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Basic needs, agropolitan development, and planning from below
World Development Vol. 7, pp. 607-613 Pergamon Press Ltd. 1979. Printed in Great Britain
Basic Needs, Agropolitan Development, and Planning Corn Below JOHN FRIEDMANN*
Universityof Galifomia. Los Angeles Summary. - Current treatment of ‘basic needs’ programmes as mere adjuncts to main-s&am growth strategies leads to but another version of the well-known strategy of redist@ution with growth. The result is emphasis on short-run improvements in consumption M&s of target groups below the ‘poverty line’ while primary akcationr and effort are devoted ho growth in GNP. Distinct from this main-tine approach, a normative theory is proposed in which production and distribution would be sncompasd within thecontext of face-to-face politlial de&ionmaking in appr6priateIy sized ‘agropolitan’ districts. Decision on economic activities would thus be subordinated to a territorial will in an act of reciprocal entitlement between individual and community.
In June 1976, the first World Employment Conference convened in Geneva under the auspices of the International Labour Office (ILO).’ Participants came from the newly developing countries, from the industrialixed countries of both East and West, and from the private sector, and they included both employer and worker representatives. The object of the Conference was to create a public forum for the discu&on of new approaches to economic development policy and of practical measures of implementation. The IL0 had been in the forefront of efforts to endow the concept of development with new meaning. Traditionally, economic growth and development had been expressed almost exclusively in terms of increases in the gross national product. But beginning with Dudley Seers’ now famous speech to the International Development Association in 1969 on ‘The Meaning of Development’,z this unitary goal of growth in production was expanded to include as well objectives for employment and income distribution. This was an advance. The studies which ensued, many of them under the sponsorship of the IL0 itself, contributed much to the thinking of development specialists, expanded the vocabulary in use, and started a new discourse in which such concepts as distributional equity, the poor, rural development, appropriate technology, and the informal sector moved into the centre of deliberation.3 By 1975, two new ‘strategies’ had emerged as alternatives to urban-based industrialization and growth-maximization. They were the socalled export-promotion strategy and the strategy of redistribution with growth.4 Exam607
ined at close. range, however, neither was strictly speaking, new; it might be more accurate to call them elaborate rationalizations of the old strategy. To be sure, some redistribution of income towards greater equality had now become a legitimate concern among development economists. But the basic objective - a convergence upon a single structural model of social relations in production - was not abandoned.!j An ever ]more tightly integrated world economy had made its appearance. As a form of social organi&ion, its principal object was to satisfy markets in western industrialized countries and in Japan. Its rationale was the new international division of labour. Following textbook examples, it used to be thought that the countries i of the world periphery were efficient primarily in the production of raw materials whose transformation into final products would take effect in the metropolitan countries of the global economy. This
* This is a revised version of a per fii read at the international Symposium .on s ew Trends in Spatial planning which was held at Seoul National University, Korea, on 9 June 1978. co-s nsored by the School for Environmental Pknning of7 he University and the United Nations Centre for Regjonal Development in Nagoya, Japan. In the preparation of this paper, I benefited greatly from the support I received from both the UN Centre and its Director of Policy Research, Dr. Fu-chen Lo. However, as is usual in such circumstances, the views of ,the author are not neceuvily coincident with those of his sponsor, and 1 accept exclusive responsibility for the opinions expressed herein.
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traditional role would, of course, continue even under the new dispensation. In time, however, it had become apparent that peripheral economies had acquired a comparative advantage in the form of a relatively chaap and seemingly inexhaustible supply of labour. And so, the doctrine of the new international division of labour ‘stressed the location of manufacturing in the periphery of the global economy where fhms might t3ke advantage of labour power whose real cost was only a small fraction of what it would otherwise be in the core.’ For instance: unskilled labour in the United States costs $2SO/hr or $20 for an 8-hr day. By comparison, in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and many other countries, women and child labour can be got for as little as 40 or 50 cents 0 day. Although the daily wage may rise to $1 SO and even $2.00 in the more indust&lized countries of the world periphery, a difference in the wage rate of even 10 to 1 can scarcely be called . . . umgdcant in processes where labour costs comprise from 60 to 80% of value added. And the 40 to 1 difference in Bangladesh implies a profit rate for global enterprise that staggers the imagin3tion. Coinciding with there attempts to redefine ‘development’ were efforts to introduce mod’ em, essentially corporate methods of agricultural production into areas suitrbk for their intensive application. In parts of Asia and Latin America, the ‘green nVOlUti&, involving highyield seed varieties, intensive irripation, and the massive application of chemical fertilizers (along with such practices as mono-culture, deep plowing, mechanization, and the commercialization of farming) was introduced with self-congratulatory fanfare. Here and there, it brought spectacular results in terms of yields per hectare; the human costs, however, were greater than anyone had anticipated.* In many areas, landlessness increased; commercial production for export displaced production for local consumption; and rural social relations became increasingly monetized. As a result of these trends, among the masses of both the peasants and urban workers who earned too little to buy an adequate diet, nutrition levels declined.9 Those peasants who held on to their land, though not actively participating in the green revolution, found themselves with less and less area to cultivate, with sharply rising prices for commodities of urban origin, and with the necessity to over-exploit the land they worked in order to survive. Over large regions, basic land resources deteriorated.‘O So long as development proceeded along mainstream lines, there seemed to be little hope for the masses of people. Their living levels not
only failed to rise, but they would actually get worse in many cases. In light of these conditions, several attempts were made to redefine development along more radical lines. The Swedish D3g Hammarskjiild Foundation sponsored work on ‘alternative’ development models.ll The IL0 itself proposed a ‘basic needs’ model of development.12 Suddenly, the air became alive with controversial concepts. Quite naturally, there had been no time to agree on a common vocabulary. But the more ‘radical’ approaches, it appeared, converged on what came to be called the basic needs approach to development. Controversy continues to rage about this concept. Its intended emphasis on redistribution is obvious. But is it as radical as some believe, or merely a subtle modification of the traditional doctrine which stakes all social outcomes on the achievement of high rates of economic growth? Paul Streeten, for example, is prepared to assign only a complementary role to basic need&l3 According to his authoritative statement, the main emphasis remains on economic growth and the traditional instruments for its achievement: urban-based industrialization and Mainstream economists ‘green revolution’. echo Streeten in regarding basic needs as a complementary strategy to the traditional emphasis. Radicals, on the other hand, see basic needs, along with territorial self-sufficiency, as an ‘alternative development’. The mainstream economists defined basic needs in relation to a progr3mme whose principal aim is the reduction of absolute poverty or an improvement in social welfare among specific ‘target groups’ of the population, such as the landless poor, or the lowest 20% in the income distribution, or urban squatters. As target groups are identified by the state, their needs become an object of public policy. Specific needs are calculated in terms of consumption rather than production. It is argued that standards of consumption, reflecting basic needs, should be met now rather than later: what is involved here is an inter-temporal ordering of consumer preferences, with the state acting 3s guardian of the poor. From the viewpoint of the state, the problem is how to redistribute income (more specifically surplus or potential capital) from its more productive long-term employments to improve the consumption levels of the poor in the short-run. Because equity is seen as a trade-off to economic growth, it is widely believed that some growth will have to be sacrificed in order to achieve a minimum of social justice. Since the basic needs approach is seen as only an adjunct to
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mainstream growth strategies, however, the amount to be transferred must not be so large as to put the overall propulsive movement into jeopudy. What does not seem to be brought into relation is the fact that it is the growth strategy itself which is responsible for much of the poverty which ‘basic needs’ approaches are intended to correct. Basic needs approaches, in this mainstream view, are but another version of the well-known strategy of redistribution with growth. Because they are regarded from the standpoint of consumption, the logical procedure is first to estimate basic needs in the appropriate material terms (calories, proteins, yards of cloth, square feet of living space, etc.) and then to translate these ‘needs’ into money by some convenient method of pricing.r4 Properly adjusted, the result of this practice yields a minimum income or poverty line. The object of public policy would then be to bring as many individuals as possible above this line. This may be done through forms of direct distribution, such as rationing, through ‘investment’ in the poor, or through the expansion of job opportunities that are open to specific target groups of the population (women, adolescent school leavers, rural workers, etc.). The aItemative approach that I should like to put forward here starts from the premise that b&&c needs have absolute priority in resource a&x&ion and that (111households (not only specific target groups) are entitled to the satisfaction of their ‘needs’.r5 In contrast to economic ‘wants’, which are typically regarded as insatiable, needs are treated, in the medium term at least, as finite quantities.16 As basic needs are gradually satisfied for the entire population, new needs may be communahy identified. Where wants are unlimited and private, needs are ftite and public. It is through public discourse - a political process that basic needs can be objectively identified. Because needs must be ‘objectified* in public discourse, it is not sufficient merely to indicate ‘need desires’. Much more than final consump tion is involved. On the one hand, the needs identified have to be worked backwards through an input-output matrix to determine whether the resources available are sufficient to produce the means for their satisfaction and, further, what productive investments must be made to meet the final demand schedule of goods and services. On the other hand, suitable methods of final distribution must be worked out. Certainly it is not indifferent whether the methods of satisfying people’s basic needs is merely to increase production overall, or else to increase production in priority sectors, to
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introduce rationing, to give people earmarked money that can be used only for certain types of purchases, to raise people’s minimum income, or to provide services free of charge. A radical approach to basic needs involves a form of economic planning in whidh production and distribution are jointly considered within a context of political decision-making. Basic needs may be regarded as a social claim or entitlement, in return for which the individual household is prepared to render a service to the community, IBut at what level should these claims be pressed? The unequivocal answer is at the level of the local community. Moral claims of this sort cannot be advanced at the level of the state - a &mote and abstract entity - but only in local dommunities which may legitimately make reci#rocal demands on people’s labour for communal work. Because of this explicitly communril focus, it. follows that most basic needs must be satisfied through production at the local level. The fundamental unit for the determination of basic needs, for the reIated practice of transactive planning, and for the performance of reciprocal services is therefore a territorial unit large enough to allow for substantial aelfsufficiency in the provision of basic needs and small enough for direct face-to-face encounters in planning and decision-making. Such units, comprising an encompassing system of production, distribution and governance, I ahall call ugropolirun dfsrricts. Typically they would have from 20 to 100 thousand population, with a modal size of 40-60 thousand. For most purposes, this will be a reasonably efficient size to achieve external economies in production and an adequate local market for the output of small industries.” Largtr industries would be subordinated to regional and/or national authorities.r8 Territorial districts, however, are differentially endowed with resources and will exhibit different objective conditions in the development of their productive forces. As a result, if left to themselves, major differences in production and basic needs levels would arise, and it might be difficult to prevent the equilibrating movement of labour from poor to richer areas. This migration would tend to create a floating underclass ‘of landless workers who might be tolerated locally but who would not be fully integrated into the economy except through their exploited labour. An essential element of a basic-needs-oriented, territorial strategy is, therefore, the equilibrating role of the state, transferring resources from rich to poor regions. This redist/ributive role is a profoundly political one and may be regarded
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as the capstone of an ‘alternative’ development strategy.lg From this discussion, it might be supposed that urban-based industrialization should be avoided altogether. It is therefore necessary briefly to address this question. Historically, cities have existed as administrative centres and as centres for non-agricultural production. They have also served as cultural centres (i.e. as centres for the production and consumption of cultural artifacts and practices) and as centres for oetentatious consumption. In tallcing about cities, we usually have certain ideal images in mind that, for the most part, correspond to our prior urban experience. In this idealized form, cities are not essential to social survival. But as high-density areas in which nonagricultural activities predominate, they are a vitaI part of any social formation.1° Like their rural counterparts, agropolitan urban settlements wiIl be organized according to a principle of relative self-sufficiency in basic needs. This means that their economy will come to be characterized by a mixture of agriculture with industry, but one in which industrial production predominates. It also means that the urban settlement will be structured as an interdependent cluster of selfgoverning territorial units in which districts with street-level orga&ation would correspond to the vUge-level in the countryside. Depending on its sixe, the urban settlement as a whole may comprise a region or sub-region. From a physical standpoint, however, it would probably be de&able to include within its boundaries substantial rural districts that would serve as the city’s primary food production areas. In physical appearance or form, the agropolitan urban settlement need not be markedly different from its rural counterpart. What distinguishes it primarily as a spatial unit is its relative density and economic structure. This diacusaion of agropolitan urban settlements underscores a dimension that is usually overlooked in discumions of basic needs. Basic needs, I said, may be regarded as a reciprocal entitlement. They express a moral covenant between the individual and his or her community. To the extent that the community guarantees the satisfaction of basic needs, it can demand a reciprocal service. Moreover, basic needs represent allocative choices (community preference orderings) that lead to particular forms of final distribution. The basic needs economy is therefore based on community choice or on what I should like to call a pub& discourse about these matters. It is this discourse which lends legitimacy to the choices being made in ways that technocratic planning cannot.
This legitimacy is essential; without it, the moral weight required for the guarantee of needs satisfaction and the reciprocal labour demands would be insufficient to obtain compliance. At the heart of the agropolitan economy we encounter a political process. Intended here is something altogether different from extending the scope of ‘democratic participation’. Participation implies the existence of a decision-procees (by the state) which has its own centre of power (or autonomous choice) and in which individuals are allowed to take only a prescribed and limited part. Thus, no matter how extensive participation may be dealgned to be, it is always subordinated to an extrinsically centred process of control. Things are otherwise in agropolitan development. Here, the political process is best described as one of selfgoverncmce (its equivalent in industrial and other cooperative or communual enterprise would be selfmanagement). Self-governance differs from participation by being centred upon itself, i.e. by being an intrinsic process of choice and control. In other words, it accomplishes ‘more than merely sending messages ‘upward’ to extrinsic centres of control; it has sufficient powers of its own to accomplish tasks set by and for itself: This formulation does not mean that the agropolitan district has complete autonomy over its own affairs, something close, say, to political sovereignty. It is not, after all, a closed social formation, even though a large and perhaps a major part of its basic needs are furnished from its own production. Some degree of specialixation is inevitable and indeed essential for reasons of efficiency (though efficiency in productive relations must be balanced with self-sufficiency in basic needs and the requirements of self-governance). The idea is not to create miniaturized agropolitan states (the classical anarchist solution) but a robust, humanly adequate, interdependent, and articulate political community - a social formation that gives full scope to Individual and collective powers. In such a community, ‘organically’ structured from below, it is unnecessary to provide for the extrinsic coordination of all activities. Indeed, such coordination would scarcely work. On the other hand, the formation of a territorial will at each relevant level would require the coordination of actions in only limited areas, for limited purposes and for finite periods of time. This is as true for inter-territorial planning as it is for planning the conjunction between territorial and sectoral activities. The instrument for accomplishing this coordination
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may be called contract planning.21 Under contract planning, each entity - whether territorial or sectoral - engages in its own deliberations, with whatever exchange of information, both horizontally and vertically, may be necessary. But unless they are incorporated into a contract with either a higher territorial unit or an appropriate sectoral enterprise, the plans so formulated would enjoy only indicative status. Contracts, on the other hand, are enforceable in the law and would carry both benefits (in terms of resource contributions by the contractor) and potential sanctions (e.g. the loss of resources in future periods). These benefits and sanctions are themselves subject to negotiation between the contracting parties. In this way, autonomy of choice could be preserved even as coordination is accomplished. And what is most important, large areas of life would not be formally coordinated at all. What I have sketchily set out in the preceding comments is, indeed, ‘another’ development that puts human needs first, combines the satisfaction of material needs with provision for the unfolding of civic consciousness, is scaled to make possible free human encounters in a public forum, provides for a basic sense of material security without ensnaring the individual in l&yrinthine bureaucracies, strengthens social bonds without dim3&mg the sense of ego-identity, does not turn its back on urban civilization yet contributes and transforms this civilization as its own creative genius is discovered, strengthens a robust sense of autonomy and self-reliance without closing off contact with both neighbouring and distant communities of discourse, and carefully balances scaleefficiencies in production with the needs for political autonomy and economic security. At the same time, agropolitan development avoids major inequalities, it does not shun modem industrial production, it subordinates economic activities to a territorial will. Given the theoretical advantages of an agropolitan form of development over present-day urban industrialization (and even over more modestly scaled rural development projects), what prevents its realization in the here and now? Is it merely a utopian construct or an
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alternative development which may be chosen by a path that is not marked by revolutionary violence?” I should like to think that it is neither, but a normative theory which describes how we ought to live in common with each other and how we might proceed to realize such a vision in practice.” Attempting its realization requires inserting the theory into a concrete historical setting. The necessary concretization is missing from the present description of agropolitan development. A ‘pollyanaish’ attitude which says that everything will turn out for the best is not appropriate. Neither is the catastrophic vision of Cassandra. Practical action steers a course between the siren calls of both. But practical action departs from the familiar and accustomed of political crisis. path only under conditio Planners might have very d’ $ ferent perceptions; they might, in fact, sense a gathering crisis long before it becomes politically germane. In this’ event they are duty-bound to call the approaching storm to everyone’s attention and to prepare the people to donsider alternative courses to forestall the crisis - not for the sake of rescuing the present but for the sake of transcending the existing intolerable conditions towards a vision of the Good Society. Normative theory remains abstract; unlike a project, it is not intended to be carried out as such. It only shows certain possibilities of committed action and so ‘establishes a basis for radical practice.” The gap between theory and history remains unbridged. Translated into practice, normative theory iis not expected to lead to the precise results that it envisions. Historical practice perforce involves a learning process, and so requires time for its complete unfolding. At each point along the way, experience must be evaluated, the struggle must be renewed. It doesn’t matter dhen whether orhot a normative theory is being applied’. Its purpose is to help orient the initial action and establish the general direction of the movement.2s But the detailed path into the future must be cleared, not with a theory but a machete. xi
NOTES
1. ILO, Meeting Basic Needs. Strategies for Eradieating Mass Poverty and Unemployment (Gtnsva: ILO, 1977). 2. Dudley Seers, The meaning of development’. Development Review (December 1969),
3. Most of these themes hqd been identified as early as 1972. See Robert d?A. Shaw, Rethinking Economic Development. Deve~pntent Paper No. 8, Overseas Development Commidee (Washington, DC.: March 1972).
International
pp. 2-6.
4. For a critical review, see John Friedmann, ‘The
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crisis of trandtkm: stfategier of crisis management’. Development and Change, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1979). pp. 125-176. 5. AurelIo Peccei, The Chasm Aheud Collier-MacmiUan, 1969).
(London:
6. Immanuel WaIbrstein, “The rise and future demise of the world cap&Hat system’. Conrpomtive Stud&s in Society and &isw, Vol. 16, No.-4 (September 1974).-. DD. __ 387-415 See also Yan Tinber8en. Rahaping the InremM O&r. A Report to-the C7ubof Rome (New York: E. P. Dutton. 1976). 7. Dou&s S. Paauw and John C. H. Fel, 77te Tmnsiti in Open Dual&tic Eccuwmies: l%tory and Southeaxt Ati Experience (New Haven: Yale Uniwsity Pms, 1973).
Economy of A on the Green Rev&&on (Lo?z? 0:
8. Keith Griffin. The &&zul
Change.An E-y
Hammarskjald Foundation, 1976); and Marc Nerfin (ed.), Another Developmentr Approaches and Strategiks (Uppsaia: The Dag Hammarskjtikl Foundation, 1977).
MacmiBan, 1974). 9. On rural immigration, see the recent IL0 roport, Poverty and Lorrdkrsneu tn Rruol A& (Geneva: ILO. 1977). A detailed nutrition aurvoy in the Philippines reveabd that only about onaflfth of the school chIk&en ww (or 4.36 miUion) had over. 90% of normaI body we&ht. FuIly 25% had less than 75% of normal body weight. In one regbn (Western Vbayas) this ratio rose to 39%! Richard T. Saal. The diatributiod of the bet&Its of growth: basic needs in the Phi@-‘. WorId Empbyment Programmo Reai&~,--Work@ Papm -We 2-3217 (Gem ILO. 1978). Tab& l-l. Recant AfrIcan &tlstbs saii~flmt f&d product&n per head indIces &dined in 29 countries wn 1970 and 1975 and in 10 countries caloric supplicc were less than 90% of requirements. See ILO, A Basic-IV& Strategv for Aflca (Genes ILO, 1977). Table 7. 10. Typical of many count&s is the following description of &fore&&Ion in Java. ‘Excessive cultivation of the &land’s lImIted land area has serloualy reduced forest resorvea. Pelaer, a noted authority on Indonesian a8rkulture. notes that even before World War II, arable forest land had ceased to exist in Java. Ho further notes that forest reserves have dwindbd from a minimum of 30 to 22.7% of the island’s land area. Severe erosion and attendant flooding and silting have seriously ImpaIred the network of canals which irrigate Java’s rice fields. Tho quest for moro land to sustain food crops has also exacted a heavy toll in numbors of livestock; the cattle, horse, and buffalo population has dwindled in number on Java’. (Gary E. Hansen, Local Govemmenr and Agricuitunzl Deveiopment in Java, Indonesia. Rural Development CommItta. Centre for International Studies, Cornell University (Ithaca, Now York: 1974). p. 8) 1 I. Anorher Devefopment, Tho 1975 Dag Hammarskj&l Ropwt on Development and Intomational Cooperation, Special issue of Developmenr Dialogue. Nos. l-2 (1975). See also Wiim H. Matthews (ed.), Ouuter Lintits and Human Needs (Uppsala: The Dag
12. D. P. Ghai et al., The Basic Needs Appnmch to Development. Some Issues Regarding Concepts and Methodology (Geneva: ILO. 1977). 13. Paul Streeton.
‘The distinctive features of a basic to development’. Intemadonal Development Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1977). pp. 8-16. needs
approach
14. For an example of this methodology, see A. R. Khan, ‘Basic needs tar8ets: an illustrative exercise in identifIcatbn and quantification’, in D. P. Ghai
etaf..op.cft..Ch.4. IS. There is no s@le place where this alternative approach to basic needs has @en outlined. The following represents a personal synthesis. 16. On the wants/needs dichotomy, see, for example. Wii Lein, 77~ Limits ro Satisfaction: An Essay
on the Roblem of Needs and Commodities UorOntO: University of Toronto Press, 1976). 17. The question of territorhl size should not detain us hero. It mi&t be noted, however, that the size range mentbned in the text is Coincident with that for the Chinese comnuure, and the Indian DcvcrOp ment Block, the Pakiatm maths, and the PMuppine province. It is also the siae of many nuaI counties in tho United States and the most frequent siza of city durin8 the poat-medbval period in Europe. Rousseau’s Geneva, an ilIustrbus city-state, had less than 100,000 inhabitants durfng the 17th century. From a pragmatic point of view, therefore, a population size of several tens of thousands would seem to be mana8eablo and consistent with historical experiences In both rural development and selfgovernment. 18. The ‘agropolitan’ approach was fm discussed in John Friedmann and Mike Douglass, ‘Agropolitan development: towards a new strategy for re8ional development in Asia’, in Fu-chen Lo and Kamal Salih teds.), Growth Pole Stmrem and Regional Develop ment Policy (London: Per8amon Press. 1978). The or@Inal paper was presented at the United Nations Contre for Regional Development, Nagoya. in November 1975. 19. This formulation applies primarily to agrarian countries where urban-based industrialization forms as yet only a minor part of the economy. Tho extent to which self-sufficiency should become the organizing principle for a territorial economy. increasing progressively from vIl&e, to district, rogion, and nation is likely to change as industrialization increases. BY starting with a territorial principle of sf?lf-sUffiCienQ’ in basic needs, however, and by landing to this principle a political dimension, it may be supposed that a very different kind of industrialization would occur
BASIC NEEDS, AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT. AND PLANNING FROM BELOW than if capitalist principles of the division of labour and productive efficiency were used as the sole criterion in the allocation of resources. 20. It is important to regard cities as elements of an encompassing social formation rather than as mere sub-national economics, which is the functional view. An agropolitan development will give rise to cities that not only have a different look about them but constitute a social formation that is substantially different from the family pre-capitalist and/or capitalist forms. 21. Contract planning appears to be an idea whose time has come. See Sergio Boisier, ‘Que’ hater con la planificacidn regional antes de la medianoche?‘, (Santiago, Chile: Naciones Unidas, ILPES, CPRDC/60,1977). Boisier speaks of ‘planificaci& negoclada’ or negotiated planning. See also 0. Godard and I. Sachs. ‘A means of implementing ecodevelopment: contractual programs on a micro-regional scale’, Ecodevelopment News. No. 4 (February 1978), pp. 3-4. According to Godard and Sachs, the institutional process would involve the fotlowing stages: (1) collecthe diagnosis of problems; (2) participatory identitication of alternative solutions; (3) study of technical documents to make the designated solutions operational, and (4) negotiation organized by planning authorities between diverse sock11 agents having. power of initiative and of declslon-making and concerned on a local or global level (central government, regional authorities, community organixations, public and private enterprise, associations, etc.). This negotiation would involve a programme made up of a group of projects and action schemes. It should result in contractual agreements by concerned groups covering a given time period and the apportionment of the corresponding costs. 22. In a critical revlew of the rapidly growing altemative development literature, Marshall Wolfe writes: ‘The would-be architects of ideal societies have commonly envisaged social change processes as more manipulable and less ambiguous in their consequences than has been the case. While their influence is very great and has undergone surprising metamorphoses, they have failed to identify and “conscientiae” so&l forces willing and able to apply strategies oriented to human welfare coherently, realistically, and flexbly over the long term . . . . The ‘high-level expert” who pontificates on what must be done and evades the questions who and how is justitiibly becoming a fwure of fun’. (Preconditions and propositions for another development’, CEPAL Preliminary Version (November 1977). pp. 1-2. To be published in the CEPAL Review, No. 4 (Economic Commission for Latin America, Santiago, Chile))., 23. The requirements of good normative theory might
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be said to include: an explicit foundation in social values, a critical theory of reality in light of these values, and a consistent set of action principles which are intended to overcome the contradictions identified in critical theory. 24. For an interesting example of what Andre Gorz would call a radical reform, see William W. Goldsmith and Thomas Vietorisz, A New Development Stmtegy
for Puerto Rico; Technological Autonomy, Human Resources, a Pamllel Economy, International Studies in Planning, Cornell Univaslty (Ithaca, New York: January 1978). The ‘parallel’ economy is intended as a way-station for young people between the ages of 15 and 25 who woukl otherwise be unemployed, disoriented, and forgotten. According to the authors, The central component of the parallel economy is a network of cooperative farms, which are structured as largely self-contained communities. In each of these farms, 500 young people will closely coordinate studies and practical training with their daily production work, will share a life style based on equality among participants (including lnstructars and administrators) and will manage their own affairs as the community develops and matures. The farms and their industrial afffites will collec tively produce the great bulk of their own food, build physical facilities, and provide services and other needs without entering the normal market economy. Powerful incentives for participation wBl be provided. First of these is an opportunity for undertaking cooperative ventures in an environment whose life style and patterns of learning are attractive. Such non-monetary incentives will, however, be supplemented, at least initially, by finnncial incentives in the form of training fellowships that will provide participants, after two to four years, with substantial savings. Young persons, after a few years in the parallel economy, will thus be able to enter the mainstream economy not only with greater improved skills but also with some ftnanclal resources (pp. 34-35). To start something new is to start it. The GoldsmithVietorisz proposal may not be perfect, but it is an alternative vision that is worth a try. Perfection can come later, as a result of social learning. 25. Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovcrtion in Western Political Though (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1960). 26. For a more detailed treatment of the agropolitan concept, seejohn Friedmann, ‘The active community: towards a political-territorial framework for rural development in Asia’,’ United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan (November, 1978).
Basic Needs, Agropolitan Development, and Planning Corn Below JOHN FRIEDMANN*
Universityof Galifomia. Los Angeles Summary. - Current treatment of ‘basic needs’ programmes as mere adjuncts to main-s&am growth strategies leads to but another version of the well-known strategy of redist@ution with growth. The result is emphasis on short-run improvements in consumption M&s of target groups below the ‘poverty line’ while primary akcationr and effort are devoted ho growth in GNP. Distinct from this main-tine approach, a normative theory is proposed in which production and distribution would be sncompasd within thecontext of face-to-face politlial de&ionmaking in appr6priateIy sized ‘agropolitan’ districts. Decision on economic activities would thus be subordinated to a territorial will in an act of reciprocal entitlement between individual and community.
In June 1976, the first World Employment Conference convened in Geneva under the auspices of the International Labour Office (ILO).’ Participants came from the newly developing countries, from the industrialixed countries of both East and West, and from the private sector, and they included both employer and worker representatives. The object of the Conference was to create a public forum for the discu&on of new approaches to economic development policy and of practical measures of implementation. The IL0 had been in the forefront of efforts to endow the concept of development with new meaning. Traditionally, economic growth and development had been expressed almost exclusively in terms of increases in the gross national product. But beginning with Dudley Seers’ now famous speech to the International Development Association in 1969 on ‘The Meaning of Development’,z this unitary goal of growth in production was expanded to include as well objectives for employment and income distribution. This was an advance. The studies which ensued, many of them under the sponsorship of the IL0 itself, contributed much to the thinking of development specialists, expanded the vocabulary in use, and started a new discourse in which such concepts as distributional equity, the poor, rural development, appropriate technology, and the informal sector moved into the centre of deliberation.3 By 1975, two new ‘strategies’ had emerged as alternatives to urban-based industrialization and growth-maximization. They were the socalled export-promotion strategy and the strategy of redistribution with growth.4 Exam607
ined at close. range, however, neither was strictly speaking, new; it might be more accurate to call them elaborate rationalizations of the old strategy. To be sure, some redistribution of income towards greater equality had now become a legitimate concern among development economists. But the basic objective - a convergence upon a single structural model of social relations in production - was not abandoned.!j An ever ]more tightly integrated world economy had made its appearance. As a form of social organi&ion, its principal object was to satisfy markets in western industrialized countries and in Japan. Its rationale was the new international division of labour. Following textbook examples, it used to be thought that the countries i of the world periphery were efficient primarily in the production of raw materials whose transformation into final products would take effect in the metropolitan countries of the global economy. This
* This is a revised version of a per fii read at the international Symposium .on s ew Trends in Spatial planning which was held at Seoul National University, Korea, on 9 June 1978. co-s nsored by the School for Environmental Pknning of7 he University and the United Nations Centre for Regjonal Development in Nagoya, Japan. In the preparation of this paper, I benefited greatly from the support I received from both the UN Centre and its Director of Policy Research, Dr. Fu-chen Lo. However, as is usual in such circumstances, the views of ,the author are not neceuvily coincident with those of his sponsor, and 1 accept exclusive responsibility for the opinions expressed herein.
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traditional role would, of course, continue even under the new dispensation. In time, however, it had become apparent that peripheral economies had acquired a comparative advantage in the form of a relatively chaap and seemingly inexhaustible supply of labour. And so, the doctrine of the new international division of labour ‘stressed the location of manufacturing in the periphery of the global economy where fhms might t3ke advantage of labour power whose real cost was only a small fraction of what it would otherwise be in the core.’ For instance: unskilled labour in the United States costs $2SO/hr or $20 for an 8-hr day. By comparison, in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and many other countries, women and child labour can be got for as little as 40 or 50 cents 0 day. Although the daily wage may rise to $1 SO and even $2.00 in the more indust&lized countries of the world periphery, a difference in the wage rate of even 10 to 1 can scarcely be called . . . umgdcant in processes where labour costs comprise from 60 to 80% of value added. And the 40 to 1 difference in Bangladesh implies a profit rate for global enterprise that staggers the imagin3tion. Coinciding with there attempts to redefine ‘development’ were efforts to introduce mod’ em, essentially corporate methods of agricultural production into areas suitrbk for their intensive application. In parts of Asia and Latin America, the ‘green nVOlUti&, involving highyield seed varieties, intensive irripation, and the massive application of chemical fertilizers (along with such practices as mono-culture, deep plowing, mechanization, and the commercialization of farming) was introduced with self-congratulatory fanfare. Here and there, it brought spectacular results in terms of yields per hectare; the human costs, however, were greater than anyone had anticipated.* In many areas, landlessness increased; commercial production for export displaced production for local consumption; and rural social relations became increasingly monetized. As a result of these trends, among the masses of both the peasants and urban workers who earned too little to buy an adequate diet, nutrition levels declined.9 Those peasants who held on to their land, though not actively participating in the green revolution, found themselves with less and less area to cultivate, with sharply rising prices for commodities of urban origin, and with the necessity to over-exploit the land they worked in order to survive. Over large regions, basic land resources deteriorated.‘O So long as development proceeded along mainstream lines, there seemed to be little hope for the masses of people. Their living levels not
only failed to rise, but they would actually get worse in many cases. In light of these conditions, several attempts were made to redefine development along more radical lines. The Swedish D3g Hammarskjiild Foundation sponsored work on ‘alternative’ development models.ll The IL0 itself proposed a ‘basic needs’ model of development.12 Suddenly, the air became alive with controversial concepts. Quite naturally, there had been no time to agree on a common vocabulary. But the more ‘radical’ approaches, it appeared, converged on what came to be called the basic needs approach to development. Controversy continues to rage about this concept. Its intended emphasis on redistribution is obvious. But is it as radical as some believe, or merely a subtle modification of the traditional doctrine which stakes all social outcomes on the achievement of high rates of economic growth? Paul Streeten, for example, is prepared to assign only a complementary role to basic need&l3 According to his authoritative statement, the main emphasis remains on economic growth and the traditional instruments for its achievement: urban-based industrialization and Mainstream economists ‘green revolution’. echo Streeten in regarding basic needs as a complementary strategy to the traditional emphasis. Radicals, on the other hand, see basic needs, along with territorial self-sufficiency, as an ‘alternative development’. The mainstream economists defined basic needs in relation to a progr3mme whose principal aim is the reduction of absolute poverty or an improvement in social welfare among specific ‘target groups’ of the population, such as the landless poor, or the lowest 20% in the income distribution, or urban squatters. As target groups are identified by the state, their needs become an object of public policy. Specific needs are calculated in terms of consumption rather than production. It is argued that standards of consumption, reflecting basic needs, should be met now rather than later: what is involved here is an inter-temporal ordering of consumer preferences, with the state acting 3s guardian of the poor. From the viewpoint of the state, the problem is how to redistribute income (more specifically surplus or potential capital) from its more productive long-term employments to improve the consumption levels of the poor in the short-run. Because equity is seen as a trade-off to economic growth, it is widely believed that some growth will have to be sacrificed in order to achieve a minimum of social justice. Since the basic needs approach is seen as only an adjunct to
BASIC NEEDS, AGROPOLITAN
DEVELOPMENT,
mainstream growth strategies, however, the amount to be transferred must not be so large as to put the overall propulsive movement into jeopudy. What does not seem to be brought into relation is the fact that it is the growth strategy itself which is responsible for much of the poverty which ‘basic needs’ approaches are intended to correct. Basic needs approaches, in this mainstream view, are but another version of the well-known strategy of redistribution with growth. Because they are regarded from the standpoint of consumption, the logical procedure is first to estimate basic needs in the appropriate material terms (calories, proteins, yards of cloth, square feet of living space, etc.) and then to translate these ‘needs’ into money by some convenient method of pricing.r4 Properly adjusted, the result of this practice yields a minimum income or poverty line. The object of public policy would then be to bring as many individuals as possible above this line. This may be done through forms of direct distribution, such as rationing, through ‘investment’ in the poor, or through the expansion of job opportunities that are open to specific target groups of the population (women, adolescent school leavers, rural workers, etc.). The aItemative approach that I should like to put forward here starts from the premise that b&&c needs have absolute priority in resource a&x&ion and that (111households (not only specific target groups) are entitled to the satisfaction of their ‘needs’.r5 In contrast to economic ‘wants’, which are typically regarded as insatiable, needs are treated, in the medium term at least, as finite quantities.16 As basic needs are gradually satisfied for the entire population, new needs may be communahy identified. Where wants are unlimited and private, needs are ftite and public. It is through public discourse - a political process that basic needs can be objectively identified. Because needs must be ‘objectified* in public discourse, it is not sufficient merely to indicate ‘need desires’. Much more than final consump tion is involved. On the one hand, the needs identified have to be worked backwards through an input-output matrix to determine whether the resources available are sufficient to produce the means for their satisfaction and, further, what productive investments must be made to meet the final demand schedule of goods and services. On the other hand, suitable methods of final distribution must be worked out. Certainly it is not indifferent whether the methods of satisfying people’s basic needs is merely to increase production overall, or else to increase production in priority sectors, to
AND PLANNING FROM BELOW
609
introduce rationing, to give people earmarked money that can be used only for certain types of purchases, to raise people’s minimum income, or to provide services free of charge. A radical approach to basic needs involves a form of economic planning in whidh production and distribution are jointly considered within a context of political decision-making. Basic needs may be regarded as a social claim or entitlement, in return for which the individual household is prepared to render a service to the community, IBut at what level should these claims be pressed? The unequivocal answer is at the level of the local community. Moral claims of this sort cannot be advanced at the level of the state - a &mote and abstract entity - but only in local dommunities which may legitimately make reci#rocal demands on people’s labour for communal work. Because of this explicitly communril focus, it. follows that most basic needs must be satisfied through production at the local level. The fundamental unit for the determination of basic needs, for the reIated practice of transactive planning, and for the performance of reciprocal services is therefore a territorial unit large enough to allow for substantial aelfsufficiency in the provision of basic needs and small enough for direct face-to-face encounters in planning and decision-making. Such units, comprising an encompassing system of production, distribution and governance, I ahall call ugropolirun dfsrricts. Typically they would have from 20 to 100 thousand population, with a modal size of 40-60 thousand. For most purposes, this will be a reasonably efficient size to achieve external economies in production and an adequate local market for the output of small industries.” Largtr industries would be subordinated to regional and/or national authorities.r8 Territorial districts, however, are differentially endowed with resources and will exhibit different objective conditions in the development of their productive forces. As a result, if left to themselves, major differences in production and basic needs levels would arise, and it might be difficult to prevent the equilibrating movement of labour from poor to richer areas. This migration would tend to create a floating underclass ‘of landless workers who might be tolerated locally but who would not be fully integrated into the economy except through their exploited labour. An essential element of a basic-needs-oriented, territorial strategy is, therefore, the equilibrating role of the state, transferring resources from rich to poor regions. This redist/ributive role is a profoundly political one and may be regarded
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as the capstone of an ‘alternative’ development strategy.lg From this discussion, it might be supposed that urban-based industrialization should be avoided altogether. It is therefore necessary briefly to address this question. Historically, cities have existed as administrative centres and as centres for non-agricultural production. They have also served as cultural centres (i.e. as centres for the production and consumption of cultural artifacts and practices) and as centres for oetentatious consumption. In tallcing about cities, we usually have certain ideal images in mind that, for the most part, correspond to our prior urban experience. In this idealized form, cities are not essential to social survival. But as high-density areas in which nonagricultural activities predominate, they are a vitaI part of any social formation.1° Like their rural counterparts, agropolitan urban settlements wiIl be organized according to a principle of relative self-sufficiency in basic needs. This means that their economy will come to be characterized by a mixture of agriculture with industry, but one in which industrial production predominates. It also means that the urban settlement will be structured as an interdependent cluster of selfgoverning territorial units in which districts with street-level orga&ation would correspond to the vUge-level in the countryside. Depending on its sixe, the urban settlement as a whole may comprise a region or sub-region. From a physical standpoint, however, it would probably be de&able to include within its boundaries substantial rural districts that would serve as the city’s primary food production areas. In physical appearance or form, the agropolitan urban settlement need not be markedly different from its rural counterpart. What distinguishes it primarily as a spatial unit is its relative density and economic structure. This diacusaion of agropolitan urban settlements underscores a dimension that is usually overlooked in discumions of basic needs. Basic needs, I said, may be regarded as a reciprocal entitlement. They express a moral covenant between the individual and his or her community. To the extent that the community guarantees the satisfaction of basic needs, it can demand a reciprocal service. Moreover, basic needs represent allocative choices (community preference orderings) that lead to particular forms of final distribution. The basic needs economy is therefore based on community choice or on what I should like to call a pub& discourse about these matters. It is this discourse which lends legitimacy to the choices being made in ways that technocratic planning cannot.
This legitimacy is essential; without it, the moral weight required for the guarantee of needs satisfaction and the reciprocal labour demands would be insufficient to obtain compliance. At the heart of the agropolitan economy we encounter a political process. Intended here is something altogether different from extending the scope of ‘democratic participation’. Participation implies the existence of a decision-procees (by the state) which has its own centre of power (or autonomous choice) and in which individuals are allowed to take only a prescribed and limited part. Thus, no matter how extensive participation may be dealgned to be, it is always subordinated to an extrinsically centred process of control. Things are otherwise in agropolitan development. Here, the political process is best described as one of selfgoverncmce (its equivalent in industrial and other cooperative or communual enterprise would be selfmanagement). Self-governance differs from participation by being centred upon itself, i.e. by being an intrinsic process of choice and control. In other words, it accomplishes ‘more than merely sending messages ‘upward’ to extrinsic centres of control; it has sufficient powers of its own to accomplish tasks set by and for itself: This formulation does not mean that the agropolitan district has complete autonomy over its own affairs, something close, say, to political sovereignty. It is not, after all, a closed social formation, even though a large and perhaps a major part of its basic needs are furnished from its own production. Some degree of specialixation is inevitable and indeed essential for reasons of efficiency (though efficiency in productive relations must be balanced with self-sufficiency in basic needs and the requirements of self-governance). The idea is not to create miniaturized agropolitan states (the classical anarchist solution) but a robust, humanly adequate, interdependent, and articulate political community - a social formation that gives full scope to Individual and collective powers. In such a community, ‘organically’ structured from below, it is unnecessary to provide for the extrinsic coordination of all activities. Indeed, such coordination would scarcely work. On the other hand, the formation of a territorial will at each relevant level would require the coordination of actions in only limited areas, for limited purposes and for finite periods of time. This is as true for inter-territorial planning as it is for planning the conjunction between territorial and sectoral activities. The instrument for accomplishing this coordination
BASIC
NEEDS, AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT, AND PLANNING FROM BELOW
may be called contract planning.21 Under contract planning, each entity - whether territorial or sectoral - engages in its own deliberations, with whatever exchange of information, both horizontally and vertically, may be necessary. But unless they are incorporated into a contract with either a higher territorial unit or an appropriate sectoral enterprise, the plans so formulated would enjoy only indicative status. Contracts, on the other hand, are enforceable in the law and would carry both benefits (in terms of resource contributions by the contractor) and potential sanctions (e.g. the loss of resources in future periods). These benefits and sanctions are themselves subject to negotiation between the contracting parties. In this way, autonomy of choice could be preserved even as coordination is accomplished. And what is most important, large areas of life would not be formally coordinated at all. What I have sketchily set out in the preceding comments is, indeed, ‘another’ development that puts human needs first, combines the satisfaction of material needs with provision for the unfolding of civic consciousness, is scaled to make possible free human encounters in a public forum, provides for a basic sense of material security without ensnaring the individual in l&yrinthine bureaucracies, strengthens social bonds without dim3&mg the sense of ego-identity, does not turn its back on urban civilization yet contributes and transforms this civilization as its own creative genius is discovered, strengthens a robust sense of autonomy and self-reliance without closing off contact with both neighbouring and distant communities of discourse, and carefully balances scaleefficiencies in production with the needs for political autonomy and economic security. At the same time, agropolitan development avoids major inequalities, it does not shun modem industrial production, it subordinates economic activities to a territorial will. Given the theoretical advantages of an agropolitan form of development over present-day urban industrialization (and even over more modestly scaled rural development projects), what prevents its realization in the here and now? Is it merely a utopian construct or an
611
alternative development which may be chosen by a path that is not marked by revolutionary violence?” I should like to think that it is neither, but a normative theory which describes how we ought to live in common with each other and how we might proceed to realize such a vision in practice.” Attempting its realization requires inserting the theory into a concrete historical setting. The necessary concretization is missing from the present description of agropolitan development. A ‘pollyanaish’ attitude which says that everything will turn out for the best is not appropriate. Neither is the catastrophic vision of Cassandra. Practical action steers a course between the siren calls of both. But practical action departs from the familiar and accustomed of political crisis. path only under conditio Planners might have very d’ $ ferent perceptions; they might, in fact, sense a gathering crisis long before it becomes politically germane. In this’ event they are duty-bound to call the approaching storm to everyone’s attention and to prepare the people to donsider alternative courses to forestall the crisis - not for the sake of rescuing the present but for the sake of transcending the existing intolerable conditions towards a vision of the Good Society. Normative theory remains abstract; unlike a project, it is not intended to be carried out as such. It only shows certain possibilities of committed action and so ‘establishes a basis for radical practice.” The gap between theory and history remains unbridged. Translated into practice, normative theory iis not expected to lead to the precise results that it envisions. Historical practice perforce involves a learning process, and so requires time for its complete unfolding. At each point along the way, experience must be evaluated, the struggle must be renewed. It doesn’t matter dhen whether orhot a normative theory is being applied’. Its purpose is to help orient the initial action and establish the general direction of the movement.2s But the detailed path into the future must be cleared, not with a theory but a machete. xi
NOTES
1. ILO, Meeting Basic Needs. Strategies for Eradieating Mass Poverty and Unemployment (Gtnsva: ILO, 1977). 2. Dudley Seers, The meaning of development’. Development Review (December 1969),
3. Most of these themes hqd been identified as early as 1972. See Robert d?A. Shaw, Rethinking Economic Development. Deve~pntent Paper No. 8, Overseas Development Commidee (Washington, DC.: March 1972).
International
pp. 2-6.
4. For a critical review, see John Friedmann, ‘The
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
612
crisis of trandtkm: stfategier of crisis management’. Development and Change, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1979). pp. 125-176. 5. AurelIo Peccei, The Chasm Aheud Collier-MacmiUan, 1969).
(London:
6. Immanuel WaIbrstein, “The rise and future demise of the world cap&Hat system’. Conrpomtive Stud&s in Society and &isw, Vol. 16, No.-4 (September 1974).-. DD. __ 387-415 See also Yan Tinber8en. Rahaping the InremM O&r. A Report to-the C7ubof Rome (New York: E. P. Dutton. 1976). 7. Dou&s S. Paauw and John C. H. Fel, 77te Tmnsiti in Open Dual&tic Eccuwmies: l%tory and Southeaxt Ati Experience (New Haven: Yale Uniwsity Pms, 1973).
Economy of A on the Green Rev&&on (Lo?z? 0:
8. Keith Griffin. The &&zul
Change.An E-y
Hammarskjald Foundation, 1976); and Marc Nerfin (ed.), Another Developmentr Approaches and Strategiks (Uppsaia: The Dag Hammarskjtikl Foundation, 1977).
MacmiBan, 1974). 9. On rural immigration, see the recent IL0 roport, Poverty and Lorrdkrsneu tn Rruol A& (Geneva: ILO. 1977). A detailed nutrition aurvoy in the Philippines reveabd that only about onaflfth of the school chIk&en ww (or 4.36 miUion) had over. 90% of normaI body we&ht. FuIly 25% had less than 75% of normal body weight. In one regbn (Western Vbayas) this ratio rose to 39%! Richard T. Saal. The diatributiod of the bet&Its of growth: basic needs in the Phi@-‘. WorId Empbyment Programmo Reai&~,--Work@ Papm -We 2-3217 (Gem ILO. 1978). Tab& l-l. Recant AfrIcan &tlstbs saii~flmt f&d product&n per head indIces &dined in 29 countries wn 1970 and 1975 and in 10 countries caloric supplicc were less than 90% of requirements. See ILO, A Basic-IV& Strategv for Aflca (Genes ILO, 1977). Table 7. 10. Typical of many count&s is the following description of &fore&&Ion in Java. ‘Excessive cultivation of the &land’s lImIted land area has serloualy reduced forest resorvea. Pelaer, a noted authority on Indonesian a8rkulture. notes that even before World War II, arable forest land had ceased to exist in Java. Ho further notes that forest reserves have dwindbd from a minimum of 30 to 22.7% of the island’s land area. Severe erosion and attendant flooding and silting have seriously ImpaIred the network of canals which irrigate Java’s rice fields. Tho quest for moro land to sustain food crops has also exacted a heavy toll in numbors of livestock; the cattle, horse, and buffalo population has dwindled in number on Java’. (Gary E. Hansen, Local Govemmenr and Agricuitunzl Deveiopment in Java, Indonesia. Rural Development CommItta. Centre for International Studies, Cornell University (Ithaca, Now York: 1974). p. 8) 1 I. Anorher Devefopment, Tho 1975 Dag Hammarskj&l Ropwt on Development and Intomational Cooperation, Special issue of Developmenr Dialogue. Nos. l-2 (1975). See also Wiim H. Matthews (ed.), Ouuter Lintits and Human Needs (Uppsala: The Dag
12. D. P. Ghai et al., The Basic Needs Appnmch to Development. Some Issues Regarding Concepts and Methodology (Geneva: ILO. 1977). 13. Paul Streeton.
‘The distinctive features of a basic to development’. Intemadonal Development Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1977). pp. 8-16. needs
approach
14. For an example of this methodology, see A. R. Khan, ‘Basic needs tar8ets: an illustrative exercise in identifIcatbn and quantification’, in D. P. Ghai
etaf..op.cft..Ch.4. IS. There is no s@le place where this alternative approach to basic needs has @en outlined. The following represents a personal synthesis. 16. On the wants/needs dichotomy, see, for example. Wii Lein, 77~ Limits ro Satisfaction: An Essay
on the Roblem of Needs and Commodities UorOntO: University of Toronto Press, 1976). 17. The question of territorhl size should not detain us hero. It mi&t be noted, however, that the size range mentbned in the text is Coincident with that for the Chinese comnuure, and the Indian DcvcrOp ment Block, the Pakiatm maths, and the PMuppine province. It is also the siae of many nuaI counties in tho United States and the most frequent siza of city durin8 the poat-medbval period in Europe. Rousseau’s Geneva, an ilIustrbus city-state, had less than 100,000 inhabitants durfng the 17th century. From a pragmatic point of view, therefore, a population size of several tens of thousands would seem to be mana8eablo and consistent with historical experiences In both rural development and selfgovernment. 18. The ‘agropolitan’ approach was fm discussed in John Friedmann and Mike Douglass, ‘Agropolitan development: towards a new strategy for re8ional development in Asia’, in Fu-chen Lo and Kamal Salih teds.), Growth Pole Stmrem and Regional Develop ment Policy (London: Per8amon Press. 1978). The or@Inal paper was presented at the United Nations Contre for Regional Development, Nagoya. in November 1975. 19. This formulation applies primarily to agrarian countries where urban-based industrialization forms as yet only a minor part of the economy. Tho extent to which self-sufficiency should become the organizing principle for a territorial economy. increasing progressively from vIl&e, to district, rogion, and nation is likely to change as industrialization increases. BY starting with a territorial principle of sf?lf-sUffiCienQ’ in basic needs, however, and by landing to this principle a political dimension, it may be supposed that a very different kind of industrialization would occur
BASIC NEEDS, AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT. AND PLANNING FROM BELOW than if capitalist principles of the division of labour and productive efficiency were used as the sole criterion in the allocation of resources. 20. It is important to regard cities as elements of an encompassing social formation rather than as mere sub-national economics, which is the functional view. An agropolitan development will give rise to cities that not only have a different look about them but constitute a social formation that is substantially different from the family pre-capitalist and/or capitalist forms. 21. Contract planning appears to be an idea whose time has come. See Sergio Boisier, ‘Que’ hater con la planificacidn regional antes de la medianoche?‘, (Santiago, Chile: Naciones Unidas, ILPES, CPRDC/60,1977). Boisier speaks of ‘planificaci& negoclada’ or negotiated planning. See also 0. Godard and I. Sachs. ‘A means of implementing ecodevelopment: contractual programs on a micro-regional scale’, Ecodevelopment News. No. 4 (February 1978), pp. 3-4. According to Godard and Sachs, the institutional process would involve the fotlowing stages: (1) collecthe diagnosis of problems; (2) participatory identitication of alternative solutions; (3) study of technical documents to make the designated solutions operational, and (4) negotiation organized by planning authorities between diverse sock11 agents having. power of initiative and of declslon-making and concerned on a local or global level (central government, regional authorities, community organixations, public and private enterprise, associations, etc.). This negotiation would involve a programme made up of a group of projects and action schemes. It should result in contractual agreements by concerned groups covering a given time period and the apportionment of the corresponding costs. 22. In a critical revlew of the rapidly growing altemative development literature, Marshall Wolfe writes: ‘The would-be architects of ideal societies have commonly envisaged social change processes as more manipulable and less ambiguous in their consequences than has been the case. While their influence is very great and has undergone surprising metamorphoses, they have failed to identify and “conscientiae” so&l forces willing and able to apply strategies oriented to human welfare coherently, realistically, and flexbly over the long term . . . . The ‘high-level expert” who pontificates on what must be done and evades the questions who and how is justitiibly becoming a fwure of fun’. (Preconditions and propositions for another development’, CEPAL Preliminary Version (November 1977). pp. 1-2. To be published in the CEPAL Review, No. 4 (Economic Commission for Latin America, Santiago, Chile))., 23. The requirements of good normative theory might
613
be said to include: an explicit foundation in social values, a critical theory of reality in light of these values, and a consistent set of action principles which are intended to overcome the contradictions identified in critical theory. 24. For an interesting example of what Andre Gorz would call a radical reform, see William W. Goldsmith and Thomas Vietorisz, A New Development Stmtegy
for Puerto Rico; Technological Autonomy, Human Resources, a Pamllel Economy, International Studies in Planning, Cornell Univaslty (Ithaca, New York: January 1978). The ‘parallel’ economy is intended as a way-station for young people between the ages of 15 and 25 who woukl otherwise be unemployed, disoriented, and forgotten. According to the authors, The central component of the parallel economy is a network of cooperative farms, which are structured as largely self-contained communities. In each of these farms, 500 young people will closely coordinate studies and practical training with their daily production work, will share a life style based on equality among participants (including lnstructars and administrators) and will manage their own affairs as the community develops and matures. The farms and their industrial afffites will collec tively produce the great bulk of their own food, build physical facilities, and provide services and other needs without entering the normal market economy. Powerful incentives for participation wBl be provided. First of these is an opportunity for undertaking cooperative ventures in an environment whose life style and patterns of learning are attractive. Such non-monetary incentives will, however, be supplemented, at least initially, by finnncial incentives in the form of training fellowships that will provide participants, after two to four years, with substantial savings. Young persons, after a few years in the parallel economy, will thus be able to enter the mainstream economy not only with greater improved skills but also with some ftnanclal resources (pp. 34-35). To start something new is to start it. The GoldsmithVietorisz proposal may not be perfect, but it is an alternative vision that is worth a try. Perfection can come later, as a result of social learning. 25. Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovcrtion in Western Political Though (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1960). 26. For a more detailed treatment of the agropolitan concept, seejohn Friedmann, ‘The active community: towards a political-territorial framework for rural development in Asia’,’ United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan (November, 1978).