EDucate!

A Self-destructive Vision of Human Progress

Contrary to its promise, economic growth is not alleviating the conditions that define the unfolding global crisis. Indeed there is reason to believe that it is the single-minded pursuit of growth that is the cause. We face a dilemma. It has become an article of faith among much of the world's population that economic growth is the key to universal prosperity. People, the world over, expect their leaders to provide it. As the crisis places ever increasing pressures on them, these same leaders, who seldom have time for serious reflection, become increasingly obsessed with the need to take whatever action promises to add to national output statistics in the current year and to fight any action that threatens them. They fail to see that their actions only add to the crisis not to its resolution.

The favored short-run policies lead to the concentration of ever-greater economic power in the hands of the state and/or large corporate enterprise, each of which is in turn evaluated by society primarily on the basis of its contributions to economic output. In the pursuit of this mandate, these institutions seek ever greater control over economic resources, which they mine with an eye only to today's bottom line usually at the expense of those who are too weak to protect themselves. The greed of the wealthy is indulged while the poor and future generations are deprived of the means of meeting their basic needs and reduced to a struggle for economic survival and stripped of their basic sense of humanity and community. Poverty, environmental destruction, and the communal violence that results from a breakdown of the social fabric are all a direct consequence.

Contrary to prevailing belief, our world is divided not between the developed and the underdeveloped, but rather between the over and under-consumers of earth's available resources. Because these resources are finite and because total current consumption is at or beyond the ability of earth's ecosystem to sustain, we are forced to acknowledge that there is a direct link between the behavior of the over-consumers and the plight of the under-consumers. The despair of the latter cannot be overcome without curbing the greed of the former. The answer lies not in growth, but in a transformation of the values and institutions that define how we use earth's bounty and distribute its benefits.

Human society is locked into a mind-set that places it on a collision course with the limits of a finite planet and the psychological and social tolerance of its own members. The task before us is one of breaking humanity out of this pattern of collective self-destruction. This task takes us far beyond the traditional role of assisting the poor through village based development projects. It requires new ways of working and thinking, new organizational relationships, new strategies, and new skills.

Movements and Networks: How People Change Unresponsive Institutions

The small size and limited financial resources of most NGOs make them unlikely challengers of economic and political systems sustained by the prevailing interests of big government and big business. Yet the environment, peace, human rights, consumer rights and women's movements provide convincing examples of the power of voluntary action to change society. This seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that the power of voluntary action arises not from the size and resources of individual voluntary organizations, but rather from the ability of the voluntary sector to coalesce the actions of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of citizens through vast and constantly evolving networks that commonly lack identifiable structures, embrace many chaotic and conflicting tendencies, and yet act as if in concert to create new political and institutional realities. These networks are able to encircle, infiltrate, and even co-opt the resources of opposing bureaucracies. They reach across sectors to intellectuals, press, community organizations. Once organized, they can, through electronic communications, rapidly mobilize significant political forces on a global scale.

Engaging in such processes is a new experience for most development oriented NGOs. Yet in growing numbers they are joining forces with and learning from the experience of established social movements. As we learn more about the nature of true movements, we realize that they are not defined by organizational structures. They are characterized by values-driven, action oriented flows of voluntary social energy, given shape and direction by a broadly shared social vision. Participation is driven by value commitments rather than by anticipation of financial or political rewards.

As our understanding grows, we see that strategic networks are the building blocks of social movements. A strategic network is a temporary alliance of individuals and organizations through which their resources are combined in pursuit of shared, defined and consequential goals that strengthen the movement's position in relation to major opposing forces. These alliances commonly reach beyond the formal voluntary sector to engage students, media, universities, agencies of government, and responsible business organizations. In many instances they link local, national, and international groups. Many of the participants in a strategic network may be acting on the basis of an immediate agenda or interest without perceiving themselves to be part of a larger social movement. As is true for the larger movement of which strategic networks are a part, each network may itself be comprised of countless shifting tactical networks formed around narrower agendas that contribute to the larger strategic objective.

While the success of strategic networks commonly depends on their ability to energize spontaneous voluntary action on a considerable scale, they are seldom in themselves spontaneous creations. Usually one or more individuals or organizations assume critical and highly self-conscious roles as strategic network catalysts in their creation, maintenance, and direction. NGO experiences in the region provide rich insights into the nature of this role.

NGO Theory of Poverty: From Basic Needs to Development Vision

Tim Brodhead says that to be a development organization it is essential to have a theory of poverty that directs us to its underlying causes. Without such a theory the organization inevitably remains a relief and welfare agency, responding only to poverty's most evident symptoms.

Indeed many NGOs concerned with the plight of the poor did begin as relief and welfare organizations, and many remain so today. They see that people are unable to meet their basic needs and, without asking why, respond in the most direct and immediate way by providing food, clothing, health care, and shelter as required. They engage in first generation strategies.

The more thoughtful NGOs at some point find themselves asking, "Why are these people poor." They begin, at least implicitly, to formulate a theory of poverty. They attempt to "look upstream," searching for the source or cause of the problem. Many NGOs that pursue this question conclude that the problem is local inertia, a sort of self-imposed and by implication self-correctable powerlessness resulting from lack of organization, political consciousness, belief in self, credit, and basic skills. Armed with an action theory that suggests this inertia can be broken through appropriate external interventions, they set about to intervene with community development programs. They reorient themselves to second generation strategies.

When the theory of community inertia proved to be inadequate, some of us looked further upstream. This led to a realization that in large measure the evident powerlessness of the villager is not self-imposed. Rather it is externally imposed and sustained by policies and programs, often originating from the state and funded by foreign agencies, that deprive the poor of access to productive resources and maintain them in a state of dependency. Development projects, such as dams and industrial forest plantations, that displace the poor from their homes and means of livelihood are among the most obvious examples. Some NGOs have adjusted their theories accordingly and set about to advocate for changes in critical policies and to work with government through partnerships aimed at reorienting its programs in ways that strengthened local control and initiative. They moved to third generation strategies. NGOs are now taking another look still further upstream. What they see is deeply disturbing, i.e., many of the most devastating programs and policies are a direct consequence of the way human society has come to define development itself. They are imbedded in a growth-centered development vision and in the institutions that we have collectively created to pursue it. We are now looking at the most fundamental driving forces of the global system and coming to realize the extent to which the poverty, environmental destruction, and communal violence experienced in the villages of Asia are symptoms of forces that have locked human society onto a self-destructive path that ultimately threatens the very survival of human civilization.

Many NGOs have become experts in consciousness raising at the village level. They defined the problem as one of an inappropriate mind-set. Now we see that though the problem was correctly defined, its scope was seriously underestimated. Consciousness change is essential, but not only for the poor villager. It must be universal, including the power holders of global society.

To achieve changes of the scope and magnitude required, it is necessary to think of the NGO's people-centered development alternative not as a village project, but as a global people's movement for social transformation. The strategic networks are among the countless such initiatives that are giving this movement its vitality and direction. They represent, however, only a bare beginning. On a global scale thousands more are needed, each with their own catalysts. Hopefully our deliberations will lead us to insights into how they may be developed more rapidly and effectively.