Basic needs, agropolitan development, and planning from below

Abstract

Current treatment of 'basic needs' programmes as mere adjuncts to main-stream growth strategies leads to but another version of the well-known strategy of redistribution with growth. The result is emphasis on short-run improvements in consumption levels of target groups below the 'poverty line' while primary allocations and effort are devoted to growth in GNP. Distinct from this main-line approach, a normative theory is proposed in which production and distribution would be encompassed within the context of face-to-face political decision-making in appropriately sized 'agropolitan' districts. Decision on economic activities would thus be subordinated to a territorial will in an act of reciprocal entitlement between individual and community.