Deconstruction of the Development Ladder

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This essay will deconstruct the five stages of Rostow’s ‘development ladder’ and explain how the assumptions that support each stage are unconvincing due to some key factors that Rostow overlooks. First I will focus on the ladder as a whole and the ways in which its views on how to measure development is problematic, and then I will explore the diverse cultural values and beliefs amongst different societies that are unaccounted for in stage one. Afterwards, I will group stages two and three based on their similarities and attempt to make sense of how nation’s historical and geographical differences affect their development. Finally, this essay will show how a universal arrival at stages four and five have severe ecological consequences that make these stages impractical, if not impossible. The “Development Ladder” is a concept that was developed by American economist Walt Rostow. He uses a model to demonstrate economic growth as a series of five basic stages (traditional society, pre-conditions of take-off, take-off, drive to maturity and finally the age of high mass-consumption), that all societies must undergo in order to reach their full economic maturity (Rostow, 1960: 4) and enjoy the luxuries and freedom associated with arriving at the final stage -‘the age of high mass-consumption’. Rostow directly links development with the process of modernization and concludes that all countries want and need to transform themselves from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ societies. A modern society is characterized by its magnitude of affluence, where society has disposable income and can easily satisfy their countless desires and needs (Sahlin, 1974: 2). A major flaw with Rostow’s ladder is the idea that development is directly associated with monetary terms, arguably Rostow neglects the aspirations of particular communities whose ideas of development extend beyond the

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