Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970125093931.29376E-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 10:10:51 -0600 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Entropy and Economics? -Reply To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Jay, > What development actually does, is exchange problems that
> communities can solve (e.g., insufficient infrastructure) for
> problems that communities can not solve (e.g., crime).
>
This is hardly unique to 'development,' - or rather it is a reminder that development goes on across the board, not just in terms of international aid.The larger issue is that 'the problem' is *that we think in terms of problems*, with boundaries and therefore solutions. (The recent argument -may it rest in peace - about what is or is not economics was circular for the same reason.) Until we start to deal with the human elements such as hope, expectation, ambition (I hope, she expects, you are ambitious...) - actually integrate them into the process, rather than taking them as innate givens, or as automatic side-effects of civilization - then _of course_ the successful effort to overcome what we can ultimately leads to the futile effort to overcome what we cannot. Dealing with material needs is _simple_; and the result of not asking - at the small scale - why it should have been so simple is that we have an immense and quite possibly insurmountable problem (of addressing very strong expectations with only very simplistic thinking) on a global scale.
kerry