While the dominant narrative of development as what we perceive today is mostly related to

economic growth per se, there have been alternative narrations of development as well. Some
of them are:

The idea of development as presented by Amartya Sen:

According to him, social justice was the highest form of development. Capitalism/
consumerism even if practiced should be practiced with a conscience. Capitalism cannot lead
to social injustice. His idea of development was not completely dependent on utilitarianism:
he wanted freedom from hunger, disease, indignity and discrimination.

The idea of colonising anti-colonised by Gustavo Estava:

An advocate of Post-Development, Estava initially focuses on the changing meanings of the

term “development”, he claims that development in 1700s meant the biological evolution of
an organism. However today in the world of neo-colonialism, it is mostly associated with
economic progress. In the world we occupy today in order to be developed, you need to be
under developed. He claims alternative versions of development can be brought out through
the voices of the marginalised. Estava has also founded an educational institution called
University of the Earth, that is deeply associated and currently helps the indigenous
endangered communities of Mexico.

A critique of Sustainable Development

Many environmentalists and scholars who are associated with ecocriticism claim that the idea
of Sustainable Development itself is a farce; this is because they see sustainable development
as the resignification of nature as the environment. They claim it is far from actually caring
about social justice and environmental concerns but is actually a process of the Western
capitalist countries to dominate and control the Third World Countries. Sustainable
Development focuses on the need to curb use of natural resources in order to ensure
economic growth in the future, and there is no actual concern for the society.

J.S Mill’ s idea of development

According to his essay “Nature”, human actions are irrational because they try to control
nature. He was also against the idea that development necessarily meant that the economy
had to continue to “grow”. Apart from economic development which can be stagnant for a
while, he focussed on development of the mind.

Development in the Third World Countries

Debates around development are complex in these countries are complex, since they involve
issues of social inequality, world funds, and subsistence agriculture. Scholars like
Ramachandra Guha suggest that there is a connection between poverty and ecological
degradation. Deep Ecology might not work out in these countries due to the need of land by
the poor and homeless.