From economism to systems theory and new indicators of development

The 1990s, designated by the United Nations as the Fourth Development Decade, are ushering in a new global debate re-defining the very concept of development beyond traditional Eurocentric models of industrialism. This article overviews these issues and their post-Cold-War context, and attempts to reframe today’s North-South and East-West debates over debt, aid, ecological destruction, changing technologies, markets and values, within alternative paradigms of ‘progress’ beyond conventional economic measurements. New indicators of wealth and sustainable human development are offered, within an interdependent world trade model.