Asian development styles c.1

THIS MONOGRAPH is a completely revised version of a mimeo graphed report on Social Development in Asia, completed early in 1974. It was an input for the United Nations Report on the World Social Situation, and material from it was used in the chapter on Eastern Asia and the Pacific (E/CN.5/512/add. 3, 2 January 1975). The present version is updated to about mid-1976. The original report was prepared as Consultant to the U.N. Asian Development Institute (UNADI) for eleven months in 1973-4 and most of the present book as Social Development Planner at UNADI for 18 months in 1974-6.

In a study such as this the main problem is to reconcile macro-level data with micro-level information which throws real light on the quality of life. I have been guided by A.N. Whitehead's injunction: "Too large a generalization leads to mere barenness. It is the large generalization limited by a happy particularity, which is the fruitful conception". This is clearly indicated in statistics of inequality and poverty. That the bottom x per cent get y per cent of the Gross National Product gives us no indication of income differentiation with this group, still less the quality of their life in terms of human in relationships, and the nature of their illth (as distinguished from wealth). The "happy particularity" has to be gleaned from illustrative material ranging from anthropological-type micro-studies, to the day-to-day reportage of the mass media, and such micro-data is essential for a humane understanding of the human condition. It is from these fugitive records that "insiders" frequently derive "the living aspect, the fleeting instant" in which they become "sentimentally conscious of themselves and of their situation vis-a-vis others".