GEOG30019 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Informal Sector, Natural Capital, Green Economy
6 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
LECTURE 5: ECONOMIC FRAMINGS
Development
• SD shows two different inherent framings
o Sustainability framing - need to ensure long-term availability of a resilient biosphere or
earth system
o Development framing - first need to overcome inequalities of the present
• Development as freedom: Sen
o Expansion of human freedom should be viewed both as the primary end and the
principle means of development - freedom also a contested concept
o 5 notions of freedom: political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities,
transparency guarantees, protective security
• Jose Mujica: former president of Uruguay - link between consumption and time in a capitalist
society
o When you buy something, you're not spending money, you're spending time you spent
earning that money
History of Development
• Pre-modern: Enlightenment
o Progress central to the emergence of development
o Scientific revolution - tension between science & religion - truth as objective knowledge
• 1950s: Modernisation - development as a evolutionary process in which human capacity
increases to attain new goals
o Notion of difference between 1st and 3rd world - and aid to help 3rd world countries to
develop
• Yet imposing ways of the West - not often wanted or received properly
• 1960's: Dependency theory
o Marxist critique: economic domination of the international capitalist systems - rely on
3rd world for cheap production
• Capitalist development leads to an ever-widening gap between rich & poor
• 1970's: Political economy - regime of truth that turns market into a site of verification-
falsification for govt practice
o World recession and oil crisis
o Limits of economic growth
• 1980's: Neoliberalism
o A political economic approach that posits markets as ultimate tool for achieving optimal
use and allocation of scarce recourses
o Strategies: free markets, deregulation, reduce social benefits, privatisation - idea they
are beneficial for economic growth and development
• 1990's: Post-modernisation
o Questioning modern values, binaries, notions of truth, power of science - so how to
move forward, no solutions
• 2000's to present: Sustainable Development
o Characterised by inequality, greater awareness, alliance of science and economics
Wealth as a Proxy
• Proxy variables: used to measure unobservable or immeasurable variables
• GDP has emerged as a proxy to development
• GDP: gross domestic product
o Measures the monetary value of final goods and services produced in a country in a
given period of time
o Often considered per capita
Document Summary
Jose mujica: former president of uruguay - link between consumption and time in a capitalist society: when you buy something, you"re not spending money, you"re spending time you spent earning that money. Yet imposing ways of the west - not often wanted or received properly: 1960"s: dependency theory, marxist critique: economic domination of the international capitalist systems - rely on. Inequality leads to different approaches to sd - unequal power and influence - different social groups wanting different things. Includes ecotourism, certification schemes, biofuels etc: capitalists are still winning - green washing. Ecosystem services: conditions and processes of ecosystems that generate benefits for people, debate whether valuation of ecosystem services is correct or not. Redd: un collaborative programme on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest. Degradation: critique by local ngo: pressure from local consumption is driving deforestation in the global.
