Jean Drèze

Differentiate between the Means and Ends of Development
Q: the general perspective is: let us spend some money for the people…excluded by the profits, let spend some money for the poor people. But, in order to spend some money for the poor people we must make money. And is the free market which makes the money. If we take too many resources out of this free market, which produce the money we will also not have the money to deal to the poor people. This are general perspective. When I found that in the Human Development Report, and that is what I’m interested also, this kind of cultural contest, which you are also in that…you explain better a part of it, things are looked differently. The social indicators, the human indicators are not seeing something as the money being giving to the poor people, but there are something like, it is seeing as social resources, human resources that feed into the growth on all the sectors. Is not money taken out from the virtual economy and given to those which are out of it. That should means money invested in human social environmental resources which (feed in) to that feed back, in to the condition that make development possible. Am I right? Now, this thing seems to me a bit clear, academically, but I found it extremely difficult to believe to the general perception of the public. How to go about it? How can I try to, not only to convey the message which it is strong, that we need to look at the poor, but the more we look at social justice, the more we look at good social environment, the more we create resources for the good economic development.

A: it is important….the ends in the means. Growth is a means, is not an end in itself or thought sometimes there is the tendency to start to treat it as an ends in itself. And people and the human development is the ends, even though there is a tendency, as you said, sometimes to treating it also as a mean, rather than as ends. Now it is true that human resources can also be a means and…we learned a lot of useful things in development economics about the importance of human resources for growth, and not just for growth for development in generally, and in particular about the role of education, whether you talk of growth, whether you talk of improvement of health or public participation in democracy, for all these things education is very important, so these human resources have an important instrumental role. But I think, what is more important than that is to think of them as ends of development and to think of them as wellbeing of people and also as rights of people. You know, in India we have very clear road map, in the form of the Constitution, which is very progressive in many aspects and clarifies, without any doubt, that every citizen has basic rights to education, to health, even to employment, to living with dignity, and we have to, I think, keeping view these are as the ends of development. That is not to deny that growth can be important, and you pointed out that growth generates (?)also can be used, in particular trough welfare functioning public services, to improve people’s health, education and nutrition and so on. So growth can be important, but it is a means and the ultimate objective is people wellbeing and people’s rights, as (spelt) out in this case, I would say, to a large extent in the Constitution. I would also say growth, as I said, it is an important means, but it can also be quite problematic, particularly in environment’s consequences, I think it has to be looked out. In India this is now a very big issue, because the past 10/20 years have been extremely destructive, in terms of environmental consequences. Very rapid growth of inequality and creation of life style (for humanity) of the population, which I think are becoming increasing difficult to replicate for everyone else, without further pressure on the environment and all the public resources. So, you know, there are a lot of questions that have to be addressed, without denying that growth can be an important instrument for transforming the life of people. So I think these priority have to be clear and there is a very serious confusion, at this time, about the growth being an important thing in itself, and you know, if you ask why is the Indian elite so obsessed with growth, why, as you said, it is becoming a kind of overriding object in itself and there is the tendency to view anything that stand in the way of growth as an irritation that has to be done away (within) something or the other, whether is the environment, whether is equity or anything. I think the obsession with growth is not so much this believe in the trickle down, what you has describe as the idea that people will follow. It is not so much the trickle down theory, part of the trickle down theory, but I think it is also a last (four) power in the world and for becoming a big power on the world stage. And I think that is where growth become very important in the mind set of the Indian…and rightly so, if you really aspire to become a so called civil power on the world stage, than obviously you will have to become a much richer Country and it will take a lot of economic growth.

Issue 6

Growth will not take Care of Social Welfare

Q: The general perception of media people about India is that India is growing and they expect this growth of the economy to gradually pull the people out of the poverty. And this is a good thing, because it is a natural growth, and if we interfere with that growth, if we take away the resources from this growing business and we give directly to the poorer, that means we involve the State. And the State is very famous for corruption, inefficiency. So, if we let the spontaneous growth where the business is driving, it will percolate down to everybody. If instead we divert the resources to assist the poor person, it will drag the growth. What do you think about it?

A: I think your …. of the mean stream …..of lead … of what is happening is quite correct. There is a doing well in growing and things will take care themselves. But I thing it is really disconnected from reality and if you look at the progress of social indicators and the space of poverty reduction in the last twenty years when India has being enjoying… growth, it is being really dismal for them, (for the nutrition) indicators and barely improved over twenty years of rapid growth. Is not that things are not improving at all, they are improving, I mean after all even in war time people’s living condition sometimes improves. So the fact that they are improving is not a vindication of the current (economic) policy. The policy is how fast are improving and what is the living condition of the people still today. And I think if you look at the experience, when you look at the (competitive) experience of (the States) in India, you look around in South Asia, you compare India with China or you look even at the historical experiences of the rich Country, of the so called capitalist Country of today, the message comes again and again, that if you want rapid improvement in people’s living condition, in education, heath, nutrition and so on, than there has to be a huge amount of State involvement and a fair politic intervention. That comes out even in the history of the rich Countries, look at the health care systems: all of the so called capitalist Countries of western Europe and North America, with the partial exception of the United States, have hugely develop health care system with virtually universal accesses and the share of public health expenditure in total is very large, usually more than fifty percent going up to eighty or ninety percent, in some Countries, where in India the share of the public sector in health expenditure is only about fifteen to twenty percent. Even in the … Socialist Countries. So whether you look at those historical principles or you compare India with China or even with the South Asian neighbours, whether you look at the comparative experiences within India, for example with the State of Kerala, which was, not so long ago, as poor as most of the States in India, but vastly better social indicators, in terms of life expectancy, of child mortality, of education, of nutrition and so on, or the States like Himachal Pradesh in the north of India which now has good indicators as Kerala, in spite of being very poor, not so long ago, you look at these comparative experiences is the same issue again, that public intervention is fundamental if you want to achieve rapid improvement in living conditions and development in the full sense of the term. And I think today there is a great danger of forgetting that historical lesson, and of having this illusion which you are describe very well, that growth has to solve all the problems. And if we count on growth alone, I think we are going to see the continuation of these really small patterns, where the minority of the population is enjoying transformation of living conditions they would not dreamed of twenty or thirty years ago, while, for the large majority of the people, things will continue much as before. We called it the welfare state and it has a kind of paternalistic (ring). Don’t call it welfare state, call it social solidarity, call it we will bring every one at least to have unconditional access to the basics, to health, to education, to social security, some form of nutrition support. These thing has to be provided through some kind of political intervention. There is no alternative to that.

Issue 8

Media Coverage, the Easy Way Out

Not Good News or Bad News, but Whos

Communicating through the Human Development Index

Issue 10

Your Story and Finding a Balance between Economic Progress and ..

Energy which Keeps You Going

Your Decision to Live and Work in India

Issue 10

What is Power for a Country?

What is wrong with the Human Development Index

Issue 5

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)

Issue 1

Impact of AID and its Future

Social Change as Banging Against the Wall but there is Hope

Issue 7