AN ETHICAL APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT: THE ARQAM PHILOSOPHY AND ACHIEVEMENTS

It is axiomatic that, like other fields in the Social Sciences, value‐free development is non‐existent. A Growth or Redistribution‐With‐Growth Strategy, for instance, could not exist independently of the Neo‐Classical values. So are the Structuralist and Dependency Strategies: they did not emerge independently of the Marxist or Neo‐Marxist values. Irrespective of its origins, these mainstream development strategies have been associated with values of their own ideological world‐view especially when local customs and traditions involving indigenization of development are added, or independently, based on religious doctrines. All are obviously value‐loaded.