On undevelopment and de-development: A geographical critique on perpetual growth and resource-based accumulation

Abstract

Economic development is often defined as a cycle of sustained growth adding to ever-increasing living standards of the general population. However, in human and economic geography such an orthodox definition of development is increasingly considered problematic. Not only have cycles of lower growth, rising debt, inequality and environmental degradation challenged the foundations of post-war prosperity. Economic development in advanced nations must also be associated with the development of underdevelopment in peripheral countries. In this essay, I therefore contend that what is otherwise defined as ‘development’ has increasingly taken the form of ‘undevelopment’, i.e., a regressive cycle of falling productivity, financialisation, rising inequality, global imbalance and irreversible climate change. Although it is difficult to change the global course of undevelopment, I argue that de-development can develop into its logical successor. Indeed, by progressively transcending the capitalist world-system, I conclude that a more durable global economic system can emerge where global wealth redistribution and economic activity within the planet's finite boundaries are central.