Development Revisited: A Sociological and Managerial Analysis Part 4

What does true economic development mean? Well, if there’s true economic development, then there must be false economic development. We have been trying to answer that question. To enable us dissect the issue properly, one approach we have been using is to sociologically analyse economic development as advanced by the West and pursued by the rest of the world. We do so by examining the five main institutions of society (political, religious, economic, marital and educational) and their respective contributions to development.

In the first three parts, we discussed the political, religious and economic systems respectively. All have been found to be miserably wanting so far. How has economic development affected the marital institution, and by extension the family?

The Basic Unit of Society

Basic means “forming an essential foundation; fundamental.” Foundation in this context can mean “the lowest load-bearing part of a building, typically below ground level.”—Concise Oxford Dictionary

A building whose foundation is not strong is vulnerable. It can be razed down by the slightest force, such as running rain water. For this reason, building designers would always want to make sure that the foundation of the building is strong enough to keep it sturdy.

Society is like such a building; the foundation being the family; for without the family, there can be no society. And a strong family in turn requires a very strong marriage.

Granted, some families have succeeded without marriage. But here again, apart from exceptions in which a parent or both died or there is a divorce, generally, going by societal norms, a family would usually not come about without marriage. Besides families with a strong marriage, invariably produce strong and balanced children.

Marriage and the family are thus very essential for the development of any society. But how has the family fared in modern ‘development?’

Materialism

Once again, the wisdom that set the tone for this series will guide this discussion: “This is all that I have learned: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.”—Ecclesiastes 7:29 (Good News Bible)

When God created the woman and brought her to the man in the first wedding and afterward, man and his wife lived simply and happily, unaware that they were naked. But because they sought their own plans and decided to become complex by leaving the way of their Creator, they realized that they were naked! Yet in their ‘wisdom’, the best they could make to cover themselves was to sew fig leaves together. It took the one they sought to be equal to in wisdom to make them more suitable and durable clothing, from animal skin! No wonder leather clothes are still treasured today.

Unfortunately, things haven’t changed much since. Up to date, families have sought to ‘sew fig leaves’ for themselves as proper ‘clothing’. The result is that, they have pursued materialism for their own pride and ‘well-being’.  How did that come to be?

The Bane of False Development

There’s no denying the fact that the family requires the basic physical necessities of life to survive: food, clothes and shelter. However, as we discussed in the previous article, the main and actual problem of economics, greed, has led to unbridled competition; struggling and shoving of one another to gain the most of this world to oneself and their families. What has been the result?

Since families view their material prosperity as a sign of ‘development’, they have unwittingly fallen prey to the false notion of development, especially as promoted by Western hegemony.

The family is now under great stress. Both parents are working harder than before to their own peril. And both of them strive vigorously to get to the ‘top’. But as Peter Tosh would have it in his track Equal Rights and Justice: “Everyone heading for the top. But tell me how far is it from the bottom? Nobody knows. But everybody fighting to reach the top. How far is it from the bottom?!” Do you know?

To the sacrifice of their marriage and family, most people seek the very things that eventually kill or destroy them and their family. This is as the Dalai Lama reportedly put it when he was asked what surprised him the most about humanity: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never lived.”

This is exactly what is happening to the family in the name of economic development. Parents sacrifice their own health, the health of their families and of their children in order to make money. Then they sacrifice the money to recuperate health and also rehabilitate delinquent children who never experienced love and care. And then they are so anxious about the future that they don’t enjoy the present. Then they die having never really lived! And their children become a burden on society.

With society in this state of stupor, can we expect any positive development? The youth hardly get enough socializing at home these days to equip them with life-skills necessary for employment and for survival. Hence, if ever they come out as responsible adults at all, many can’t seem to find their bearing through life; with some not even finding jobs to do in the ‘developed’ economy.

Out of frustration, and sometimes due to many other factors arising out of dysfunctional familial and societal up-bringing, they take to vices. Then ‘developed’ society knows that that is wrong! They arrest and put them away in prison for ‘reformation’. But is society ever successful? The more they are arrested, the more they multiply and become more sophisticated and vicious! Is this true development? Why is that the case?

Society is dealing with the symptoms, not the real causes. We have become hypocritical in finding solutions to problems we ourselves created. We blame it all on God, on Satan, on the government but never us! We all pretend to be innocent of all the crime when indeed we create the fertile ground for them. Yet we’re not bold enough to change things because we want to follow some ‘theory’ of economic ‘development’ championed by some 17^th Century scholar.

The youth have become increasingly restless and daring. True. But parents and leaders in society who sought development to the detriment of proper family values and guidance for the youth are to blame; those that decided to make lives complex. Aren’t ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ societies reaping what they sowed?

True Development

No doubt, no society is perfect. But is it not true that as society ‘develops’, social vices also escalate? So what would make for true development?

We will discuss that issue further later in the concluding part of this series. But certainly, a ‘developed’ economy whose crime wave soars through the sky with families breaking up among other things cannot be said to be truly developed. It is living in self-deception. Is this the kind of development that the ‘developing’ world seeks? I shudder to imagine the outcome!

The author Jules Nartey-Tokoli is Founder and Group CEO at Groupe Soleil Vision, comprising Soleil Consults, LLC, NubianBiz dot Com and Soleil Publications. He has lived and worked in both Ghana and the United States, having extensive experience in Strategy, Management, Entrepreneurship, Premium Audit Advisory and Web consulting. He has also published several articles on Strategy and Management among others.

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