, red for those which are not… (See: Map 1<\/a>; Map 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But what are these countries late for?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is development?<\/h2>\n

In 1961, in his book The economy of the twentieth century<\/em>, Fran\u00e7ois Perroux, a French economist, defined development as “the combination of mental and social changes of a population that make it able to cumulatively and sustainably grow its actual and global product”. In this perspective, development is based only on the increase of wealth (the “actual and global product”).<\/p>\n

This definition of development has given birth to two theories of under-development, that of “dependency” and that of “trans-cultural diffusion”. The first is that of economists like G. Frank, S. Amin, A. Emmanuel, F. Perroux and S. George who consider the under-developed countries as the periphery of a center that would be enriched by plundering the resources of the latter, including by colonization and then by the establishment of unfair exchanges. The road to development would then be out of the dependency to those so-called developed countries. Rostow theorized development as a linear phenomenon, following several mandatory steps and leading \u201cbackward\u201d countries toward development, particularly by an endogenous or exogenous capital contribution. These two theories and the solutions they offer to achieve development have met with limits, primarily related to a very quantitative and economic vision of development.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCotonou by Night – dy\/lofi” (series), M.Y., 2016<\/h6>\n

The following theories have therefore sought to distinguish between development and growth. The latter is based on the calculation of economic indicators, such as the GNP (Gross National Product) or the GNP\/capita. Development encompasses notions such as the quality of the conditions of life. Thus, a country may know a growth without development, which is the case, for example, for oil producing countries.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
\"Capture<\/td>\n\"d\"<\/td>\n\"Capture<\/td>\n\n
Read\u00a0: A growth without development… (Sciences Humaines)<\/a><\/h5>\n
Read\u00a0: Growth without development… anomaly? (Le Monde \/ Afrique)<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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\nToday\u2019s definition of development has taken the measure of these differences. In the Dictionary of societies\u2019 space and geography (under the direction of J. L\u00e9vy and Mr. Lussault), \u201cDevelopment\u201d is given the following definition: \u201cIncreasing wealth associated with the improvement of the living conditions of a population on a territory”. In addition, the notions of freedom and choice are more and more associated with that of development. In 2001, Amartya Sen wrote that “freedom appears as the ultimate end of development, but also as its main means. Development overcomes all forms of non-freedom, which restrict the choice of people and reduce their potential to act”. Sylvie Brunel sees the idea of \u201cMen increasing their control over their own destiny and nature”.<\/p>\n

This change of paradigm passes through the development of new indicators like the Human Development Index (HDI) proposed to the United Nations in 1990 by Amartya Sen. Zoom on these indexes (see Figure 1 ):<\/p>\n