The Important Role of Values in Development Economics

The Important Role of Values in Development Economics Economics is a social science. It is concerned with human beings and the social systems by which they organize their activities to satisfy basic material needs (e.g., food, shelter, clothing) and nonmaterial wants (e.g., education, knowledge, spiritual fulfillment). It is necessary to recognize from the outset that ethical or normative value premises about what is or is not desirable are central features of the economic discipline in general and of development economics in particular. The very concepts of economic development and modernization represent implicit as well as explicit value premises about desirable goals for achieving what Mahatma Gandhi once called the “realization of the human potential.” Concepts or goals such as economic and social equality, the elimination of poverty, universal education, rising levels of living, national independence, modernization of institutions, rule of law and due process, access to opportunity, political and economic participation, grassroots democracy, self-reliance, and personal fulfillment all derive from subjective value judgments about what is good and desirable and what is not. So too, for that matter, do other values—for example, the sanctity of private property, however acquired, and the right of individuals to accumulate unlimited personal wealth; the preservation of traditional hierarchical social institutions and rigid, inegalitarian class structures; the male head of household as the final authority; and the supposed “natural right” of some to lead while others follow.